NA - Pandora vs. Spotify

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JGoodish

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JGoodish
These seem like two of the biggest streaming services. I was a Pandora [free] listener until Apple introduced iTunes Radio, which offered greater customization, fewer skips, and noticeably better quality.

Now that Apple has screwed up iTunes Radio and finally decided to discontinue the ad-supported (free) service, I'm looking for a good alternative for "radio" streaming without DJ interruptions, and with fewer repeats and better quality than the Pandora free tier.

I tried Spotify, and although it has "radio" stations, there appears to be no way to customize them. I like the ability to pull up any song or artist and create my own playlists, but that's not my primary use case for the service. With Spotify, it appears that I can choose the genre for radio and could get anything in that genre, versus Pandora which will let me select an artist or song and have a "station" created around that selection. However, the audio quality from Spotify seems to be significantly better than ad-supported Pandora.

Since I have only limited experience with Spotify, I'd be interested in hearing from experienced Spotify users on pros/cons versus other services, especially Pandora. I'm not planning to subscribe at this time, so only looking at free tier comparisons.


Thanks,
JKG
 
I am listening to Pandora right now as I type.. Didn't even know about it till a couple of years ago.... I picked the Chris Daughtry channel and the genre of music is perfect for my style.. I get a commercial about once an hour.. Good quality sound and it's FREE...:):)
 
I have Spotify Premium... Listen to whatever I want, whenever I want.
 
I like Spotify. Does more than Pandora and let's you create and share playlists. Even the free version is decent if you can ignore the advertisements.
 
I can't even log in to Spotify on the iPad. It wants me to do some Facebook thing. F that. I thought it was cold at first but Pandora is much easier for me to deal with.

That said a lot of pro aerobics and group cycling instructors use the paid version for their class music.
 
I use Pandora because I like the concept and application of the music genome project. It makes it easier to discover new music and rarely do I hear a song I don't like, even if I never heard it before.

Spotify fills a niche I don't really need. I can create playlists on my computer for free without hearing ads, though the songs in my library may or may not be legally obtained. :eek:
 
Sac Arrow said:
I can't even log in to Spotify on the iPad. It wants me to do some Facebook thing. F that. I thought it was cold at first but Pandora is much easier for me to deal with.
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Maybe it's a more recent feature, but you can create and log in using a Spotify account. No Facebook account required.

The two biggest issues I have with Pandora are lots of repeats on some of the channels that I create, and the relatively poor quality sound. I suspect the repeats may be due to Pandora's limited catalog. I thought that Pandora's audio quality was pretty decent until I heard iTunes Radio, whose audio quality was significantly better. Free Spotify's quality also seems noticeably better than free Pandora, and it's noticeable even when played on lower-end speakers. The downside to higher-quality streaming is more mobile data use, for those of us not on T-Mobile or without an unlimited data plan.


JKG
 
Used to use pandora, gave up and started buying CDs again.
 
Free Pandora for my music. One the Jazz related channels I listen to, there's a minimum of ads, I suppose because nobody else listens to them:lol:

I Bluetooth connect to a mini speaker and the sound quality is more than adequate.

Cheers
 
I am not familiar with Spotify or any service other than Pandora. We use Pandora at home and office, and when I am operating in the OR. We actually PAY for it. . . and are very happy.

Wells
 
Fearless Tower said:
They still sell CDs?
Click to expand...

And vinyl albums too! Big comeback started a few years ago. But you know that. :D:yesnod:

Many times you can buy a CD cheaper than a DL, especially if you want the CD.
 
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mscard88 said:
And vinyl albums too! Big comeback started a few years ago. But you know that. :D:yesnod:

Many times you can buy a CD cheaper than a DL, especially if you want the CD.
Click to expand...

Plus you get liner notes.
Another pet peeve of mine: artists generally put some time and effort into liner notes and also into sequencing tracks on releases - then this new generation of DL'ing dweebs just DL a track or two with no thought whatsoever to these processes. There is some really good music out there with thought processes behind it.
 
I exclusively use Spotify. 50k miles per year in the farm truck and 100 hrs since getting my ticket on 8/22, and a majority of that was with Spotify Premium in my ear.

I like the offline playlist ability...I have a 64GB iPad that I run foreflight and Spotify on linked to my headset.

Doesn't get much better than that.

