Pandora vs. Last.fm vs Slacker?

[dmo580]

I used all 3 before. I used to use Pandora, but I realize Pandora has a tiny library. Something like 600-700k songs only. iTunes had that kind of library size like in 2004 or so. Slacker, on the other hand seems to have a MUCH larger library. I feel like Pandora plays top songs I know whereas Slacker takes me to newer songs.

In terms of audio quality I notice Last.fm and Pandora lack bass. Slacker seems to offer more accurate sound but at the same time I believe they use like 40kbps AAC or something so you can hear the noise in the audio. Last.fm is pretty nice in terms of quality but once again its very lacking in bass. Make sure you turn on high quality audio on Last.fm. They claim its 128kbps but somehow they compressed the bass and lost it. Not sure waht kind of compression Pandora and Last.fm use but it's suspicious that the bass completely drops out. Low frequency sounds should usually be pretty well kept. Youtube had bass tests back when they used to have ugly 320x240 video and terrible audio. Yet you could still run bass tests and subwoofer tests using certain Youtube videos. Anyway, I'm no expert.

I hate how Slacker pauses a lot though. Either it has a terrible caching method or iono. The ads are a little annoying too. However the app interface is beautiful. I feel like Pandora took like 5 minutes to code. They obviously made it very bare bones compared to the web player.

What do you guys think of these 3?

Oh also, please try to keep the desktop versions out of this. I know many people used Pandora on their desktop and Slacker is less used. They're different on their desktop platforms as I know Pandora plays a lot more ads on the desktop version than on the Mobile versions. Plus, bitrates are probably different as some mobile versions like Slacker specifically use a lower quality stream for mobile networks to save bandwidth

 

[Abe21599]

I like to skip around a lot so generally the only one for me out of those 3 is Last.fm (assuming im too cheap to get the full subscriptions)

 

[JP 5.56]

I prefer last.fm to pandroa. I've not tried slacker.

Last.fm seems to have a bigger library and I like the way their software works better.

 

[LifeIsABeach]

Slacker stations are very customizable. e.g. You can set the songs you want to hear for a station to Auto (plays all types of songs, but mainly hits), Hits, Familiar, Unfamiliar, and Fringe. Each will vary what you hear on that station. There are many other ways to customize. Here is a guide on how to create your own station. I'm sure Pandora is similar, but I have not really used it.

Official Slacker Forums • Custom Station Creation Tutorial

 

[dragonfly1113]

last.fm is the most user friendly and the fact that you can make it so you listen to only the music you put in your library is what puts it above slacker and pandora just because i hate having to skip songs on slacker and pandora when a song they "think" i like is on thats just garbage in my mind, also if you havent looked at it already give grooveshark a try thats a really cool online radio/music player, you can listen to songs right away just type in the name of a song and listen to it right away no downloading needed.

 

[glamazon]

I absolutely adore Slacker. I haven't really used Last.FM on my Droid, but have used Pandora and Slacker. I use the paid version of Slacker and I will never look back. Here is what I like about Slacker and how it compares to Pandora.

Music Selection

I have three main stations that I have configured that I like to listen to in Slacker. If I try to do the same thing in Pandora I get a really crappy selection of music. I'm loving 60's Garage Rock (the Yardbirds, the Standells, the Seeds, etc.), Funky Soul (Bobby Womack, Ike and Tina Turner, Otis Redding, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, etc.) and Rock (I like a lot of rock bands from Europe who are more obsecure in the US, such as the Wildhearts from the UK and the Backyard Babies from Sweden). Slacker has a great selection of both of these bands, while Pandora does not.

Ability to Ban Artists and Songs

In the paid version of Slacker you can ban both songs and artists from your station forever. For me that is huge, huge, huge. You cannot do that in Pandora. Having that ability makes my stations much more pleasing. It is my favorite feature in Slacker.

 

[dragonfly1113]

Ability to Ban Artists and Songs

In the paid version of Slacker you can ban both songs and artists from your station forever. For me that is huge, huge, huge. You cannot do that in Pandora. Having that ability makes my stations much more pleasing. It is my favorite feature in Slacker.

On last.fm you can also ban artists however you dont really need to since you build your own library and it only plays that library, only reason i use the ban sometimes is on some songs from some bands i dont like one song but love the rest

also grooveshark is def a great program for music streaming esp when you make your own library. key part of grooveshark is that you can type in any song name at any time and it plays it right away.

 

[dpaine88]

Have been using Pandora, just downloaded the other 2. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[aminaked]

Pandora - I use it; seems fine.

Slacker - I tried it. Seems really good except that it runs on boot and runs in the background all of the time, last I checked. I don't need my music player to do this. UNINSTALLED.

last.fm - Haven't tried it because I've seen a lot of negative comments. I should try it.

 

[RoyR80]

Pandora - I use it; seems fine.

Slacker - I tried it. Seems really good except that it runs on boot and runs in the background all of the time, last I checked. I don't need my music player to do this. UNINSTALLED.

last.fm - Haven't tried it because I've seen a lot of negative comments. I should try it.

I agree with its crap that slacker starts on boot. now that i know pandora doesn't, i'm going back to Pandora. :-/

 

[sslbaron]

I like Slacker. I have tried Pandora when I had my :blackberry: Storm, and I didn't like the music selections that it picked. Slacker seems to have a better idea of what I like. Last.fm - never tried, but will give it a shot! :greendroid:

 

[dclutter1]

Slacker stations are very customizable. e.g. You can set the songs you want to hear for a station to Auto (plays all types of songs, but mainly hits), Hits, Familiar, Unfamiliar, and Fringe. Each will vary what you hear on that station. There are many other ways to customize. Here is a guide on how to create your own station. I'm sure Pandora is similar, but I have not really used it.

Official Slacker Forums • Custom Station Creation Tutorial

I didn't know Slacker was that customizable. Thanks for the link.

Sent from my droid using Tapatalk

 

[Booch_21]

I know that you didn't ask this, but as another perspective, I dropped all of those programs when the Sirius/XM app came out. For me, I get the music that I prefer on 4 channels. I have been playing it at work all day, everyday for several weeks now. I plug it into the wall and use the computer speakers for the audio. Works sweet for my tastes!

 

[07FX4Chick]

I use Last.Fm at work every day. Love it.dancedroid

 

[ChugIt]

I like Pandora most
I use Slacker too because it has stand up comedy.
I hate last.fm personally.

P.S. Get Startup Auditor and kill Slacker at startup, problem solved.