slotRadio on Sansa Fuze!

Radio Shack is having a special on the Slot Radio cards this week: $29.95. Now, I’m all about loading my own music and making my own playlists, and I’m the first to cry “foul” when a company tells me I can’t do what I want with MY music, but you have to admit this is a great deal for 1,000 songs.

As someone else pointed out, you don’t have control over what songs are on it, but it’s the same as listening to a radio station…except you have the choice to “skip” when you don’t like the song…and no ads of course. I may give the “Oldies” card a shot as it’s one of the few playlists I don’t currently have.

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Sansa Fuze 4gb

Sansa Clip 2gb x 4

Sansa Shaker (gave it away to my niece)

At Radio Shack (Rip Shack) I’ve bought two cards at $40, so $30 sounds great to me. Each time, I’ve gotten a $10 coupon toward my next purchase by completing a survey. If you need a second thing from RS before they expire you might buy something cheap first, do the survey, then buy the card with the coupon … I did not.

The songs on these cards are ripped at 128bit, according to the file info I find using the Fuze. The file info is available in the audiobooks section, not the music section when using the SR cards. I can hear the diff in quality, but since most the old rock was junk anyway, there’s little loss IMO. These cards work fine for background noise while you exercise, work in the yard, paint the dining room, wait for the kids at school, or to give others a taste of the old music.

The Health and Fitness card I got my wife is only palatable for that purpose, IMO, since the consistent beat from song to song drives me batty. Listen to the Cardio track: did someone modify these songs or did they really sound this way? I could only take a few minutes, but it’s just what wife needs.

Sandisk might be discontinuing the Slotmusic cards and replacing them with Slotmusic+ cards. The Slotmusic+ cards are basically the same as the Slotmusic cards, except that they have 4 GB of free space where you can put your own songs.

shelded wrote:

. . . but since most the old rock was junk anyway, there’s little loss IMO.

Heyyyy! Old rock was (& still is) THE rock. What passes for ‘rock’ these days wouldn’t make a decent pimple on Gene Simmon’s, Ted Nugent’s, or Sammy Haggar’s butt! :dizzy_face:

Well, I was too curious and took advantage of the $29.95 sale of slotRadio at Radio Shack and bought one (Oldies).  And am I surprised!  I was always skeptical of this concept because you can’t store the music anywhere else and you can’t rewind the music (you can pause and go forward).  But, it does in fact play like a radio!  And it does takes me down memory lane.  I actually found that I have no interest in storing the music anywhere else, because all the songs have already been played in my head a hundred times anyway.  And if I REALLY wanted to have a copy, I can always buy it at Amazon.  It sometimes play songs which I’ve forgotten or haven’t heard for a long time.  But, there are also some songs that I don’t care much for, so I just skip them.

So, it plays like a radio (but I can pause it, and there are no commercials).  For that, I think it’s worth 3 cents a song.  I also think that if I didn’t know the majority of the songs, I wouldn’t buy it.  Listening to old songs is fun.  I’ll probably be using this mostly as background music at work.  

If you’re thinking of buying one, it’s categorized into seven playlists (love songs, rock oldies, country oldies, R&B oldies, pop oldies, motor city (motown), and jukebox (which seems to be their miscellaneous).  You get to jump from playlist to playlist.  And it will resume the music that was playing in that playlist.  I haven’t gotten to the end of a playlist yet, so I don’t know if it would stop or loop.  Oh, and you’re not stuck with the radio, you can always go back to Music, Video or FM mode on your player.  

So, surprisingly, I’m enjoying this slotRadio!  I think for 3 cents a song, you can’t really go wrong…  and it’s kinda fun!

Update:  I’ve listened to quite a few songs now.  Some selections are good, some are not.  I like the fact that you can switch playlists.  The lower button for “Next” is a little confusing, because that’s usually the button for menu.   I’d say 15% of the songs are recogniziably good, 80% are so-so, and 5% are just filler songs.  Regardless, it’s still good as background music.

