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Pandora vs. Slacker vs. Last.fm...

If you want songs chosen by computer algorithms, get Pandora. It sucks. You put in a shoegazer band from the '90s and then it starts playing elevator music because those songs are similar in timbre, pitch and so on. Last.fm uses its database of what other people actually listen to, so I find its recommendations and neighborhood radio spot on.

However, Slacker seems to have the best audio quality, cache or no cache. I'm kinda thinking of getting a Slacker subscription for this, and its picks won't give me the really obscure stuff Last.fm gets, but the sound quality seems to be a lot better than last.fm.
 
Haven't tried Slacker, use both the free Pandora and the free Last.fm. I find, as someone else pointed out, the variety of music picked seems to be more with LAST.FM, but, you may never hear the artist who's "radio" it is again after the first song. Pandora does seem to have a more limited selection, but, despite being computer generated, I find I get playlists that I like, have artists similar to my featured one (I have discovered some, like Jonathan Coulton, who came up on the station of one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants. You also get to hear the artist you started with more often, rotated through the playlists (I also do "train" Pandora, with the thumbs up/down icons)
 
I use it all the time at work and home. Good connections with 3G and works excellent with wifi. There are literally thousands of worldwide stations you can tune into, using Shoutcast to search for any number of genres, music or talk. It supports mp3, m3u and pls streams, but not aac. Free version works fine. Also a paid version available which adds support for aac, podcasts, and custom urls.
 
I tried slacker today and have it set to allow explicit lyrics but when one started playing it was censored. What's up with that?
 
Just use whatever works best for you. Everyone has their own preference when it comes to streaming radio services. I have both Last.fm and Pandora installed on my phone and I prefer Pandora.

I agree with the poor quality comment about Grooveshark. It's a shame otherwise I would pay the $3. I love using their website when I'm on my computer. The quality of the MOG and Rdio apps blow away the quality of Grooveshark.
 
I like Slacker so much I just might pay for it. Which is not like me at all. I like it because I can hear music I've not heard before. Expanding my horizons and all that. If I pick an artist Pandora tends to play stuff I've already heard. I might like it, but I want new stuff. So I pick a genre with Slacker and hear some stuff I've heard and like and other stuff that I haven't heard.

Edit: I might try last.fm now that I've read good things about it here. If it's available in the US that is.
 
Last.FM has a rather limited music selection. it's the only one in the UK but it couldn't find The Streets. That makes it Last(place)FM IMO. i switch off between Panda and Slacker.
 
tinynipples said:
Last.FM has a rather limited music selection. it's the only one in the UK but it couldn't find The Streets. That makes it Last(place)FM IMO. i switch off between Panda and Slacker.
Click to expand...

Maybe you should give last.fm another shot...I too being a fan of the streets was able to find them on last.fm right away...maybe they are a new addition?
 
Interesting, I find that last.fm's music catalog to be way too big/obscure for my tastes. Pandora gives me a lot more mainstream stuff. That could be a good thing or a bad thing for others though.

skipdividedmalfunction said:
Slacker provides no skip limits.
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I think you gave people the wrong impression by not noting that this is only in the pay version.

In the free version, it appears to be the same 6 skips as Pandora. Does Pandora pay version eliminate the skipping limit?
 
Someone correct me if I am wrong but I believe that Pandora paid still has a limit of 6 skips an hour but gives you "unlimited" skips for the day rather than let say 6 an hour and 12 a day (not sure what the real numbers are for free). Kinda dumb that they say unlimited skips per day because obviously if you can only have 6 skips an hour you are limited to how many you can have in 24 hours.
 
how many songs does slacker save when it does the mobile caching on a 2gb sd card?
I'm considering switching over from pandora just for this feature so i can turn on 2g only on my phone to conserve battery life while playing music from slacker.
 
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