Pandora One review

[Vlad!]

So a while back I started using Pandora as a source of music while I'm at work. I don't buy a whole lot of music, and I find that Pandora is a good way to keep things fresh. It's also a decent way to find new artists, though in general I find that it draws from a pretty selective pool. I'm sure I could add more artists to my list and get a bit more variety, but I pretty much like what it give me right now.

They used to offer a desktop player in addition to their web interface. I used it. But then they discontinued it for free users. They also added audio ads, which makes sense and I don't begrudge them, but they scared the ever-lovin' crap out of me because I'd be in the zone coding up a storm and then some chick starts talking to me from what sounds like right next to me. Anyway, because of these two factors I stopped using it for a while. But recently I decided that first of all I should support Pandora because they're cool and I like them and second of all, it's 36 dollars per year, and I spend more than that on soda.

For me, the coolest feature is the desktop player. The old player was pretty lametastic: just the standard Pandora website running inside an Adobe AIR frame instead of your browser. The new one actually has its own fancy interface that looks pretty slick (I'm sure they adapted their mobile interface, because it looks like the sort of thing you would see on an iPhone or similar). They say it works on Windows and MacOS, but I have had no trouble running it on Linux. The window has a weird black border that suggests to me that Adobe didn't implement transparency properly under X-Windows, but that's not a big deal. There's also no progress bar showing where you are in the song (or if there is then it's too subtle for me to find), but that's a minor complaint.


Note the black border on the bottom and right sides. Also note the system tray icon: the window minimizes to that icon, which is a fairly spiffy feature. It also shows a notification when a new track starts playing. I'd like to be able to customize the location and duration of the notification, but again, that's a nitpick.

The other wins for subscribing are no ads (visual or audible) and higher-quality streaming (192kbps). Honestly, I use Pandora mostly for background music so though I usually gripe about 128kbps streams, I don't really care that much about the quality. It seems odd that they wouldn't use VBR, but they're weird like that apparently.

In any case, for the price of three albums you can get a year of music. I consider that to be a fair trade.

[murlough23]

Good timing, Vlad!. I was thinking of starting a more general thread about our preferred music players and portable devices.

I actually wrote up a review of my new iPod Nano the other day, so I suppose it would be appropriate to post it here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_484303933060

As noted in the review, I've been converted to iTunes for all music listening on my desktop, and while it has its glitches, I'm pretty happy with it. it's a good marriage of elegant interface design and actual intelligent functionality. Getting familiar with iTunes was actually part of the impetus for me to get an iPod. Now portable music works in a very similar way to the music on my computer. Before iTunes, I mostly used WinAmp.

I've never used Pandora. I get enough good recommendations from folks here that I don't really need an automated system to recommend stuff to me (and besides, the ads would be a deal breaker, though I suppose that sort of thing's unavoidable when you're streaming music you don't own and not paying for the privilege).

[Vlad!]

I've never used Pandora. I get enough good recommendations from folks here that I don't really need an automated system to recommend stuff to me (and besides, the ads would be a deal breaker, though I suppose that sort of thing's unavoidable when you're streaming music you don't own and not paying for the privilege).

It's not the music recommendation part that I care so much about. I've only discovered a handful of new artists through Pandora, and most of them I had heard of but hadn't bothered to check out. It's mostly just the availability of constant free music that I have a decent chance of liking and that isn't just the same old stuff I have on my playlist. The ads aren't bad--a fifteen-second ad every four or five songs--but like I said they were startling.

As noted in the review, I've been converted to iTunes for all music listening on my desktop, and while it has its glitches, I'm pretty happy with it. it's a good marriage of elegant interface design and actual intelligent functionality. Getting familiar with iTunes was actually part of the impetus for me to get an iPod. Now portable music works in a very similar way to the music on my computer. Before iTunes, I mostly used WinAmp.

