Listening/Discovering music online

ranjeetrain

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Firstly I thought I'll add this to the Music-PC thread. But I realized it would serve a better purpose being in the "Source Material" section.

A lot of us would like to find an alternate to a service such as Spotify, but sadly there is none. Here is an alternative, and it's FREE.

MusicBolt - Listen Music Online

Quality is decent, good for casual listening. Great for discovery purpose. I listened to some Coldplay songs and liked them. Never thought I'd love a Coldplay song. But here you go, I FOUND it.

Enjoy while the site still exists/is accessible.
 
I recently tried out Apple Music on Android- yes it is available for Android phones as well. :)

It is a beta app, but is quite good once you manage to configure the settings. The playlists change every day, and is a mix of recommended artists and compiled playlists.
 
Problem was absence of Flash player. I disable addons I don't need in my main browser. Internet Explorer has Flash though. It's playing fine in IE.

The site has three requirements. (1) No popup blocker (2) Needs Flash (3) For me, only AAC+ version of the player worked.

Direct link: Smoothjazz Internet Radio Player
 
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I found a better way to play the smoothjazz.com.

Instead of playing it in browser (highly inefficient method) play it in VLC.

  1. Open VLC
  2. Select Media > Open Network Stream (or press <Ctrl+N>)
  3. Type http://408.cloudrad.io:8612/relay and click Play

If all is well it will start playing within a few seconds.

Advantages over playing in the web browser?

  1. Better sound quality - VLC sound has quieter background than the web browser.
  2. Take less network bandwidth - Because VLC doesn't load ads unlike web browser does. People with unstable connections can play without stuttering.
  3. Less resource consumption - Flash is a resource hog. VLC runs on peanuts.
  4. Discovery - True to the spirit of discovering new music, VLC displays the track meta-info (Artist/Album/Track) in the title bar as well as status bar. So you don't have to google it. You always know what's playing.



EDIT:

Adding the direct URL for http://jazz24.org/ stream.

In the above step 2 in VLC, type the URL as http://icy1.abacast.com:80/kplu-jazz24aac-64?type=.flv&source=v6player.

Rest of the steps will be the same.
 
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thanks ranjeetrain. i havent been able to find an alternative to grooveshark yet. this one seems close.
cheers!!!!
 
Check out Radio Paradise. I've been listening for some years now (but not continuously, of course). It never fails to throw up something interesting. It's a curated show so no automatically generated playlists by a couple of very tasteful people with big ears who make it truly eclectic. In any given hour, you could hear anything from old music to new music, rock, electronica, world, jazz, classical, anything. Fantastic for discovery.
 
Thanks
ranjeetrain , very nice .

thanks ranjeetrain. i havent been able to find an alternative to grooveshark yet. this one seems close.
cheers!!!!

Happy to share.


Check out Radio Paradise. I've been listening for some years now (but not continuously, of course). It never fails to throw up something interesting. It's a curated show so no automatically generated playlists by a couple of very tasteful people with big ears who make it truly eclectic. In any given hour, you could hear anything from old music to new music, rock, electronica, world, jazz, classical, anything. Fantastic for discovery.

Looks nice. Variety of music is really good. Thanks for sharing.
 
Check out Radio Paradise. I've been listening for some years now (but not continuously, of course). It never fails to throw up something interesting. It's a curated show so no automatically generated playlists by a couple of very tasteful people with big ears who make it truly eclectic. In any given hour, you could hear anything from old music to new music, rock, electronica, world, jazz, classical, anything. Fantastic for discovery.

Interesting....thanks a ton.
 
I like this one a lot - https://www.iheart.com/. It has replaced Spotify as the main music discovery tool.

Lets you pick from multiple stations and based on genres and artists. You can even create your own radio station. Best part its free.

I use it mainly for AT40, its the top 40 of US, so basically used as a music discovery tool. Quality is good, it sounds really good on my Sony dock and portable speakers, not so much on my main rig.

Apart from AT40, I also listen to iHeart80s and Classic Rock a fair bit. The latter has a good selection of the classics from Rainbow, Deep Purple, and other rock acts of that era.

Of note, you'll need VPN (free addon from Chrome) or you can d/l the Android app APK and load it on the smartphone. Once loaded it plays fine without VPN. It also integrates with Chromecast Audio, that's how I use it the most, simply cast to any of my speakers or DACs connected to Chromecast Audio.

American Top 40 With Ryan Seacrest is highly recommended, nicely done along with breakout artists of the week. You get to hear the latest hits and also what's trending on the other side of the atlantic.
 
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