Rdio vs Simfy vs Rara vs Deezer in SA

There's a few factors that is a bit more important to consider though.

I've not tested all these services, but between Deezer and Rdio:

1. Deezer can cache your music on your PC so you can play it offline, Rdio can't. Both have offline modes on Mobile though.

2. Rdio have a Pandora like "exploration" station effect where you pick a song and it continuously generate more songs to play based on the songs you're busy playing and whether you thumbed up/thumbed down songs.

Deezer does not have this but have predefined playlists/stations. This was a dealbreaker difference for me, i like to discover new music and i don't want to make manual playlists to play songs all the time, so being able to just pick a song and have the rest picked for me on Rdio works great.

3. I've actually found more Afrikaans music on Deezer than Rdio.

Also something to amusingly note, it's cheaper , much much cheaper, to sign up as a South African than a USA/UK person (R60 vs. $10) .
 
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I'll always try and have my favourite albums available locally in my own collection, but I find services like these really convenient. As diabolus said, it's awesome to discover new stuff, or listen to that occasional track that you can't be bothered to own. I'm fortunate to have wifi at home and work, so only need mobile data when using it in the car :p
 
Pretty weird that this article appeared a few hours after I started a thread about Simfy...

diabolus said:
There's a few factors that is a bit more important to consider though.

I've not tested all these services, but between Deezer and Rdio:

1. Deezer can cache your music on your PC so you can play it offline, Rdio can't. Both have offline modes on Mobile though.

2. Rdio have a Pandora like "exploration" station effect where you pick a song and it continuously generate more songs to play based on the songs you're busy playing and whether you thumbed up/thumbed down songs.

Deezer does not have this but have predefined playlists/stations. This was a dealbreaker difference for me, i like to discover new music and i don't want to make manual playlists to play songs all the time, so being able to just pick a song and have the rest picked for me on Rdio works great.

3. I've actually found more Afrikaans music on Deezer than Rdio.

Also something to amusingly note, it's cheaper , much much cheaper, to sign up as a South African than a USA/UK person (R60 vs. $10) .
Click to expand...

More points to consider:

- Deezer only offers website access and a Modern UI app for PC
- Simfy has a 'radio' feature that functions identically to 'exploration'
- Simfy can make any album or playlist available offline, both on PC and mobile
- Simfy has loads of local music
- Simfy can be completely free for a long time if you just get some friends and family to sign up with your unique link
- Rdio is widely criticised for the poor quality of their music
 
So which service functions the best with limited bandwidth?

I also found that the Rdio app does not support the ART runtime in Android 4.4 which is currently a deal-breaker for me. Not sure about the rest.

I didn't find the Simfy app very intuitive but that was quite a while back. Will check it out again.


@MyBroadband - what about a detailed test of all four and a nice comparison article?

Bryn26, where's your thread?
 
ebendl said:
So which service functions the best with limited bandwidth?

I also found that the Rdio app does not support the ART runtime in Android 4.4 which is currently a deal-breaker for me. Not sure about the rest.

I didn't find the Simfy app very intuitive but that was quite a while back. Will check it out again.


@MyBroadband - what about a detailed test of all four and a nice comparison article?

Bryn26, where's your thread?
Click to expand...

It's here. Originally I was just punting Simfy, but the discussion has since expanded.

The Simfy Android app could be better, but it works perfectly in the ways I need it to (ie. snappy streaming, fast downloading, working playlist access and good audio quality).
 
So far, I've used Simfy and Rdio.

At the moment, I prefer Rdio. Mainly for it's mobile app, which is much better then Simfy's. In terms of the music I listen to, I've found that they're pretty much similar, I could find some stuff on the one that wasn't on the other, and vice versa. Simfy does have better support for local music though, but then I purchase local music on CD usually, so that's not too much of an issue.

In terms of the mobile apps, Simfy frustrated me by sometimes losing my offline synced albums, which I had to redownload again. So far, that hasn't happened with Rdio. Also, Rdio would scrobble all my tracks to Last.FM regardless of whether I had a data connection, caching the scrobbles for later, whereas Simfy only would scrobble when I had a data connection, no caching.