I've never actually used iTunes, but I'm biased against it because it's proprietary and not extensible. Also, it doesn't run on my OS of choice, so I couldn't use it even if I wanted to. It also seems pretty bloated, and on my brother's computer at least it was pretty crashy.

On Windows, I think the media player hunt begins and ends with foobar2000. It plays everything you want, has instantaneous search even over large libraries, has seamless playlist management with desktop integration that does what you expect, uses ReplayGain to normalize your tracks, has a very robust and powerful tag system that includes freedb integration and a masstagger using macros, and has a very simple and clean interface. I used to use WinAmp as well, but after they got bought by AOL and came out with WinAmp 5 it got crashier and slower and flashier and I just got tired of it. You can skin foobar up if you want, but I like the thin layer around the list of music files that it provides by default.

On Linux I tried Songbird and liked it OK, but I generally just use my filesystem to organize my music and VLC to play it.

I don't actually have a portable media player, as I've found I don't really use one. For long car trips I have an MP3 player that sticks in my cigarette lighter (I bought it from my favorite cheap East-Asian electronics store here), and I haven't really found a need for one outside the car.

[murlough23]

I've never actually used iTunes, but I'm biased against it because it's proprietary and not extensible. Also, it doesn't run on my OS of choice, so I couldn't use it even if I wanted to. It also seems pretty bloated, and on my brother's computer at least it was pretty crashy.

It can be a bit of a memory hog. But thus far I haven't noticed anything catastrophic as a result of this. I don't really have the need to customize the appearance/configuration of a media player application; to me it's more important that I can arrange and tag and customize the actual music as I need to, which iTunes has about a bazillion options for. It also easily facilitates the syncing of songs to the iPod. With any other app I'd probably have to do that manually.

Keep in mind that I'm not a big fan of Apple, either - I'd never buy a Mac. But for the most part they got this one right.

I don't actually have a portable media player, as I've found I don't really use one. For long car trips I have an MP3 player that sticks in my cigarette lighter (I bought it from my favorite cheap East-Asian electronics store here), and I haven't really found a need for one outside the car.

I've found that having something I can easily plug into both my car stereo and a pair of headphones means much less fuss (probably true of any mp3 player). I use the iPod almost exclusively in the car (unless I've bought a brand new CD and haven't yet been to my desktop to import it to iTunes), and I've found that having it gives me more incentive to get out and take short walks and stuff (since for me that's kind of a boring and repetitive form of exercise/transportation and the music helps to pass the time). When the weather (and the wildfires!) cools down, I'll probably try taking on a few hikes and bike rides.

[bloop]

Wow - I didn't know you got an iPod, mur.

I love my Classic, but I'm at the stage that I actually have to trade some stuff out to put new stuff on.  I'm sometimes tempted to get a Touch, but . . . nah - it'd make the problem even worse.

My wife got a refurbished Nano, and she loves it to death, but I'm responsible for its iTunes upkeep.

[murlough23]

I love my Classic, but I'm at the stage that I actually have to trade some stuff out to put new stuff on.

LOL, I was at that stage on day 1. My iTunes library here at work (which is the location I sync to the iPod) is pushing 40 gigs. The iPod holds 16 gigs. (15 gigs of music plus one gig of pre-installed crap that I mostly don't use.) So I limit the iPod to a playlist of the most recent stuff in my library, plus selected favorites from previous years. Only a few artists have their entire discography on the thing. It's about 2,900 songs - I figure that's way more than I could ever get bored with in the car.

I could have bought one of the larger models that hold up to 120 GB, but I actually figured it'd be good to limit myself. Having that many albums to scroll through in cover flow could be just plain overwhelming. I've got enough to make shuffle really interesting (though I often run into volume issues with old U2 and so forth - I'm working on fixing that in the iTunes settings).

NP: "Marvelous Things", Eisley

[Vlad!]

The iPod classic comes in sizes up to 160 GB, and there have been 40g or greater models since the third generation. Maybe the problem is that you have the wrong device!

