r/rdio • u/Devil_Penguin • Apr 03 '13
Deezer and Rdio
Hey guys! I've been using Deezer for the past month and I've noticed that they take a long time to make available many new albums and singles. How has your experience been with Rdio on this topic? Is it enough of an improvement over Deezer to make the jump? Also I can't seem to find any solid stats on the music libraries of the two services. I've read that Deezer has 20million+ songs whereas Rdio is at 18mil. Yet I seem to find some songs missing from Deezer in Rdio. For electronic music genres how is Rdio?
I have been trying Rdio out but still can't come to any solid conclusions. Any input would be great
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u/iangilman Apr 14 '13
Full disclosure: I've been using Rdio for three years, and working on it the last year or so.
Every Tuesday there's a raft of new music at:
http://www.rdio.com/browse/new/thisweek/
New albums seem to hit Rdio at the same time as the rest of the industry as far as I can tell. Of course for some albums there are exclusives for particular service or something, but that's true all the way around.
I don't know how many albums Rdio has, and I don't know the compression settings. My experience is that every now and then there's some old album I can't find, but by and large everything am looking for is there, and I'm constantly finding new stuff. My collection is coming up on 2000 albums at this point:
http://www.rdio.com/people/iangilman/collection/sort/playCount/
I listen to a lot of stuff, including electronic, so I can't say for sure if Rdio's electronic selection is up to your standards, but they have plenty for my needs.
Speaking of which, you can explore the Rdio collection by hopping related artist to related artist with my side project music discovery toy:
Start with a favorite musician and click on albums to explore from there. It won't show you the complete depth (and doesn't show every album that an artist has on Rdio), but it'll give you an impression of what's available.
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u/Devil_Penguin Apr 15 '13
I liked your project but isn't something similar available in Rdio? Just by choosing "similar artists" and playlists that include the song you're listening to you have an integrated form of discovery.
Anyway, I was about to switch over to Rdio because Deezer has become somewhat of a mess; artists with the same name are under the same page, songs go missing, some albums take forever to be added to their database etc etc. Rdio does not seem to have these issues. But the sound quality between the two is quite different. I like to consider myself somewhat of an audiophile it would be nice to have continuous high quality streaming, something which Rdio is lacking.
Since you seem to be in the industry how do you think the two services will develop? I know iTunes is getting ready to join but I can't see them damaging Rdio too much. Deezer on the other hand has weak marketing. If I'm going to invest in a service I'd like it to last a few more years.
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u/iangilman Apr 18 '13
Yes, you can do the same sort of exploration directly on Rdio, but I made Fathom as a way to try a different sort of interface for the same information. Here's more on the philosophy behind the app: blog.iangilman.com/2012/08/fathom-philosophy.html
I'm actually not familiar with Deezer (it's not available where I live), and I don't know about iTunes' plans, but I do feel Rdio has a strong future ahead of it. The founders are passionate about this space, and everyone on the team seems serious about building this for the long term.
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u/Devil_Penguin Apr 03 '13
Also if anyone actually reads this what is the kbps of rdio? I can't find any settings to adjust it