I just got my new Slacker G2 Portable Player…

[Manco]

How do you guys have time for all these different devices? I have trouble getting enough listening time for Sirius or my MP3 player. DAB I think you have:
XM
Sirius
Rhapsody
Pandora
iPod touch
Slacker

I'm sure I'm missing a few things so feel free to correct

 

[DAB]

For me I listen to XM mainly in my vehicle since I have XM OEM installed. Sirius I listen to via my Stiletto, usually take it and listen at work.

My iPod touch, I use it mainly for my PDA because of the email, calendar, to do list, just to name a few, but occasionally I will plug it into my Soloist at the office and listen to Pandora, I also sometimes listen to Pandora at night, the meditation/relaxation channel I created on there is better than anything on SIRIUS or XM. Though I have now finally created one on Slacker that is pretty close. I've been working on it for 2 days now.

Since I just got Slacker, It will be integrated it in my listening day. In fact I actually think once these Sirius XM music channels get merged between the 2 services, I will likely cancel one or the other. (Most likely Sirius since I can get the best of Sirius on my XM tuner and that will give me NFL which is all I'd probably be interested after the channels merge)

The only services I pay for right now is Sirius, XM and Slacker. Pandora is free, Rhapsody is on a free year transfer from Yahoo. There are many services available on the iPod Touch like AOL Radio, Flycast/AccuRadio just to name a few. I don't much care for AOL Radio and Flycast/AccuRadio has so many channels it just overwhelming to even use.

Right now I can honestly say Slacker is leading the way for me. I listen to Sirius for awhile tonight and I thought.. wow how stale is this. I really am sick of these small playlist that honestly do get very, very stale. No such problem with Slacker though!

 

[MikeV]

Right now I can honestly say Slacker is leading the way for me. I listen to Sirius for awhile tonight and I thought.. wow how stale is this. I really am sick of these small playlist that honestly do get very, very stale. No such problem with Slacker though!

The exact reason I cancelled my XM. The writing's on the wall... just a few more days before I have a feeling others will be making the same change I have already made...

The great thing about Slacker is that the playlist is as deep or shallow as you want it to be! Add or remove artists, control artist discovery, and more! On professionally programmed stations, you can favorite or ban artists, allowing you customization of those stations as well.

 

[hank-the-dwarf]

The exact reason I cancelled my XM. The writing's on the wall... just a few more days before I have a feeling others will be making the same change I have already made...

The great thing about Slacker is that the playlist is as deep or shallow as you want it to be! Add or remove artists, control artist discovery, and more! On professionally programmed stations, you can favorite or ban artists, allowing you customization of those stations as well.

This is why i canceled sirius and listen to pandora at work-i'm stil playing around with slacker-with an mp3 player with enough memory hooked up to your car there is no need for satrad(unless your driving cross country).

 

[MNXMFan]

The exact reason I cancelled my XM. The writing's on the wall... just a few more days before I have a feeling others will be making the same change I have already made...

The great thing about Slacker is that the playlist is as deep or shallow as you want it to be! Add or remove artists, control artist discovery, and more! On professionally programmed stations, you can favorite or ban artists, allowing you customization of those stations as well.

I completely agree. I haven't listened to XM's music channels since I picked up the G2 a week and a half ago. I know its not perfect, but it beats XM in both audio quality and music selection.

 

[YoureOnTheAir]

Last night in about 30 minutes I went ahead and created 3 Christmas Channels on Pandora. I just think Pandora system is better at this point. In my test I was blown away by these channels I created. I've just not experienced that with Slacker.

Ha Ha Ha That's funny I did the same today one Traditonal Christmas music and a Country Christmas. I wont listen all the time right now but love the thought that its there. I wish there was one channel on Sirius that started early a lot of Terr. stations start this week. I have always believed that if you don't like it you don't have to listen. I know a lot of people voice their concern against this. Either way, hope sirius gets a channel before Thanksgiving. Ho Ho Ho!

 

[squigy0]

I have spent hours with Slacker and I have just been unable to get the same level of customization for the created channels that I can with Pandora. I am interested in the G2, but not until I can get some customized stations that actually play what I want. Maybe it just takes longer to get them customized.

I actually lost a potential convert to Slacker because of the extra work that it does take to customize your stations to just the right fit. I talked with people in the forums when I was getting way too many repeats and they set me down the right path. I know now to get your stations the way you want them you have to:
1. Set Discovery on the channel to minimal. I started with no Discovery and was hearing the same artists and same songs repeatedly. Setting Discovery any higher than that will likely yield unwanted results

2. Adding as many artists as humanly possible also helps, although if you go with at least 20+ with Discovery as described above, you're in much better shape.