Oh, and they added the Beatles last week.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I moved to Google Play Music years ago (All Access Pass or whatever it's called) and haven't looked back. I know of several who have moved from Spotify, too, and love it.
 
I'm sitting here listening to Apple Radio mostly out of curiosity about someone saying above that they "ruined" it and the free tier wasn't available anymore.

Seems to work here. Clicked on a station and it's playing. Don't quite see what's broken about it.
 
wrbix said:
Plus you get liner notes.
Another pet peeve of mine: artists generally put some time and effort into liner notes and also into sequencing tracks on releases - then this new generation of DL'ing dweebs just DL a track or two with no thought whatsoever to these processes. There is some really good music out there with thought processes behind it.
Click to expand...

A lot of artists are fully aware of that lots of people will download single songs vs buying an entire album and won't waste time putting too much effort into the liner notes or song sequencing for that reason. Now, when those things are actually done for a purpose the end result is nearly magical, but that hardly ever affects the quality or popularity of a single, good song. I've never, ever, not even once considered buying (or not) a CD or MP3 based on those factors, I based it entirely on whether or not I liked the music.
 
Been using the Pandora pay premium service, no ads, higher quality stream, more skips. Long before that I used Sirius/XM but hate that the service is locked to one receiver. Pandora is nice in that I can access my account and stations from multiple devices.
 
Been using Pandora (paid) for about three years. Love it. Bit of a let down right now, I'm in Thailand and can't access it. ~sigh~

Can't use Amazon Prime to watch Downton Abbey either. DAMMIT!!!
 
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denverpilot said:
I'm sitting here listening to Apple Radio mostly out of curiosity about someone saying above that they "ruined" it and the free tier wasn't available anymore.

Seems to work here. Clicked on a station and it's playing. Don't quite see what's broken about it.
Click to expand...

Well, it used to work like Pandora, where you could create a station based on artist or song. Then, unlike Pandora, you could further influence the algorithm for song selection in a settings screen. Everything was fairly clean and straightforward.

Then, Apple pushed out Apple Music, and wrecked the user interface. It's an absolute abomination coming from Apple, who used to place a central focus on intuitive user interface design. The new interface is, in my opinion, geared toward pushing music sales with little regard for usability.

The custom radio station creation is basically gone. Yes, you can create a custom station, but it's not sticky and will only show up in "recently played" as a historical item.

The radio station settings parameters are gone, so there is no way to adjust song selection for a station. I suspect that this may be a result of them moving toward curation by humans rather than machines, but honestly some of the competing machine-based curation is rather good. Adding in the cost of human curation to a service seems like an unnecessary cost, and removes more control from the user. Apple seems to have an affinity for "live DJs," and it sounds like their intention is to move more in that direction for their radio service. I don't listen to Internet radio to hear DJs babbling.

And finally, their recent decision to end the "free" tier and require an Apple Music subscription is a non-starter for me. Paying $5/month or so for radio is one thing, paying $10/month for radio when I don't want the other features of Apple Music? No thanks, especially with the awful interface they've brought to the Music app. One of the advantages of the free tier radio is that it supposedly allows folks to discover new music and therefore drive music sales. Perhaps Apple's conversion rate was rather low in this regard, but as mentioned above, it sounds like they have a desire to move toward DJ-type curation, which costs money. Still, not sure that this is a good business move since it will drive away folks like me who MIGHT convert into an Apple Music subscriber one day, but now will be using another service for radio.

I've been trying Spotify and Pandora side-by-side. They both appear to do a good job. Pandora's service is more what I'm looking for, but Spotify's sound quality is much better. The paid Pandora service would help address the sound quality, if I could just convince myself that I'm hearing fewer repeats than in the past. Spotify's music catalog is apparently much larger, but as with Apple Music, I don't want or need the "music rental" aspect of the service.


JKG
 
That's an awful lot of thought to put into what is essentially worrying about how to play elevator music.
 
JGoodish said:
Well, it used to work like Pandora, where you could create a station based on artist or song. Then, unlike Pandora, you could further influence the algorithm for song selection in a settings screen. Everything was fairly clean and straightforward.

Then, Apple pushed out Apple Music, and wrecked the user interface. It's an absolute abomination coming from Apple, who used to place a central focus on intuitive user interface design. The new interface is, in my opinion, geared toward pushing music sales with little regard for usability.

