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Slacker vs Spotify

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wayner

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,294
1,787
Toronto
I take delivery of my Model S in 28 days. For a few months I have been using Spotify for music and I subscribe to their premium service. How does Slacker compare to Spotify? Is the Slacker service available on the Tesla a premium service without restrictions and ads? If not can you upgrade the Slacker service on your Tesla to be a premium service? I guess the advantage of Slacker is that it is coming over the car's 3G connection so Tesla is paying the data fees, correct?

If I want to continue to use Spotify I guess I would have to do that through my phone - what are my connection options? Is Bluetooth the way to go? Or am I better off plugging in via USB or headphone jack?
 
I take delivery of my Model S in 28 days. For a few months I have been using Spotify for music and I subscribe to their premium service. How does Slacker compare to Spotify? Is the Slacker service available on the Tesla a premium service without restrictions and ads? If not can you upgrade the Slacker service on your Tesla to be a premium service? I guess the advantage of Slacker is that it is coming over the car's 3G connection so Tesla is paying the data fees, correct?

If I want to continue to use Spotify I guess I would have to do that through my phone - what are my connection options? Is Bluetooth the way to go? Or am I better off plugging in via USB or headphone jack?


The only way to play music off of your phone is via the car's bluetooth connection... otherwise another music file option is through the usb port, but that only works with USB flash drives, not phones. Currently there isn't Apple/Android specific music integration. There is no headphone/aux jack in the car. There are no ads on the Model S Slacker, but its "only" a three year subscription. I believe that you can log in with your own account if you wish, though (or maybe that's TuneIn, I'd have to check).
 
I have never heard an ad with Slacker in the car. I also obtained the log in from Tesla and use it in my office all day so I can reject songs/artists I never want to hear again on their stations and on my own custom stations.

If you really want to continue using Spotify, I'd use bluetooth all day. But personally....I love Slacker and never used it prior to buying the Tesla. I see no reason to use anything else.
 
Do you get the "full" Slacker service as in the ability to play full albums, playlists, etc in any order that you want? Or is it a restricted servcie with some limitations?

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I have never heard an ad with Slacker in the car. I also obtained the log in from Tesla and use it in my office all day so I can reject songs/artists I never want to hear again on their stations and on my own custom stations.

If you really want to continue using Spotify, I'd use bluetooth all day. But personally....I love Slacker and never used it prior to buying the Tesla. I see no reason to use anything else.
Great, thanks. Unless someone else has better information it appears that Slacker and Spotify are pretty similar services so there is no point in continuing to use Spotify if Slacker is integrated into the car and I am not paying for the data delivery!
 
Do you get the "full" Slacker service as in the ability to play full albums, playlists, etc in any order that you want? Or is it a restricted servcie with some limitations?

No, you cannot play full albums or play just one artist or choose the order. The feature set is somewhere between the free version and Slacker Premium. I started by listening to one of their built-in stations, then had very liberal use of the dislike button during a couple 15 hour road trips. I never hear songs I don't like on that station anymore, and that's good enough for me.

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Great, thanks. Unless someone else has better information it appears that Slacker and Spotify are pretty similar services so there is no point in continuing to use Spotify if Slacker is integrated into the car and I am not paying for the data delivery!

I'd agree.
 
I would recommend switching if you aren't attached to Spotify. The options are very similar and libraries about the same. Slacker has two subscription types, the one that comes with your Tesla is the a special version of the Plus subscription. I say that because normally with Plus, you can not request a song on demand. If you subscribe to premium or have your own login, you can change the login information for the Slacker radio in your car. Most options seem to work via the car, but for some reason repeat or going back a song does not.
 
Do you get the "full" Slacker service as in the ability to play full albums, playlists, etc in any order that you want? Or is it a restricted servcie with some limitations?
It's restricted, similar to the Slacker Radio Plus options. You get commercial free streaming with unlimited skips, but you can only select a "station" based on an artist or song, not a particular album. I enjoy getting introduced to new artists who are similar (in someone's judgement) to the artist I specified, but it's not nearly the same control as Slacker Premium.
 
to avoid chewing through all our data while on a road trip over thanksgiving, we had to stop listening to Pandora via blue tooth from our phone and rely on slacker. I have really tried to like slacker but I have to say that this last trip confirmed proof positive, why I keep going back to pandora. we created radio stations from our favorites on Pandora and found that all too often, the selection of mixed music was too unrelated. for instance, we've been really enjoying a group called Random Rab. Pandora does a great job of mixing compatible music with a given artist "radio station". Slacker mixed totally unrelated and incompatible music, we ended up randomly hearing a thrash metal song or punk band mixed in or some random pop tune from an unrelated genre. it didn't matter how many times we thumbed down a band or song, it just kept happening. we were able to find a few stations that worked well enough on slacker but generally I'm sold on Pandora+, they have my tastes nailed. I tried spotify and it works fine, but since I had already invested heavily in "training" the stations on pandora, it was just not worth the work to switch.
 
I had not experienced Slacker before I got the MS. It is better than Pandora, as it will play what ever song I request at that time and build a channel around it. I have satellite in another vehicle. Still love that. But no need with Slacker in the MS. love the flexibility and ability to play on demand. The only challenge has been when I drive to areas without 3G coverage. I then use the Bluetooth connection and play music from my phone. Not the same fidelity, but at least we have great music in remote areas.
 
100thMonkey: We too like Pandora for it's ability to match our musical interests with music. If you have a Pandora One account you could record Pandora streams from your computer to a USB device for use when in low/no 3G connectivity. There are several ways to accomplish this and some allow .flac files to be built. Pandora One delivers music at 196 kBs so you are starting at less than CD quality however, my .flac files sound pretty good in the car.
 
When I log into my Slacker account on the web, it tells me that my subscription expires in Feb 2015, which is roughly a one-year subscription. So maybe I need to call a Tesla about that & inquire if it ought to be longer.

While led I can't help the OP as I've never used Spotify, I will say that I was a Pandora user from the word go, and IMHO Slacker is much better than Pandora in terms of generating what I call "coherent" genre-based stations. With Pandora, it seems like I needed to constantly be in range to hit thumbs down, otherwise my finely-crafted stations would auger into the ground. I very rarely have to use the ghostbusters button in Slacker.

The Slacker web interface lets you define seeds, bans, etc similar to Pandora. But with Slacker there are also nerd knobs (well, sliders) that you can use to really fine-tune each station.

When my subscription is up (whenever that in fact is) I plan on telling Slacker to shut up & take my money. I think it's one of the greatest things about the car. I just hope I can have Slacker point my existing account to a more useful email address at that time, and that Tesla eventually updates the app to take advantage of the enhanced functionality of the Premium package for those who want to go that route.