Pandora vs. Spotify

[csm]

What does everyone use, and see as the pros/cons of both? I've used Pandora One (paid version) forever, and am starting a free 30-day trial for Spotify Premium to see which I like better.

So far, I'm a little torn. I really want to love Spotify, but there is a major weakness IMO.

- On Pandora, you can pick and choose multiple 'stations' to shuffle. I love this, and pretty much use this exclusively when boating, working out, listening at home, etc... I don't usually feel like just listening to one type of music. You can't do this on Spotify. You can only listen to one station at a time. I know you can create playlists, and add whatever songs you like to shuffle genres, but that's a lot of work, and I like just letting the service choose the songs.

- On the other hand, the 'extreme' quality setting on Spotify is noticeable better than Pandora. It is also nice to be able to choose a specific song or album to listen to, when I'm in that mood.

Just curious what everyone else thinks.

[uniwarking]

I like both but I prefer Spotify. You can have a radio feature similar to pandora and you can also search and play pretty much anything and have playlists (which can also be stored for playback to avoid data usage). There are also some pretty nice public playlists. Pandora does seem to win the radio category.


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[KG's Supra24]

I used a combo of slacker and pandora last year. Never used spotify.

After using it at work the last couple weeks, I anticipate using Prime on the boat this year.

[viking]

I've noticed a lot of repetitions of songs on pandora. Seems Spotify doesn't replay the same songs over as much. Also can choose specific songs on Spotify as you mentioned. That's a biggie. We use both and depends on device. On computer typically use Spotify and.on smart tvs we use pandora. Usually load play lists we want onto our phones and don't stream much on them. I use Google play some on mine since I have uploaded all my tunes to that as well.

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[csm]

I used a combo of slacker and pandora last year. Never used spotify.

After using it at work the last couple weeks, I anticipate using Prime on the boat this year.

I'm a Prime member and totally forgot they stream music now. I'll have to give this a shot. Looks like their sound quality is better than Pandora, which is a key for me when using on the boat.

[trayson]

I like Iheartradio. I think it's funny that people still use Pandora despite the fact that other services have a WAY bigger music library.

With I heart radio, you can get the exact same "pick a song/album/artist" and have it create a custom station for you. It also offers the ability to pull up a zillion different radio stations from cities across the nation and globe.

They also have custom stations. My favorite is a station called "Spin Cycle" which is a station that broadcasts club mixes from a bunch of different DJ's. Like the stuff you'd hear in a dance club where they're doing mixes and mashups.

It's free and sometimes you get a commercial when you first start it up, but it's way way way less advertising than I ever got on Pandora or Slacker.

Spotify is cool for its ability to create your own playlist and not have to rely on their stations or algorythms. But honestly I think the only reason Pandora is so popular is because it was basically the first and people don't realize that there are better services with bigger music libraries.

Admittedly this is from 2013, but it's still very telling on how limited Pandora is:
http://mashable.com/2013/02/13/music-services-compared-2/

Music Library size:
Pandora: 900,000 songs
Spotify: 20,000,000 songs
Slacker: 13,000,000 songs
Iheart: 15,000,000 songs

[Brianinpdx]

Biggest benefit of Spotify as near as I can tell is that you can put it on "Extreme" mode and stream 384k/s which makes a huge difference in your audio system. To be fair, It's been awhile since I've been on Pandora. Last I checked ( a year back) they did not offer that. To me that makes Spot the hands down winner. Not to mention the library is bigger too. -Brian

[liquid_acid]

....and I'm over here using mp3's and CDs.

[trayson]

....and I'm over here using mp3's and CDs.

I tried the CD route. My MB Quart headunit won't play a CD, just ejects it.

But I really like using the USB input on my headunit. I have a bunch of "boat music" on a USB drive and it makes it so I can free up my phone, get better sound quality than the 3.5mm headphone jack of my phone, and not get the ground loop interference that I've been battling when my phone is charging and playing music. Plus it's great to have a controller for the driver where I can pause, or track forward/back easily.

My buddy brings his own USB drive for his tunes when he's out surfing behind my boat.

[Jason05216]

I also like that Spotify lets you make your playlists available offline so you can still use them when you don't have a good cell signal or don't want to use up your data plan. Maybe Pandora does this, I don't use Pandora. Spotify would be a lot better if there was a way to search playlists using a song or artist you like. It seems to me to be kind of hit or miss to find other user playlists. If they don't have the word you are searching in the title of the playlist you can't find it.

[jmvotto]

I like both , but use Pandora or my playlists more often, spincycle is great on iheart radio, but I feel the sound quality is really off, maybe its my settings.. I rarely us the 3.5 mm head phone jack and us the usb constant output from the phone , Ie fire wire.

[MLA]

Check out the streaming by Beats. Pretty good and can be downloaded as opposed to eating up your data plan. Although now that Apple has purchased Beats, by Dre, im sure it will become I-Tunes.

[parrothd]

For Pandora do you have higher audio enabled?

I use Google music but mostly use Pandora, I can't stand making play lists. I have a modified Pandora app that gives unlimited skips and no commercials.. :rolleyes: