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guru_ck

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 24, 2005
435
0
Bay Area, CA
Has anyone else tested iTunes Radio? I had it streaming to my Harmon Kardon system in my BMW on the way Home and it sounded horrible. Maybe 128kbps. Definitely not the clarity I am used to after streaming Spotify at 320kbps for the past year. It's too bad because their suggestion engine seems to work pretty well.
 

iBreatheApple

macrumors 68030
Sep 3, 2011
2,950
1,023
Florida
Not sure but the volume is substantially lower than music on your iPod.

Side note, there was a soothing "You are listening to iTunes radio" in between songs earlier. I thought it was brilliant. :apple:
 

critic81

macrumors regular
Oct 6, 2008
210
37
Massachusetts
I agree

Totally agree. I use MOG and sometimes spotify with audio out from the lightning connector and the sound is crisp and loud. With Songza, Pandora, and now iRadio, the audio is very low quality and much softer when played at the same volume as the former. I wish this could get fixed. I'm not sure if some apps are using different audio api's but whatever Mog and Spotify use should be how its done.
 

Charlie Goetze

macrumors newbie
Sep 19, 2013
3
0
Subjective testing on my reference type X10i Klipsch earbuds same song and section on Pandora Premium, MOG and iTunes Radio shows me iTunes Radio is better than Pandora Premium, but not as good as MOG at 320k. So iTunes Radio may be at about 256k. By the way Spotify's so called 320k has filtered out high frequencies, so it is inferior to MOG. Everything so far seems to be inferior to MOG, such as RDIO and Spotify and now iTunes Radio. Although I love iTunes Radio interface selections, etc. It's sound quality isn't bad. Just not quite as good as MOG yet.
 

Doc69

macrumors 6502a
Dec 21, 2005
636
79
I've tested iTunes Radio in iTunes today for the first time. It sounds pretty compressed, so I would guess 128kbps or so. However, the stations you create from a song of your choice, seem to be extremely good. So far, all the songs in the various stations I have created, have been appropriate for that station.
 
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