3. Consistently listen to and tweak the channel. I notice that a channel I was listening to quite frequently and LOVEing and BANning and adding new artists to on occasion was hitting EXACTLY the taste that I wanted when I was listening to it daily, but after I stopped listening to it for a couple weeks and came back (this is of course after several syncs), the music just started getting "weird" on me

Any suggstions would be nice. One of the biggest issues is that there are a lot of New Age music that just isn't available and in fact the artist don't even exist on Slacker. I am a huge New Age fan and having a channel like this is an absolute must.

Definitely mention that in their forums. Staff members are always watching and interacting and can add those artists.

Last night in about 30 minutes I went ahead and created 3 Christmas Channels on Pandora. I just think Pandora system is better at this point. In my test I was blown away by these channels I created. I've just not experienced that with Slacker.

Luckily, Slacker just put up their in-house holiday channels. Which by the way their programmers are also readily accessible in the forums and do quite an impressive job (I've msg'ed with the "PD" of the UK Hits and UK Indie channels numerous times and his playlists blow U-Pop out of the water)

 

[Rev. Jim]

After creating a Slacker station, one has to tweak it every so often. I'm new to their system, but I've found it to be very responsive to the changes in the three stations I created.

Now I just have to get a G2 ...

 

[MikeJW]

As far as finding time to listen to different services, here's what I have: I discovered Slacker around March of this year and signed up for the Premium service and I have loved it. A few weeks ago I ordered the G2 and am really impressed. It's very simple to use, yet does a lot of great things.

Since using Slacker, I've cancelled my XM account and now just have Sirius (with best of xm). Also, I've cut down from 2 receivers with Sirius, to just 1. I listen to Sirius in my car with my one receiver and I subscribe to Premium Internet to listen to Sirius at home.

I'm loving Slacker and love Sirius for NFL, Howard, the NHL channel, and a few more channels on Sirius. With cancelling my XM account and cutting down to 1 Sirius receiver, that more than pays for my yearly Slacker subscription and I still get the best of both worlds.

Mike

 

[jmcmahan]

With the Slacker G2 do you have the ability to download individual tracks or albums via wi-fi?

 

[DAB]

I actually lost a potential convert to Slacker because of the extra work that it does take to customize your stations to just the right fit. I talked with people in the forums when I was getting way too many repeats and they set me down the right path. I know now to get your stations the way you want them you have to:

Thanks that is a great post and those suggestion appear to be right on. The one thing I've learned too is sometimes you can tweak what is played on a given station by simply adding a song or to by a particular artist. I am learning fairly quickly now. I still think Pandora has a bit better system for building stations, but Slacker does the job. My one bone to pick is that for example you want to create a new age christmas channel. There is no way to tell it you want the holiday version of music from the artist you select. Seems there needs to be a way to do this. For example with Pandora you simply type Jim Brickman (Holiday) It then only pulls holiday selections into that channel. I played with Slacker last night and I was able to go in and select artist and favor specific christmas songs to make a station. But then you are stuck with those artist and those songs. If you select artist discovery then bam, it starts adding music that isn't christmas music at all.

With the Slacker G2 do you have the ability to download individual tracks or albums via wi-fi?

You can't download full albums, but you can download individual tracks provided that Slacker has the license to do so. I find there are a good many songs that you can't download individually. There are also some that you can download via the web player that you can't download via the Slacker Player.

 

[Bigrock]

Whew, I just read all 10 pages and ths thing sounds sweet as I am SO sick of the same sh*t everyday on Sirius. Can I do the online thing and create some stations before I buy a G2 and how much is the cost a month?

 

[hank-the-dwarf]

Whew, I just read all 10 pages and ths thing sounds sweet as I am SO sick of the same sh*t everyday on Sirius. Can I do the online thing and create some stations before I buy a G2 and how much is the cost a month?

Yes you can create stations online now-dont kow how much sub is but there is a free version.

 

[DoublEE]

Whew, I just read all 10 pages and ths thing sounds sweet as I am SO sick of the same sh*t everyday on Sirius. Can I do the online thing and create some stations before I buy a G2 and how much is the cost a month?

Go to Slacker.com, create an account and start setting up your stations. The Basic plan is free and the Premium Plan is as little as $7.50/month.

 

[TX WJ]

Ok guys I have read all the posted reviews and the FAQ at Slacker.

Can I get podcasts on this thing?

It is this vs a XMP3, and I know that I can record the talk content that I want so that is the difference maker for me.

 

[DAB]

The Slacker is not the device you want if your primary interest is talk.

 

[TX WJ]

The Slacker is not the device you want if your primary interest is talk.

Does it not do podcasts at all?

 

[DAB]

Not automatically, you can download them as MP3's and them copy them to the device. But there is no bookmarking or anything like that. This device IS for music from my experiences of playing with it.

 

[TX WJ]

Not automatically, you can download them as MP3's and them copy them to the device. But there is no bookmarking or anything like that. This device IS for music from my experiences of playing with it.

Thanks

 

[Bigrock]

Wow, after a hour I like it. It is like Sirius 2002.