How bad is pandora?

Whoa, Pandora is bad? OK, well, I guess I will stop listening to it then. If your definition of bad is related to number of commercials, as dr*audio suggests, then this is highly dependent on the type of music you listen to. I've got an 80s Grrrl Band station that has two or three commercials every other song. But, my K-&J-Pop station has a commercial about every 30 minutes or so, since advertisers feel no one listens to this crap. My Desert Beats station has just a few more than that, still way better than over the air FM.
 
To be a commercial streaming format, I find Pandora highly listenable. To me, low level detail is amazingly good. I hear musical content that I never noticed in my home system. Maybe the headphone DAC that I use, makes the difference? Maybe because I usually listen at work, through headphones? I don't know, but I find Pandora very enjoyable. Creating stations is fun too, and Panadora does a good job of adding "Like" artists into my stations as well. That's turned me onto new artists that I've never heard or heard of. Now, if I'd just pay for a subscription, I could get rid of those annoying commercials.
 
Pandora on the Web plays 64k AAC+ for free listeners and 192kbps for Pandora One subscribers. All in-home devices play 128kbps audio, and mobile devices receive a variety of different rates depending on the capability of the device and the network they are on, but never more than 64k AAC+.Apr 1, 2014

Assuming the above information is true ... depends what your chosen bit rate is. Keep in mind that lower bit rate AAC sounds better than lower bit rate MP3 in my experience.

My own personal experience w/ Pandora.

I listen to Pandora through an app on the Dish Hopper. So I assume I'm getting 128k AAC. The 128k AAC files that I rip myself (from CD's) using Itunes for Windows sounds better to my ears :dunno:. I'm also listening to Sirius XM on Dish Hopper through the regular satellite feed and that also sounds much better to my ears. :dunno:

Pandora does not sound un-listenable ... just not as good as the other two choices in comparison on the same living room rig stereo from the same source (Dish Hopper). I'm taking the optical out of Hopper to Schiit Audio Modi 2 Uber DAC.
 
Last edited:
It sounds like you've got your mind made up already.

You know, you can use it for free, don't you? All it costs you is a few keystrokes.

If the commercials bother you, you can always upgrade to a premium service for about $5.00/month.

Me, I find that $5.00 a worthwhile investment for the pleasure I derive from it. I've got a bunch of genee specific channels that I've been building for years. ...and the sound does not suck.
 
In terms of content, Pandora has been annoying me lately. I only listen at work, on a shared computer that we all listen to. I created on station based on a revolving list of artists, which get's played maybe once a week. It seems that Pandora plays the same songs from the various artists each time I tune into this station. It also seems that if I have a station based on say 20 artists, Pandora gives much higher preference to older music on that list. I imagine because they pay less to play older music? This could all be my over analytical thoughts, but nevertheless, I find the Pandora experience kind of sub-par these days.
 
Define bad. It's free which for some will put it above many others. It's lossy and full of commercials or you can pay to get rid of commercials and still have sub-par sound quality. Go Tidal for $20/mo if you want the highest sound quality. Spotify if you want excellent musical suggestions, playlists etc. I personally think that Apple Music sounds the best out of the lossy services. They use AAC instead of MP3, perhaps that's more pleasing to my ears, IDK.
 
I use Pandora for general listening, love the radio station concept, it exposes you to artists you would never find yourself. Quality is good. I switch to Tidal for more detailed listening. Tidal used to have a problem with large play lists and the scuffle feature. It was nowhere even close to random. I have complained to Tidal 3 times and always got a free moth for my effort. Well in the last few weeks they have appeared to fix the problem. So I will be using Tidal more for general around the house listening. But I think Pandora is great value for $5 per month.
 
I have the free version, but it all depends on what pc of gear you use for it, they all have different agreements. I have about 12 stations I created in Random Play mode and it just plays great songs one after the other. I get very few commercials thru my OPPO 93s, which are what I use for Pandora. On my system, the OPPO thru my main rig, SQ is plenty good enough for non-critical listening. Only complaint would be the number of tracks I can blow past in an hour. Once you do it several times you get a warning about it. Workaround is to just stop and restart and you have 5 -FFs again.
 
I listen to Pandora commercial free and use their premium your choice on my ipad and android phone. While I wish the would up the bit rate to 320 kbs to match others I am totally on board with their product. Their music genome is superb at finding and exploring new artists from your music selections. Other than the bit rate the only issue is that after long listening or day after day they can get just a little repetitive, not sure if this is a library size or just the way their radio stations work. I use Pandora as my daily player/background but do most of my serious listening with TIDAL Hifi.
 
Shell out the $4.99 a month and go commercial free.

I figure that I pay $5.50 for a latte, so a month of commercial-free music for less than that is a bargain.

Same for me. It works great for light listening or background music.
 
I listen to Pandora free on the family room PC and can tolerate the occasional ad. But I tried the free app on my cell and was really annoyed by more frequent ads.
 
If you like commercials, it's awesome.
So is OTA radio.

If not, then avoid it. Create a Spotify playlist.


Again on my OPPOs, I hear a commercial every couple hours and usually just one 30 second ad. Each MFG pays a different price to use it and gets different features. So on one platform like a phone, they pay less so you get more ads, with OPPOs they pay more and you get very few ads.
 
Back
Top Bottom