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Add to SafariWhen comparing Slacker Radio vs TIDAL, the Slant community recommends TIDAL for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming services?” TIDAL is ranked 5th while Slacker Radio is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose TIDAL is:
The Tidal music streaming service has a maximum streaming quality of 1,411Kbps bit rate with FLAC-formatted lossless files. This is quite an upgrade compared to most music streaming services, which go at about 320Kbps bit rate.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Curated music streaming service
Actual human beings take time to decide what should be played, and on what stations. Sometimes people curating these stations are professional DJs who have experience in curating music content. This makes the music streaming service feel much more organic.
Pro Large music library
Offering such a large library ensures there is enough music of different kinds to appeal to anyone.
Pro Algorithmically generated stations
Stations are created based on an artist, album or track. Slacker then recommends tracks to the user who can either upvote or downvote them, and Slacker will follow suit and recommend tracks considering how the user voted.
Pro Low cost subscription
There's a mid-tier subscription of only $3.99 and a full subscription of $9.99
Pro Works on a large number of platforms
Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry are all platforms that Slacker will work on.
Pro Streams for free on T-Mobile
Pro Allows downloading stations locally
Easily save music for offline use by downloading the tracks that you enjoy.
Pro Amazing quality
The Tidal music streaming service has a maximum streaming quality of 1,411Kbps bit rate with FLAC-formatted lossless files. This is quite an upgrade compared to most music streaming services, which go at about 320Kbps bit rate.
Pro Pays artists more
As of March 2018, TIDAL pays the artists 2/3 more than Apple Music and 3 times more than Spotify, for an equivalent catalog and subscription price. (40M songs on TIDAL and Apple Music vs. 30M on Spotify, $9.99/mo for all 3). Napster is the only service that pays the artists more than TIDAL.
Pro Discounted student subscription
Tidal offers a 50% discount on monthly subscriptions for students with a valid university email account.
Pro Awsome desktop app
Pro Built-in audio search
The Tidal music streaming service mobile app has a built-in audio search, similar to Shazaam and Soundhound.
Pro Military/veteran discount a BIG plus
Pro Get one-month free Hi-Fi (FLAC, 24-bit music)
Almost all if not most songs are 24-bit FLAC files, "Master" is an ever higher quality
Cons
Con UI is too focused on social media
About half of the UI wastes space on social media info posted by Slacker Radio hosts and DJs. Basically advertisements (but different from their regular advertisements), but in a social media setting.
Con Rather intrusive ads
While it's understandable that the free tier will have ads, between video, audio and banners, they can be quite intrusive.
Con Songs may take some time to load
the Tidal music streaming service may take up to 10 seconds of buffering to load and play a song, sometimes even stopping a song mid-way to buffer.
Con No free tier
The Tidal music streaming service has no free tier available. Only a 7-day trial. While the trial is helpful for learning what the service has to offer, it may not allow for a complete picture due to the time limit.
Con Offline isn’t offline and mobile data is consumed in one song
Con Hi-FI Can be expensive for some