I must still try out Deezer and Rara though, although I doubt I'll try Rara seeing as there's no free trial.
 
Bryn26 said:
It's here. Originally I was just punting Simfy, but the discussion has since expanded.

The Simfy Android app could be better, but it works perfectly in the ways I need it to (ie. snappy streaming, fast downloading, working playlist access and good audio quality).
Click to expand...

I've been using Simfy for a couple of months (desktop and 2x mobile) and so far so good. The UI is a little irritating to use imo but I'm guessing that's a user issue from my side more than anything else. Until today I had never heard of Deezer - I'm going to take it for a spin before I get too entrenched in my Simfy setup. Maybe end up saving R0.01 while I'm at it :erm:
 
Spotify?

Am I missing something here? Or are all these services accessible to South Africa?

Assuming you already using a VPN service like UnoTelly, surely Spotify is a viable option.
 
ph4t3 said:
Spotify?

Am I missing something here? Or are all these services accessible to South Africa?

Assuming you already using a VPN service like UnoTelly, surely Spotify is a viable option.
Click to expand...

Simfy, Deezer, Rdio and Rara work in SA without any need for DNS trickery. Spotify would suck because of the issues on mobile.
 
Bryn26 said:
Simfy, Deezer, Rdio and Rara work in SA without any need for DNS trickery. Spotify would suck because of the issues on mobile.
Click to expand...

Once you have signed up for the premium option in Spotify using a proxy you can use that account anywhere in the world without jumping through hoops.

Spotify works really well on mobile in South Africa. I have spotify on my phone set to download over wifi only. My "top 100 rock tunes" playlist updates ever few days, and when I'm listening with no wifi it uses almost no bandwidth. Deezer on the other hand used 300mb of my mobile bandwidth when it was downloading and my wifi went offline. Ouch!!!

Its definitely a better product than the rest but it works out at almost twice the price (proxy, USD price, Credit card bypasses etc)
 
I've tried Rara and Rdio

At first I really loved Rara, but their mobile app is prone to crash and sometimes doesn't always play the next track, which is probably due to my internet connection (2mb) BUT with that said I have never experienced a similar bug on Rdio. Rdio has a much better app, light on the eye and easy to use, though I don't always like what the radio function chooses for me.

Also I've noticed MANY more of those pathetic territory restrictions on Rdio than I did Rara, but there's enough music available to work around it.
 
Spotify! I only use Spotify, even on my iPhone while gymming
 
elp said:
Once you have signed up for the premium option in Spotify using a proxy you can use that account anywhere in the world without jumping through hoops.

Spotify works really well on mobile in South Africa. I have spotify on my phone set to download over wifi only. My "top 100 rock tunes" playlist updates ever few days, and when I'm listening with no wifi it uses almost no bandwidth. Deezer on the other hand used 300mb of my mobile bandwidth when it was downloading and my wifi went offline. Ouch!!!

Its definitely a better product than the rest but it works out at almost twice the price (proxy, USD price, Credit card bypasses etc)
Click to expand...

That's interesting, although Simfy can accomplish the same task for much less. My Simfy app is also set to only download over wifi, and it only uses 87MB an hour on high quality (192kbps) and even less on normal quality (128kbps), the latter of which is great for when 3G is required. I seldom have to worry about that though as I'm diligent about sorting my offline playlists.
 
If anyone wants a full free month with Simfy (instead of the usual 14 day trial) as a new member, you can help both me and yourself out (I also get a free month) by signing up using this link:

https://www.simfyafrica.com/launchp...en?token=CB308773-197C-457F-9783-6979290D2C3C

It will require payment details, but you can choose cellphone billing which only requires a valid cell number. It takes a few seconds to confirm the transaction with your phone and is completely free. Simfy will confirm that billing only commences after the trial. Once your account is active, just go to the billing screen on their website and opt out. I've done this with both my brothers and it took about 2 minutes each.
 
Been using simfy for a month and loving it. Download to my iphone and listen on the go
 
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