[bloop]

No, I don't think so.  The Nano, while smaller in capacity, has enough advantages over the classic that I'd think unless you're a hardcore audiophile (insisting on encoding very high or even lossless), it's the best bet for most.

[Ian]

No radio for me, just the iPod.  It's full though... I hope they come out with a bigger iPod soon.  Even though I haven't listened to half the stuff on my ipod, I like to have all my music in one place.

[murlough23]

No, I don't think so.  The Nano, while smaller in capacity, has enough advantages over the classic that I'd think unless you're a hardcore audiophile (insisting on encoding very high or even lossless), it's the best bet for most.

bloop is right. Also see the part where I wanted to limit myself.

[bloop]

No radio for me, just the iPod.  It's full though... I hope they come out with a bigger iPod soon.  Even though I haven't listened to half the stuff on my ipod, I like to have all my music in one place.

Well, I have the small Classic (80 GB), and while I may think "I can fit everything on a 1 TB player", the truth is, I'd run into the same wall eventually.  The only way I can see around it is to have your music files stored offsite and streamed to your player, but the speed of the connection would have to be suitable for at least decent quality mp3 files..

[Vlad!]

So out of curiosity, what are the advantages of the Nano over the Classic?

The only way I can see around it is to have your music files stored offsite and streamed to your player, but the speed of the connection would have to be suitable for at least decent quality mp3 files..

And hopefully an unlimited data plan.

Well, I have the small Classic (80 GB), and while I may think "I can fit everything on a 1 TB player", the truth is, I'd run into the same wall eventually.

I disagree. If you run into a situation where a 1TB (or even 160GB) player is insufficient for your needs, You're Doing It Wrong. There's no way that you could listen to (or even know!) all the music. By my rudimentary calculations, even if you compressed your music using FLAC then you could expect to store over a year's worth of music on a 160GB device (and that's one year of listening 24/7 to your iPod). Even if you're the most prolific music pirate ever (and you're not, because I went to college with the most prolific music pirate ever, and he did have over 160GB of music), you're not going to be able to listen to even half of those tracks within your lifetime.

[murlough23]

So out of curiosity, what are the advantages of the Nano over the Classic?

Besides the obvious size considerations (I can't imagine carting around the Classic in my pocket), they've added a lot of features to it that the Classic didn't have - color screen, better menu navigation, accelerometer (though that can be a hindrance if you don't know what you're doing), support for other forms of media... things that have probably been ported to the regular-size iPods by now or will be shortly, but that bloop's Classic likely doesn't have. But there's going to be a price differential for the larger amount of storage with all the handy new features. The Nano did more than I needed it to do at a reasonable price. It holds more music than the big bulky CD wallet I had been carrying around (which had close to 100 albums in it).

Besides, have you seen how long it takes to sync 100 gigs of music to an iPod? It's good that I have only 16. Forces me to prioritize.

[bethany]

The new Nanos released the other day now offer a (very low quality) video camera/built in mic for recording videos/sound (no still photos though - presumably b/c the quality is too low), pausable live FM radio, and a pedometer, if you're into those kinds of things.

Personally, I'm still rocking my 15gb 3rd gen iPod classic from 2003 with no problems. I don't generally carry it (or anything else, other than maybe a hairband) in my pocket, so size isn't an issue for me. (Well, now that I think about it, back in my college days I would sometimes listen to it while walking around campus, in which case it was generally in a coat pocket, which was plenty big enough, or a back pocket of my jeans, which it also fits in fine. That's where I stash it when I listen to it while washing dishes, come to think of it. I also have a case for it with a clip on the back that I've employed when exercising, etc.)

I like Pandora all right, though I have only ever used the in-browser version. I get annoyed with the inability to skip more than 3 songs in an hour, or however long it is. Is that still the case with the subscriber version? Also, I've never heard an audio ad on the in-browser version.

I think Rhapsody is pretty sweet, though I'm too cheap to shell out for it. But my parents are subscribers, and you can pull it up all over the house. It's pretty cool to be able to listen to virtually anything you have an urge to hear.

