# Which streaming audio has best quality?



## goyop (May 4, 2010)

Up to this point in time I have not been able to listen to streaming audio. The quality has been poor at best and I just can't do it. However, my understanding is that some music streaming services have upped their data rate to levels that might be OK. And with bandwidth being cheaper they know they need to step up to keep customers happy.

It seems that several services are now streaming audio well above the MP3 rate (that rate is their target and usually they miss it). Does anyone have any positive experience with any of the higher bitrate services? I am looking at Spotify and Slacker Radio. Also Sony now has a super high bitrate service.

I need something for work because all the FM radio stations are programmed by trained chimpanzees or computers that were programmed by trained chimpanzees. It's OK if you want to hear the same "cutting edge" songs 200 times a day over and over....


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## Sevenfeet (Feb 2, 2009)

I'm curious about this too. I do think that most better streaming isn't free. What the difference will be is what your money will buy you. Between Pandora, SPotify or Slacker, I'm not sure anyone has actually reviewed them head to head for sound quality.


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## goyop (May 4, 2010)

I tried out Spotify today and it sounded pretty good. Not the two tin cans connected with string sound or the swooshing in the background. I will try to remember to run a program that measures bandwidth being used to see how much they are sending. I only used the free version. Supposedly the pay version gets a higher bit rate. I think I will compare them because they have a thirty day trial for the Premiere.

I could probably also test one or two of the other services. And then the listening is subjective of course. But I can say for sure that the sound quality I heard today was at least as good as FM radio if not better which surprised me.

G


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## jimbodude (Jul 26, 2011)

I've been using Rdio for a while, and it's ok. There is a "normal" and "high" quality - on all networks except 3G, I'm getting high quality. They don't specify the bitrates or anything, so nothing scientific, but it isn't quite CD-quality, to me. Some albums are better than others. It doesn't seem to be related to age of the album. Without the CD to compare, it's hard to blame the service.

MOG was supposed to have the highest available bitrates for streaming (their own claim, not mine), but I had technical issues with them. This was a year ago, so I'm sure the technical is fixed by now, and I'm not sure if they are still claiming highest bitrates.

I don't know about the others. Let us know what you find as you look.


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## 8086 (Aug 4, 2009)

Pandora Premium accounts (when I had one) are 192k mp3 rate. Non-premium pandora is much lower and a recent listen suggests they have pushed the non-subscriber bit rate down even lower. As for streaming formats, I prefer WMA over MP3 or WAV at the same bit rate. 

For the highest quality, I use a service called G****ESHARK (I can't mention the full name, but you can search for it ). The streams appear to be 320k MP3.


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## pharoah (Jul 21, 2012)

if you like pipe organ music.organ live streams at up to 320 kbps.im listening to it now,and it sounds decent.


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## 8086 (Aug 4, 2009)

Delete this post!


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