By the way, for those who like this kind of concept, try Pandora.com.  It’s really a continuous playlist radio station on the internet, except that it plays music on a relational basis – and it’s free.  Once you select your kind of music, it just keeps on going.  Their selections are pretty good.

ggin1
Message Edited by ggin1 on 02-26-2010 02:28 PM

Does anyone know if the new slotRadio+ cards ( http://slotradio.com/mobile ) work in the Sansa Fuze and/or Clip+?

yes, slotradio+ cards will work with all slotradio compatible sansa players. 

No one is really buying these slotRadio cards. And why would anyone in their right mind pay $40, $30 or even $20 for 1,000 low-quality MP3 songs curated by Billboard magazine execs, in a player that doesn’t even have a back button? 

The fastest growing physical media format for music is vinyl. And this is not the crappy, mass-market vinyl that our parents bought, but high-quality audiophile vinyl.

The only problem is that you can’t take your turntable to the gym. And while these high quality vinyls sound pretty good on the Sansa Fuze w/Rockbox when they’re ripped to 24-bit, 

the 8GB internal memory will only hold a handful of albums, and even with a 16 gb card, will only play a few hours or HD-music.

So Sandisk should kill slotRadio and instead upgrade their Fuze to an ‘HD’ model that will have the following:

  1. Ability to play 24-bit/96 KHZ Flac natively

  2. 64 GB internal memory

  3. Handle the new 64 GB cards.

While the audiophile market is somewhat limited, they are passionate about their music and will purchase lots of cards so they can take their vinyl collections on the go.

Think about the 70’s and 80’s and all of the Maxell/TDK tapes that were sold.

And while the Cloud is here to stay, it will be a while before the bandwidth can stream HD-quality music.

Message Edited by databass on 06-18-2010 07:51 PM

databass wrote: No one is really buying these slotRadio cards. And why would anyone in their right mind pay $40, $30 or even $20 for 1,000 low-quality MP3 songs curated by Billboard magazine execs, in a player that doesn’t even have a back button? The fastest growing physical media format for music is vinyl. And this is not the crappy, mass-market vinyl that our parents bought, but high-quality audiophile vinyl.The only problem is that you can’t take your turntable to the gym. And while these high quality vinyls sound pretty good on the Sansa Fuze w/Rockbox when they’re ripped to 24-bit, 

the 8GB internal memory will only hold a handful of albums, and even with a 16 gb card, will only play a few hours or HD-music.

 

So Sandisk should kill slotRadio and instead upgrade their Fuze to an ‘HD’ model that will have the following:

 

  1. Ability to play 24-bit/96 KHZ Flac natively
  1. 64 GB internal memory
  1. Handle the new 64 GB cards.

 

While the audiophile market is somewhat limited, they are passionate about their music and will purchase lots of cards so they can take their vinyl collections on the go.

 

Think about the 70’s and 80’s and all of the Maxell/TDK tapes that were sold.

 

And while the Cloud is here to stay, it will be a while before the bandwidth can stream HD-quality music.

 


You’re wasting your time. The “audiophile” crowd you speak of is a miniscule part of the market, and there’s no way SanDisk is going to release a player that has 64GB internal memory and supports SDXC cards…their focus is on budget-oriented players…we’re just fortunate that they sound great!

Face it, the vast majority of consumers are perfectly happy with 8-16GB players…and they’re buying iPods, which also don’t play these ridiculous 24/96 files. I personally wouldn’t buy a SlotRadio card, but from what I understand, they are well-encoded MP3 files at a high bitrate…so by your standards they may be “low-quality”, but to most Sansa owners they would sound just fine.

Even when a Rockbox developer here and at ABI  explained to you how silly the 24/96 files are, you still don’t seem to believe…and that’s OK. But we get the point about you wanting support for 24/96…you don’t need to post it in every single thread!