[dgp11776]

Besides, have you seen how long it takes to sync 100 gigs of music to an iPod? It's good that I have only 16. Forces me to prioritize.

Curious - Mac or PC?  It took forever to sync when I had a PC, but it's a breeze with a Mac.

I have the 80GB classic, and my wife has the 120GB classic.  Her old 20GB one broke, so she got the new one.

[murlough23]

The new Nanos released the other day now offer a (very low quality) video camera/built in mic for recording videos/sound (no still photos though - presumably b/c the quality is too low), pausable live FM radio, and a pedometer, if you're into those kinds of things.

I think mine can record sound, with a mic attached that is sold separately. I'm pretty sure mine can hold and display still photos... not sure if you were referring to displaying them or taking them. The radio and pedometer are new, I think, but I seem to recall hearing about an accessory you could buy that worked with the accelerometer to track your steps.

If it has FM radio, then they're only a step away from building a transmitter into the thing so that it can transmit out. Nice option for those whose car stereos don't have an auxiliary input jack and don't want to pay extra for an FM transmitter. (Though there's a significant loss in sound quality vs. the direct line into the stereo.)

Honestly, though, for those who just want to listen to their music on the go and keep it organized who bought on iPod back in the day, the classic model you've already got is probably more than sufficient.

[murlough23]

Curious - Mac or PC?  It took forever to sync when I had a PC, but it's a breeze with a Mac.

PC. It's easy to set up because I know my way around iTunes (though it did take me a while to construct a playlist with only the stuff I wanted to sync.) But the physical file transfer for that many mp3 files can take half an hour. it was only really a problem the first time; now my usual sync just dumps a few albums I no longer want on the iPod and copies over a few new ones. Less than a minute to do that.

One thing I love is that the iPod actually tracks the play count and last played date like iTunes does, and syncs that info back to iTunes. I didn't realize it did this until I came back from my road trip and re-synced, and noticed a bunch of "last played" dates in iTunes that were during the trip. I would assume this feature goes all the way back to the introduction of iTunes.

[Vlad!]

I like Pandora all right, though I have only ever used the in-browser version. I get annoyed with the inability to skip more than 3 songs in an hour, or however long it is. Is that still the case with the subscriber version? Also, I've never heard an audio ad on the in-browser version.

In case you're curious, the limited number of skips is because Pandora has to pay royalties per-song regardless of whether you listen to just a little bit or the whole song. It's a case of the RIAA making your life suck, as usual (if you want to know far more then I heartily recommend reading the comments to this weblog post). But in answer to your question, Pandora One keeps the "six skips per station per hour" limitation but removes the daily limit.

[bethany]

I think mine can record sound, with a mic attached that is sold separately. I'm pretty sure mine can hold and display still photos... not sure if you were referring to displaying them or taking them. The radio and pedometer are new, I think, but I seem to recall hearing about an accessory you could buy that worked with the accelerometer to track your steps.

It can still hold and display photos, the built-in camera just doesn't take still photos, only video. I don't really care to record sound or video or count my steps with my iPod, but if I did, I suppose it would be nice to have it built in, rather than have to purchase scads of accessories.

[murlough23]

That's actually pretty weird, that it can record video but not take photos. You'd think video would be an order of magnitude more complex, especially for such a small device. But I can see how quality might be the issue - easier to make out what's going on from a series of still frames in motion than a single image at the same low quality.

NP: "Goddess of the Dayspring, Am I", Falling Up

[Vlad!]

Another reason why the ability to record sound would be a slick feature is that it can detect ambient noise and adjust the volume to compensate (or even act as an active noise-cancellation system).

[bethany]

It can record sound. I believe murlough meant to say that it's weird that it can record video, but not take still photos. It records both video and sound.

[murlough23]

It can record sound. I believe murlough meant to say that it's weird that it can record video, but not take still photos. It records both video and sound.

