Internet Radio Experts

[Cal_Cobra]

I've played around with the Internet radio feature on the Ultra, and it seems to work pretty well, but it's the first Internet radio app/device I've used in years. This week I was given a dedicated Ocean Digital WR-50 Internet Radio. I want to compare it with the Internet radio player on my Ultra.

For those that are regular Internet radio users, what kind of things make an Internet radio player standout? What usability features are desirable? Anything else to check out?

TIA!

 

[castalla]

For me, the range of stations is important, and whether the station & radio is able to show what's playing (eg. song titles, artwork) . Most stations don't show this, the best do, eg Radio Paradise. A lot depends on what you want - casual listening or dedicated like classical broadcasts. Here sound quality will be a factor.

 

[Burnside]

For casual listening and a great user interface, the Radio Garden app is worth checking out too.

 

[castalla]

For casual listening and a great user interface, the Radio Garden app is worth checking out too.

Audials is good - includes podcasts.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

For me, the range of stations is important, and whether the station & radio is able to show what's playing (eg. song titles, artwork) . Most stations don't show this, the best do, eg Radio Paradise. A lot depends on what you want - casual listening or dedicated like classical broadcasts. Here sound quality will be a factor.

Thanks. This has tons of stations, there were over 2K in classic rock alone. Their Internet Radio is based on Skytune. They show song titles, bit rates, but the only artwork seems to be the station ID graphic. Sound quality from this thing is quite good, amazingly there are some 320K stations, but a lot of 128K and less. With so many stations, a guy could spend months just auditioning stations.

 

[castalla]

Thanks. This has tons of stations, there were over 2K in classic rock alone. Their Internet Radio is based on Skytune. They show song titles, bit rates, but the only artwork seems to be the station ID graphic. Sound quality from this thing is quite good, amazingly there are some 320K stations, but a lot of 128K and less. With so many stations, a guy could spend months just auditioning stations.

SKYtune is a good station aggregator.

 

[Kampernaut]

For those that are regular Internet radio users, what kind of things make an Internet radio player standout? What usability features are desirable? Anything else to check out?

I’m a daily user of Internet radio that has owned lots of different dedicated sets over the years, but I wouldn't regard myself as an expert.

For me, apart from the ability to play any stream, it’s all about presets. I rarely find the need to discover another station. The stations I already listen to fulfil my needs. I just want to play various BBC and SFR (Swiss equivalent) stations at the press of a button. The WiiM is good at that, but the BBC stuff is limited.

Sadly, budget and copyright management pressures are forcing state broadcasters like these to confine their streaming to smartphone and selected smart speaker apps. They seem to have either withdrawn their open streams or be on the way to it. For example, one of my favourite streams is Radio Swiss Jazz. It’s still available, but they no longer send the track thumbnails.

 

[amix]

what kind of things make an Internet radio player standout?

Only one thing, really: manual input of URL! That's the most important but many commercial devices seem to lack.

Then station name display along with song performer and title.

Also browsable catalog with personal groupings.

Except of the grouping the WiiM has it all!

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and sharing your experiences on various aspects of Internet radio usage.

I've been testing this Ocean Digital WR-50 comparing it to the Ultra's Internet radio for the past week. I have the OD WR050 going to the Ultra via optical, so it's using the Ultra DAC same as the Internet radio sources from the WiiM Home App. After using both for a week, the Ultra wins hands down. They can both access the same Internet radio sources, both support manual URL, and playing the same station at the same stream resolution sounds identical on the Ultra [as expected unless OD really botched something up]. Where the Ultra wins hands down - usability

Using the WiiM HA to control the Internet radio sources, to me at least, seems to work pretty well and I found it far easier than using the remote control supplied with the Ocean Digital stand-alone radio device. I get album art on the Ultra, whereas the OD device only displays the station ID image. It does have quick access preset buttons on the front, but IMO they dropped the ball only including four and leaving a bunch of blank space that could've easily accommodated several more quick access preset buttons.

I believe a well implemented smart-app for something like this will almost always outshine a physical remote control. Given the $200 price-tag of the Ocean Digital WR-50, and that the Ultra IMHO does a far better job, makes our ROI on the Ultra that much more impressive

 

[d6jg]

For sheer range of stations you will be hard pressed to beat using a WiiM as a Squeezelite client for LMS.

LMS has a great BBC Sounds app, Radio Paradise both better than WiiMs, plus built in support for TuneIn and numerous plugins for other Radio aggregators. If you can find a playable url you can add that as well.