Mog thoughts

[satkinsn]

This may be more appropriate for either the music forum or the 21st century audio forum. I'm putting it here because I'm guessing folks who care about tuners may also care about online 'radio' services.

Aside from stuff that I think is clearly radio by other means, Live365, Shoutcast, Sirius, I have also experimented with Pandora, last f.m. and Slacker and in a slightly different vein, Rhapsody and Napster.

None of them sound good enough to put out thru' even my modest systems. Rhapsody and Napster, in particular, are awful.

But I'm trying again, and have hopes. 'Mog' is another service, similar to Rhapsody and Napster in that you can play complete albums, but different because the mp3s are encoded at 320 kbps.

That makes a huge difference - maybe not enough to keep the service, but enough to say we have our first serious contender for the infinite playlist/online jukebox of the future.

I've been listening on my desktop today (Mac Mini out to a set of Audioengines) and am happy with the playback of albums I know well. 'Kind of Blue' sounds like it should. Ditto some piano jazz - it doesn't have that weird thin feel that most lossy compression has.

Maybe I'll feel different once I put it thru' my family room system, and since it doesn't work with my Squeezebox yet, I'll have to go USB from my laptop to a DAC and into the system.

And I'm not crazy about the interface, since I can't browse by genre.

That said, the selection is very good, the price is right (14 day free trial) and the audio is, for the very first time, not a complete non-starter.

Anybody else tried it?

s.

 

[satkinsn]

Well, absent other posters let me talk to myself for a bit.

I noted this service because for all of my messing around with online music, I hadn't heard of it until the other day.

The key, for me, is the 320 kbps mp3s. I did some informal a-b'ing last night over a mid-fi setup - usb out from a laptop to a set of decent portable phones.

So we're talking less than critical listening equipment; on the other hand, I was paying close attention. Predictably, sampling 320 kbps mp3 versus lossless compression I can't reliably tell the difference. My issue with mp3s is always over the longer haul - I listen to an mp3/aac/ogg album for 20 minutes or so, even at best quality, and it gets *annoying,* for lack of a better word.

However, 320 gets closer than I have ever been to being satisfied with music delivered this way. I actually heard a slight difference between the mp3 and the high def file I was comparing it against. (Well, duh - just because I can't hear much difference between 16/44 and mp3 doesn't mean you won't hear the difference between mp3 and 24/96.)

As noted in the first post, I don't like the interface as much as other people do, though I really like the ability to play full albums. Also, the 'radio' option, in which you use a slider to move from 'play only this artist' to playing a wider selection of similar music, is a nice touch.

Since this is a radiocentric forum, a couple of thoughts: I would rate the quality as being as good as good fm, minus the wonderful *airiness* you get with the best signals. The 'radio' option is every bit as good as the more highly touted Pandora music genome thingy, but I still miss a real human bein' picking the tunes.

I guess the bottom line is this: right now, I think this is the first online service where you could think about using it exclusively and not having your own library. It doesn't quite get there, for me, but...it's closer than we've had till now.

s.

 

[JBL GUY]

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[RichPA]

Just signed up for the MOG free trial through Sonos. I've gotta say, this is pretty cool. The 320k sound quality is pretty good through Sonos on the main system, though it isn't what you'd choose for critical listening. The selection is pretty good, and you can listen to entire albums, including new releases. It sounds quite good at my office (computer soundcard, T-amp, and CSW Ambiance speakers). It's only been one day so far, but I think I'm likely to keep up the subscription when the free trial ends.