The custom radio station creation is basically gone. Yes, you can create a custom station, but it's not sticky and will only show up in "recently played" as a historical item.

The radio station settings parameters are gone, so there is no way to adjust song selection for a station. I suspect that this may be a result of them moving toward curation by humans rather than machines, but honestly some of the competing machine-based curation is rather good. Adding in the cost of human curation to a service seems like an unnecessary cost, and removes more control from the user. Apple seems to have an affinity for "live DJs," and it sounds like their intention is to move more in that direction for their radio service. I don't listen to Internet radio to hear DJs babbling.

And finally, their recent decision to end the "free" tier and require an Apple Music subscription is a non-starter for me. Paying $5/month or so for radio is one thing, paying $10/month for radio when I don't want the other features of Apple Music? No thanks, especially with the awful interface they've brought to the Music app. One of the advantages of the free tier radio is that it supposedly allows folks to discover new music and therefore drive music sales. Perhaps Apple's conversion rate was rather low in this regard, but as mentioned above, it sounds like they have a desire to move toward DJ-type curation, which costs money. Still, not sure that this is a good business move since it will drive away folks like me who MIGHT convert into an Apple Music subscriber one day, but now will be using another service for radio.

I've been trying Spotify and Pandora side-by-side. They both appear to do a good job. Pandora's service is more what I'm looking for, but Spotify's sound quality is much better. The paid Pandora service would help address the sound quality, if I could just convince myself that I'm hearing fewer repeats than in the past. Spotify's music catalog is apparently much larger, but as with Apple Music, I don't want or need the "music rental" aspect of the service.


JKG
Click to expand...

Try Google play, they have a 'generate radio' from any track option as well, and is free, ads seem to be less frequent than spotify.
 
I know you said you want free but I have Pandora One, it's only $5/month which is much less obtrusive than ads on any station, so I happy fork it out each month.

I like it because I'm not a huge music fanatic. In my experience with Spotify, you have to itemize each song you want in your playlist and I am simply not cut out for that. Pandora lets me pick one song/artist and then it predicts an ongoing list of songs similar to it. It's kind of like having your own personal DJ.

If you really only want the free services, I would still go with Pandora, I really enjoy how it finds music for you.
 
They both have their positives but I prefer Spotify as I like to pick songs and listen to them on a playlist.
 
mkosmo said:
I moved to Google Play Music years ago (All Access Pass or whatever it's called) and haven't looked back. I know of several who have moved from Spotify, too, and love it.
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+1000

And, as a side benefit they are probably the best for the musicians.
 
rachelk.tailwinds said:
I know you said you want free but I have Pandora One, it's only $5/month which is much less obtrusive than ads on any station, so I happy fork it out each month.

I like it because I'm not a huge music fanatic. In my experience with Spotify, you have to itemize each song you want in your playlist and I am simply not cut out for that. Pandora lets me pick one song/artist and then it predicts an ongoing list of songs similar to it. It's kind of like having your own personal DJ.

If you really only want the free services, I would still go with Pandora, I really enjoy how it finds music for you.
Click to expand...
Agree - and by Thumbs up or down one can continuously customize each channel. Number of channels you can design is unlimited AFAIK.
 
denverpilot said:
That's an awful lot of thought to put into what is essentially worrying about how to play elevator music.
Click to expand...

It may come as a surprise to you, but some people actually listen to music for reasons other than to fill the silent void. I'm no audiophile by a long shot, but I don't play music as an alternative to silence, I play it because I want to listen to it. Therefore, things like sound quality, selection, and size of the catalog matter.


JKG
 
rachelk.tailwinds said:
I like it because I'm not a huge music fanatic. In my experience with Spotify, you have to itemize each song you want in your playlist and I am simply not cut out for that. Pandora lets me pick one song/artist and then it predicts an ongoing list of songs similar to it. It's kind of like having your own personal DJ.
Click to expand...

Spotify offers a "radio" feature too, but their focus is clearly on the music rental model, which isn't my thing either. Pandora One is probably the solution for me, because it would address the audio quality concern while keeping with the Internet radio experience that Pandora does best.


JKG
 
JGoodish said:
It may come as a surprise to you, but some people actually listen to music for reasons other than to fill the silent void. I'm no audiophile by a long shot, but I don't play music as an alternative to silence, I play it because I want to listen to it. Therefore, things like sound quality, selection, and size of the catalog matter.





