CD-quality music free for the taking
Question:
I was recently over at a friend's house for dinner and we were listening to music that was commercial free all night and it was great. I assumed he had a playlist put together of songs but he explained that it was an internet radio station. My question to you is how do I access good quality radio from the internet?
Answer:
Great question! The internet has a lot to offer and commercial free CD quality music is one of them.
Of course you have a lot of options when it comes to internet radio. Not all of it is commercial free, it really depends on the station but you certainly can find them. Since there are a lot of ways to access internet radio we will help you out by explaining a couple of easy free ways to getting the content.
If you have an iPod you probably have ITunes installed from apple (www.apple.com) if not it is a free download and Internet radio is built right into this program. Once ITunes is up and running simply click on the radio icon on the left hand side. This will give you a list of available genres. Simply click the one you want and browse throughout the stations.
Another option is Windows Media Player. If you have version 9 or greater of this program installed (can be achieved through windows update), internet radio is built into the player. Simply click the radio tuner icon on the left hand side and browse throughout all the stations. If you do not see this option you might have to put your player in "full mode". Simply click the view menu option at the top and select "full mode"
Finally if you use Winamp (www.winamp.com) simply visit www.shoutcast.com and browse throughout hundreds of stations around the world. If you do not have Winamp simply follow the link to download the free program.
Another thing to look at when you are selecting your station is the quality or "Bitrate". This is measured in "kbps" (Kilobytes Per Second). Radio stations that stream with a Bitrate of 128kbps or greater will be CD quality. Stations that are less then 128kbps will not be as clear. Anything less than 128kbps is generally geared towards people who do not have a fast internet connection or are having buffering issues with the higher quality stations. Just remember the higher the quality, the more demand the stations will have on your internet connection. Keep in mind that if you are downloading or using a program that demands a lot out of your internet connection and you are trying to listen to the radio at the same time you might experience problems as well.
In closing, although internet radio is great, it isn't perfect. You defiantly want to have a high speed internet connection to access the CD quality stations and some stations may be full or unavailable. Try multiple stations and soon you can weed out the reliable stations from the unreliable ones to improve your internet radio experience. Enjoy!
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