Yeah, what she said. murlough also meant to say that murlough is weird because he thinks one thing and then types another.

[bloop]

So out of curiosity, what are the advantages of the Nano over the Classic?
And hopefully an unlimited data plan.
I disagree. If you run into a situation where a 1TB (or even 160GB) player is insufficient for your needs, You're Doing It Wrong. There's no way that you could listen to (or even know!) all the music. By my rudimentary calculations, even if you compressed your music using FLAC then you could expect to store over a year's worth of music on a 160GB device (and that's one year of listening 24/7 to your iPod). Even if you're the most prolific music pirate ever (and you're not, because I went to college with the most prolific music pirate ever, and he did have over 160GB of music), you're not going to be able to listen to even half of those tracks within your lifetime.

Well, if I had a 1 TB player, I wouldn't be able to help but put movies on it, too.

By my calculations, though, your calculations are a bit off.

[murlough23]

Well, if I had a 1 TB player, I wouldn't be able to help but put movies on it, too.

Video's a great reason to have more disk space. I don't really plan to watch videos or download TV shows or whatever on my iPod, so I don't need it. But that makes the color screen a big advantage, too (I don't think older iPods are video capable even if they do have the space).

(When the video-capable iPod first came out, Jay Leno had a funny joke about watching porn on an iPod. He just showed a small pixelated square on the screen and you couldn't make anything out at all.)

[Vlad!]

Well, if I had a 1 TB player, I wouldn't be able to help but put movies on it, too.

I was in an airplane once and the dude across the aisle was watching Pirates of the Caribbean on a PSP in teeny-tiny-eyestrain-o-vision, and I thought to myself "self, that has got to be the worst way to experience a movie ever".

By my calculations, though, your calculations are a bit off.

Yeah, I revisited my back-of-the-envelope numbers and I realized that even though I said FLAC I was using values more appropriate for MP3 compression. And I probably lost an order of magnitude somewhere. Anyway, you at least have a lot of freaking music to listen to...

[NinjaRob17]

Yeah, I revisited my back-of-the-envelope numbers and I realized that even though I said FLAC I was using values more appropriate for MP3 compression. And I probably lost an order of magnitude somewhere. Anyway, you at least have a lot of freaking music to listen to...

I think 160gb of music is about 1/3 of a year of music, based on my music library, which contains anything from 128kbs to lossless (though I only have a few albums in lossless).

Also to clarify, I don't have 160gb of music, that was just an estimate based on what I have.

[Aaron]

I used to have 160GB of music.  Then my hard drives crashed (yes, even my backup).  Many profanities were said that day.

[murlough23]

My iTunes library purports to have "7183 songs, 20:14:06:41 total time, 39.35 GB". Most everything is encoded at 192, though I have some older stuff encoded at 128 or even (shudder) 96, but there's probably enough newer stuff at either 320 or variable bitrates in the 200's to balance that out.

So it would take me almost 21 days to listen to it all, if I did it non-stop. I could easily get through all of that in a year, but there are probably large quantities of files there that get listened to less than once a year (and some I haven't listened to at all since importing it all into iTunes).

I actually have a "Never Played" playlist that I set to shuffle. I let it pick a song that's never been played in iTunes, then I stop it and go to that album and listen to it in full. My goal is to make sure I eventually listen to everything at least once. (If I haven't yet, it's likely because I've only listened to the album on the source CD, or in WinAmp back in the day.)

[bloop]

I calculated that on a 160 GB HDD, if encoding strictly in flac (which, btw, Apple products will not play unless it is an older model running Rockbox - but I figure alac is similar) would hold about 20 days straight of music, which means 1 TB would do nearly 130 days, which is obviously a lot.

[Vlad!]

