MOG for Squeezebox Announced

[fuzzyT]

Still gathering details. Blog post here:

http://blog.logitech.com/2011/11/08/...tch-your-moods

Blog down at the moment...

[fuzzyT]

It's in the App Gallery:

http://www.mysqueezebox.com/appgallery

On 11/8/11 10:09 AM, Ron Thigpen wrote:
> Still gathering details. Blog post here:
>
> http://blog.logitech.com/2011/11/08/...tch-your-moods
>
> Blog down at the moment...

[mkozlows]

Still gathering details. Blog post here:

I tried it out last night. I've had Rhapsody for some years, so that's the comparison I have. Main differences:

1. The sound quality is supposed to be better, at 320kbps vs. 192kbps, right? I think it was, but it was subtle enough that I couldn't swear that I'd pass a blind test. Slight win MOG.

2. The MOG Squeezebox UI is painfully bad compared to Rhapsody's. There's no way to do arbitrary browsing through genres (Rhapsody's genre browsing along with its key artists, top tracks, etc., make music discovery really great). Adding stuff to your favorites is only possible on an album (never a track) level, and not even consistently then.

2a. Your favorites/library behaves really weirdly: If you add an entire album to it, when you go in to view individual tracks, you don't see the songs from that album at all. But on the other hand, if you add an individual track from an album and go into the album view, you see its album but clicking on it gives you ALL the songs from that album. There's no way to see all the songs that you've chosen, and just the songs that you've chosen.

3. If you don't need mobile (phone) access, MOG is $5/month versus Rhapsody's $10/month. If you do want that, they're the same price at $10/month. (Rhapsody doesn't have a no-mobile plan.)

Upshot for me is that I'm cheap enough to probably go with MOG over Rhapsody for half the price, but if you want to use the mobile capabilities, Rhapsody is much better from a Squeezebox perspective, so I'd recommend that.

[regalma1]

I have had Spotify since it first came to the US. I love it but don't much care for the antiquated UI. So I signed up for a MOG trial. The UI on the web is much nicer. But using my Touch it is pretty much the same - rather lame. Ease of search is the single most important factor for me.

I ran a sound comparison between Spotify and MOG. The song I picked happened to be only 280 kbps on MOG but 320 on Spotify. Using my Touch and my Apogee mini DAC I couldn't pick up a difference with any certainty at all. I could fool myself easily enough. We all can and do that all the time. But once I forced myself to apply my best scientific discipline I had to admit I couldn't tell the difference.

I need to compare content next. That will be the deciding factor.

[mkozlows]

regalma, for search, the key is to get an Android (or presumably iOS) device with the app on it. Being able to search via actual keyboard is a huge, huge win.

[RGibran]

Adding stuff to your favorites is only possible on an album (never a track) level, and not even consistently then.

Long press on a now playing track brings up the 'more' window with options to add TRACK to favorites or playlist.

RG

[MeSue]

Adding stuff to your favorites is only possible on an album (never a track) level, and not even consistently then.

As RG said, you can add single songs from the track level context menu. This also gives you options to bookmark the album or artist. But yeah, Rhapsody it is easier because you don't have to drill down to track level for every option.

Upshot for me is that I'm cheap enough to probably go with MOG over Rhapsody for half the price, but if you want to use the mobile capabilities, Rhapsody is much better from a Squeezebox perspective, so I'd recommend that.

I'm gonna give it a little more time, and I still need to compare content, but I am leaning toward sticking with Rhapsody. Lack of browsing by genre is the whole reason I switched to Rhapsody after trying Spotify (my first on-demand music service experience). I also prefer how Rhapsody separates Singles and EPs from full-length albums. When you browse albums in MOG you can't tell if it's a single until you click into it and see only one song.

Really, my only complaint about Rhapsody is that the service overall does not support scrobbling, and when played through Squeezebox, Rhapsody channels are not scrobbled. If I do stick with Rhapsody I will likely add a paid subscription to either Last.fm or Slacker Basic to have a better radio option.

[mkozlows]

Long press on a now playing track brings up the 'more' window with options to add TRACK to favorites or playlist.

Thanks! That's good to know, and I hadn't thought to try it on the now playing list. (I did try it on the track listing, but it only brought up a menu with "None" as an option there.)

EDIT: By the way, I just went to cancel my Rhapsody subscription, as MOG had tipped over into usable-enough given this little tip, and they offered me "Rhapsody Basic" for $4.99. This turns out to be the same as MOG's $5 plan -- no mobile, but does work on Squeezebox, apparently -- so given the better UI of Rhapsody, I ended up switching to that at the same price and canceling MOG instead.

[MeSue]

I just went to cancel my Rhapsody subscription, as MOG had tipped over into usable-enough given this little tip, and they offered me "Rhapsody Basic" for $4.99. This turns out to be the same as MOG's $5 plan -- no mobile, but does work on Squeezebox, apparently -- so given the better UI of Rhapsody, I ended up switching to that at the same price and canceling MOG instead.

Good to know! I will factor that into my decision, as I'm still debating which to go with. I like the option to have mobile, but the reality is, I hardly ever use the mobile app, and could probably live without it.

[rgro]

I gave it a try.....no problem with getting it up and running---sort of. I liked the sound quality, but it was completely unusable for me. I experienced constant rebuffering which I suspect might have been due to the combination of the high bit rate and my "lowly" DSL connection. So, unfortunately, I had to cancel the free trial after just a couple of days.

I don't experience any problems with Pandora, Sky, etc. Every once in a while I get a little bout of rebuffering w/Rhapsody, but it's infrequent and when it does occur, it's typically around early evening/peak usage times. Too bad, I was kinda' hoping MOG would work out.......