@databass; For an audiophile you have fingers in your ears. You say “no one is really buying” but
plenty of testimony here contradicts that; I own two. “Why would anyone buy” has already
been explained, and you’re not listening. You don’t have to agree with it or buy one but

a series of reasonable rebuttals to your objections has already been given.

I was a TDK user in the 70’s/80’s, tweaked my bias & EQ on my three-head cassette decks.
I can hear the poorer quality of the 128kb SR cards, but I have my FLAC files on my other
cards and don’t require everything playing all the time. Sorry, no support on this point
here from me.

OK, support for larger cards is a welcome feature but I bet they thunk that already.

I really wonder, if you could take your vinyl-quality sound to the gym, would your S/N
be able to get over the sound of your heavy breathing and body movements?

Are you concentrating on your workout at all? That usage sounds unrealistic even

if it were possible.


I am even finding a use for the Chillout track; it puts me to sleep.

Imo Slotradio would be much more popular if the players allowed the user to mark disliked songs so they won’t play. The Slotradio To Go player using a AAA battery would be a good idea if it had a display, much better navigation, and sound quality equal to the Clip+, while still keeping the price with a card under $50.

Message Edited by JK98 on 06-20-2010 01:39 AM

JK, please find another dead horse to beat. You’ve made it ABUNDANTLY clear you want Sandisk to return to using user-replaceable batteries. Move on.

Message Edited by gwk1967 on 06-20-2010 01:21 AM

gwk1967 wrote:

JK, please find another dead horse to beat. You’ve made it ABUNDANTLY clear you want Sandisk to return to using user-replaceable batteries. Move on.

Message Edited by gwk1967 on 06-20-2010 01:21 AM

Did someone mention beating a dead horse? :wink:

“JK, please find another dead horse to beat. You’ve made it ABUNDANTLY clear you want Sandisk to return to using user-replaceable batteries. Move on.”

It almost seems like Sandisk released the Slotmusic player and Slotradio To Go player to taunt those of use who want a AA or AAA battery based player, knowing that we won’t be satisfied with the lack of a display and much lower sound quality than the Clip+ or Fuze.

JK98 wrote:

It almost seems like Sandisk released the Slotmusic player and Slotradio To Go player to taunt those of use who want a AA or AAA battery based player, knowing that we won’t be satisfied with the lack of a display and much lower sound quality than the Clip+ or Fuze.

That’s right, SanDisk introduced these 2 players specifically so you’d have something to ■■■■■ about on the forums.

JK98 wrote:

It almost seems like Sandisk released the Slotmusic player and Slotradio To Go player to taunt those of use who want a AA or AAA battery based player, knowing that we won’t be satisfied with the lack of a display and much lower sound quality than the Clip+ or Fuze.

That’s right, SanDisk introduced these 2 players specifically so you’d have something to ■■■■■ about on the forums.

I think you’re missing the point.  SlotRadio was designed as a handy way to get 1000 songs at a great price, with the concept of being like a radio experience, without the need to download, and the requisite price-per-song.

As a compromise, you get the music in a rotating playlist of various genres.  It’s very much like Rhapsody’s Channels feature.  I like the Channels functionality in comparison: as a subscriber, as I can pick tracks from the channels to add to the Sansa’s library.  It’s different with slotRadio.  The tracks cannot be manually accessed, they run in sequence, like listening to radio.  No DJs, no ads, and no reception problems either!

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

Yep, just as it says: “A thousand songs on a tiny card. That’s Slot Radio.”

(that’s my attempt to duplicate what the 5-second ad says every few weeks on my card)

my fuze doesn’t have that catagory on the menu but my cousin’s fuze does.

“my fuze doesn’t have that catagory on the menu but my cousin’s fuze does.”

 If you update the firmware on your player, it will have it as well. The earlier Fuze firmware doesn’t support Slotradio, while one firmware version only shows the Slotradio menu choice when a Slotradio card is installed. The newest firmware version has Slotradio in the menu all the time.