JKG
Click to expand...


No surprise here. I listen to my own collection for that.

Streaming services are for background listening when you're not even paying attention. Not high fidelity.

Everything in the "real" listening collection is either high bitrate MP3 or Apple Lossless. Once upon a time it was Ogg Vorbis but when that hard drive blew without backups I decided never again would I mess with an oddball codec. Too much wasted time getting it all ripped.

I wouldn't use a streaming service for any serious listening duties though. Thus why I say it's "elevator music". :)
 
denverpilot said:
I wouldn't use a streaming service for any serious listening duties though. Thus why I say it's "elevator music". :)
Click to expand...

Our use cases are different. I don't want to just listen to my own music library over and over; I like the exposure to artists and songs NOT in my library, yet still want the experience to be good. Not to mention the fact that I don't want to suck up space on my mobile device for my full library. Most of the time, I'm not listening to my library and don't have nearly enough space on my devices to hold it all.

I don't have the high-end audio equipment nor high fidelity hearing, with my congenital hearing loss, to claim the ability to detect the differences between various high bit rate and losses encoders. However, even with my compromised hearing, there is a very noticeable difference in quality between the Pandora free stream and the Pandora One stream, and also between Pandora free and Spotify free. Spotify's free stream I believe is very close to the same bitrate as Pandora One, but Pandora appears to have a better interface and selection algorithm for radio listening, though reportedly with a much smaller library from which to select.


JKG
 
JGoodish said:
Our use cases are different. I don't want to just listen to my own music library over and over; I like the exposure to artists and songs NOT in my library, yet still want the experience to be good. Not to mention the fact that I don't want to suck up space on my mobile device for my full library. Most of the time, I'm not listening to my library and don't have nearly enough space on my devices to hold it all.



I don't have the high-end audio equipment nor high fidelity hearing, with my congenital hearing loss, to claim the ability to detect the differences between various high bit rate and losses encoders. However, even with my compromised hearing, there is a very noticeable difference in quality between the Pandora free stream and the Pandora One stream, and also between Pandora free and Spotify free. Spotify's free stream I believe is very close to the same bitrate as Pandora One, but Pandora appears to have a better interface and selection algorithm for radio listening, though reportedly with a much smaller library from which to select.





JKG
Click to expand...


Fair enough. I made assumptions based on the desire to have the higher bitrates.

Oh and my "audiophile" gear is two Yamaha 80's vintage Natural Sound component stereos, one upstairs and one down, with 70s vintage Kenwood speakers, and a good pair of Sony studio Pro headphones that ran $40 or so. Haha. You could duplicate it for well under $1000. Probably $500. And it kicks the ass of a whole lot of expensive gear out there.

The garage stereo is an old Technics with a couple of old Kenwood speakers, too. Blast you right out of the garage if you like, and about $200 on the used market. :)

I hook the iPhone to them via AirPlay off of an airport base station, or a cable, to get the stuff to them. Tape input. Have to walk over and switch it. Horrible fate. Hahaha.

If I really want to rattle windows I have to play the tunes from iTunes on the Mac since it can do multiple AirPlay streams simultaneously and iOS devices can't. Heh. I only do that when Karen isn't home. :)
 
JGoodish said:
I don't want to just listen to my own music library over and over; I like the exposure to artists and songs NOT in my library, yet still want the experience to be good.
Click to expand...
This. The music genome project is a thing of beauty - at least for me. Pandora does seem to have a smaller catalog but it does a good job of finding new and different stuff I like - a lot.

Nauga,
who is older than his music
 
I think google play music radio's bitrate is good/high-ish.

For comparison sake, I think spotify's stream sounds slightly worse and XM radio just bad.
 
nauga said:
This. The music genome project is a thing of beauty - at least for me. Pandora does seem to have a smaller catalog but it does a good job of finding new and different stuff I like - a lot.

Nauga,
who is older than his music
Click to expand...

Generally I find that it "finds" stuff that's already in my collection. I don't even consider my collection that big, really... 38GB and 5070 items... 14.7 days of music without a repeat... but once in a while it tosses a gem, and I go grab the album or a few songs, or whatever tickles the fancy... so I can have it in a better quality format than their stream.
 
Slacker is very good. And unlike Pandora, it is actually played full volume when requested.

And I think higher quality too
 
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