[elrod-tom]

Well, I just installed Yahoo Music on my laptop last night, and I've been playing around with it ever since.

Now I should say that I'm a long-term Rhapsody user, and I like it a lot. However, I was unable to use the "off-line" feature on my laptop...wrong OS (damn you Windows XP...why do we need you so?). So I wanted to give Yahoo Music a try.

My first impressions are somewhat favorable. I like that the downloads are encoded at 192kbps, so that works to Yahoo Music's favor. I also like their user interface. It's a bit easier to use, but not as fully featured...six of one...

On the downside, their selection seems a LOT more limited at this point. I'm thinking that this will get better, as they are still pretty new to this business model. For example, I've been listening to Martha Wainwright's new album on Rhapsody. I wanted to do so on Yahoo Music, but there is only one song available. The message: if you like it, buy the CD (which I'm going to do anyway...). In fairness, the selection is still pretty good. I just find that Rhapsody has a better selection coming out of the blocks with newer stuff.

I'll post more extensive impressions later...anyone else have any experience with it?

 

[elrod-tom]

OK, so I've been using Yahoo Music for a while now. More impressions:

1) The sound quality of the 192mbps DMA-Protected WMA files is decent. It's better than the 160mbps WMA files available as Rhapsody downloads.

2) The "To Go" feature is great. I'm really enjoying it so far. I wish more players were available, but so far I can't argue. As I'm using the player to evaluate music that I don't own (so that I might buy it later should I like it), it serves its purpose.

3) The sync function on Yahoo Music's to-go function is VEEERRRY SLLLOOOOOWWWW. I'm hoping that this improves significantly when it comes out of Beta status. BTW - I can't compare it to Rhapsody, as I don't have Rhapsody to Go.

4) There are a few hiccups re) getting files onto your portable player. These can be overcome by opening the files and re-sync'ing. I understand that this is one of the things Yahoo is working on.

More later...

 

[pennylane]

How exactly do these things work? Do you pay a certain amount per month? I'm thinking of trying one out.

 

[Nick Dangerous]

It's all about the selection. Until Yahoo offers a comparable (and hopefully complementary) library of music, I'm sticking with da Rhap.

Yeah, I know that was lame.

 

[elrod-tom]

I'm sticking with both for now. I'm using Yahoo for it's "to-go" features, and Rhapsody for streaming and a MUCH more extensive library. I may elect to go with Rhapsody's "to-go" feature at some point (perhaps before July 15th, to take advantage of their rebate on my compatable player?). However, I think that there is a big difference between the bitrates of Yahoo (192mbps) and Rhapsody (160mbps)...that matters too.

Yahoo has a LOT to do before they are a serious threat to what Rhapsody has. What has potential interest to me is iTunes' interest in the "to-go" market. If they decided to get into it, things would get interesting. Of course, they need to do more about their weak bitrates (128mbps...ugh!) before I take great interest.

 

[pennylane]

elrod-tom, how's the quality of yahoo? Is it well-ripped, ie, almost indistinguishable from the CD like a well-ripped MP3 can be?

I'm still considering all my options. I'll probably make another thread about it tomorrow.

 

[elrod-tom]

It's not bad...the DRM-encoded WMA files are ripped at 192mbps, which some folks say is sufficient to make it difficult to distinguish from CD's. I'm not one of those folks, BTW...but it's certainly good enough.

I was listening the other day on my laptop with the Coda/Overture, so it was a direct digital feed to the external DAC. Although it's certainly not as clear as CD's or WAV files, it's sufficiently good that the benefit of having all those tracks at one's disposal makes it OK. It's certainly OK for the purposes of the "to-go" feature - through the headphone out of a portable MP3 player.

 

[nsahoo]

I have been using it for over a month now and I like it. This is my first music subscription. I like their 192 kbps music, ability to store it and play offline and price ($7 a month). I wish they had a better player with an equalizer, better playlist support (smart playlist), no javascript errors, etc. And yes, the selection is limited.

 

[PFRfan]

I signed up for Yahoo the other day. I don't know about the selection size, but I don't mind since I'm not looking for specific things all of the time. I'll just listen to whatever catches my ear. I love the ability to check out new music for cheap.

I just wish that there was a flash player that supports the subscription services. Actually, there kind of is one - the Audiovox SMT 5600 smartphone. I bought one to try out since I have a Cingular account. It's not quite right though - the bass is pretty thin. Adding in a 3rd party player with an EQ made it a very good match for my E4C, but the only way to play subscription music is through Windows Media Player which doesn't have an EQ. So I thought about an amp (since running it through my PA2V2 helped it a LOT), but decided the point of a flash player for me would be size - and I don't want to haul around an amp even if it's small.

So I took the phone back and got a Zen Micro. It's not flash based, but it's pretty good. The only reason I picked it instead of the Carbon was because the Carbon doesn't let you edit your playlist on the fly (or even see it for that matter). If it wasn't for that, I'd have the Carbon.

The Yahoo player is worthless as far as I'm concerned. The nice thing is that I can use it just for actually downloading the songs, and then use WMP10 to manage the library and sync with the Zen Micro. The sync times are slow - I think it validates the license on each file before it syncs it, but at least it's easier to use. I use Media Center 11 for 99% of my listening, but I use WMP just to sync up the portable.

I like the quality of sound. I can tell the difference between a FLAC file and 192k MP3 or WMA, but I often have to listen to specific parts to catch it. I only use the ABX comparator in Foobar since I can trust it, which is more than I can say for my ears. At 224k, I can basically never tell the difference, but my sources are not the best. A Karma into Shure E4C is as good as I get. A real DAC and a real amp would probably help me distinguish better, but I'd be really suprised if I could tell the difference between an original CD and a 256k+ MP3 or WMA file when using equipment that I'll ever be able to buy. I have my library in FLAC, and then converted to Lame APE (somewhere around 250k) just in case I get better equipment someday. All of that pretty much means that the 192k bitrate is close to perfect.

That's a lot of rambling info - but maybe it'll save somebody some trouble deciding whether to dive in or not.