When comparing Slacker Radio vs Qobuz, the Slant community recommends Qobuz for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming services?” Qobuz is ranked 9th while Slacker Radio is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Qobuz is:
Music streams at 16 bit, 44.4 khz, Flac, CD Quality. Also, high-res is available.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion 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 High quality streaming
Music streams at 16 bit, 44.4 khz, Flac, CD Quality. Also, high-res is available.
Pro High quality (CD+) streams; subscribers gain access to booklet, when available
Metadata, while better than many, still can't compete with physical media. New to N.A. at the time of this review so there are still some gaps in their catalog.
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 Officially available in a limited number of countries
Qobuz is only officially available in 10 countries (which does not include Canada and the US). You can use a VPN in order to pay for the service in an unsupported country. Some users have mentioned success with contacting the country and being added manually (you can read more here).