My FLAC calculations came out to about 15 days straight, but I was using conservative numbers. In any case, for the type of music I listen to I can't detect a difference between FLAC and a VBR-encoded MP3 in the 200s (I think the LAME setting I use chooses 226 as the baseline bitrate, but I could be remembering that number a bit wrong). The only time I thought "man, MP3 encoding really destroyed this track" was a CD of classical music, which FLAC does a good job with anyway.

I don't think I could listen to Pandora for 20 days straight without seeing a repeat, but that's because I only used two songs to base my playlist off of (they're "Metropolis Pt. 1: The City and the Dreamer" by Dream Theater and "Farewell Proud Men" by Leaves' Eyes, if you're curious). If I created another playlist or added more seed songs to my existing one then I could have a much larger pool to draw from.

[bloop]

I based my calculations on the 76 minute Blueberry Boat by Fiery Furnaces at 448.9 MB in flac at a torrent site.

I generally encode in V0, and they sound very good to me.

[valleycat]

I think I have the same type of nano as murlough.  16 gigs, very slim design, I really love it.  It fits into my jeans pocket without feeling bulky and uncomfortable, even in its rubber/plastic case too.

I also use iTunes.  I have tried Songbird and maybe one other music player before, but I went back to iTunes because I'm used to its interface.  It feels the most natural and smoothest to me.

I capped my nano sometime this summer.  I'm actually thinking of deleting several artists to fit it all on the nano.  It's kind of hard because my hoarding instinct doesn't want to let go even of artists I dislike for some reason. 

[Wildcatblue7]

I got a 120GB Zune this summer and I absolutely love it.  It's not as geek-friendly as my Creative ZEN was, but it doesn't freeze up/crash all the time like the ZEN did.  Plus it's a lot easier to sync with all the album art, etc. intact.  Nice big color screen, touch pad, and I'm pretty well addicted to the games on it.  It's not as slim as an iPod Touch but it also has a lot more memory.  It's pretty minimalistic, which I like a lot.

Incidentally I have about 20 gigs full at the moment.  I don't anticipate ever filling the thing, but the price comparison on one of the smaller Zunes versus this one made this an obvious choice (plus my ZEN warranty at Best Buy paid the bill).  I hear they're releasing a Zune Touch sometime soon, but I like the one I've got.  Sound quality is excellent, by the way.

[Ian]

I wanna pimp my music too: 121 GBs with around 27,000 songs.  Probably listened to about a third of it I would guess.

[murlough23]

I think I have the same type of nano as murlough.  16 gigs, very slim design, I really love it.  It fits into my jeans pocket without feeling bulky and uncomfortable, even in its rubber/plastic case too.

Should be pretty easy to figure out if it's the 4th gen or an older Nano. Older Nanos don't have the accelerometer, and can't shake to shuffle.

What color do you have? Mine's green.

[valleycat]

Yup, you can shake it to shuffle songs.  I like most being able to turn it sideways to scroll through album covers.  It's pretty new, I got it sometime early this year.

Mine's orange.

[Aaron]

No radio for me, just the iPod.  It's full though... I hope they come out with a bigger iPod soon.  Even though I haven't listened to half the stuff on my ipod, I like to have all my music in one place.

What kind of iPod do you have?

[murlough23]

I like most being able to turn it sideways to scroll through album covers.

That feature frustrated the hell out of me once when I was trying to pick an album from cover flow while walking, and it kept flipping back to the main menu. I've disabled it. I can always get to cover flow in a few easy clicks anyway.

Some co-workers and I are planning to build a Flash widget for a website that rotates through the 8 planets in 3-D. Yesterday in a meeting, the customer suggested making it work like the iPhone, where you could click and drag to scroll back and forth to rotate the list (the planets are all arranged in a circle). I offered the helpful suggestion that if it was going to work like the iPhone, then rotating your monitor sideways should cause it to select Uranus.

[Vlad!]

I'm sure your customer appreciated that.

And I'm also sure you're aware that the iPhone doesn't support Flash so suggesting that a Flash widget support the iPhone is like suggesting a Nintendo game support the Sega Genesis.