Internet radio stations that sound really good


There are 3 I have found whose sound quality stands out.

Bartok Radio Budapest, classical channel which broadcasts at 256 kbps mp3.

Big Blue Radio, 128 kbps AAC+ laid back classic rock channel. You can get the stream off of Shoutcast.com without having to register with their web site.

Great Radio, 160 kbps mp3. Classic rock that rocks. I can only find them at Shoutcast.com. They sound awfully good for 160 kbps mp3.
128x128dnewhous
I listen to KCSM.org all the time on the internet ! The station is broadcast from California !
I just noticed Mountain Chill out of Colorado, shows 96k on my Wyred 4 Sound dac playing through my squeezebox touch.
To Mapman,

In French "tubes" means "hits," so the station radioclassique tubes plays the "hits" of classical music.

Although there is no connection to electronic tubes, I agree that it is one of the better sounding internet radio stations. However, you have to endure a lot of talking compared to some other classical music internet radio stations.
Yes, I like Radio Paradise, but I don't understand the need for any signal processing other than R128gain or equivalent.
OK.... Here is a great suggestion.

#1: One Apple TV Internet box. Many APP's. including "Radio" $100.00

#2: One Tube Dac. Mine is a Jolida Glass Tube Dac/2. $490.00

#3: One good quality Toslink. Mine is an AudioQuest Cinnamon $100.00 I think.

All are NEW prices.

#4: Plug it all up and tune the Apple TV to "Radio". Scroll through the many music categories and select: JAZZ
#5: Scroll thru the Jazz stations til you come to: WWNO HD3 (PBS New Orleans) Select That one. It is outstanding.

#6: Check to see if your Depends are dry.
#7: Turn your audio system ON and LISTEN to some great, high definition Jazz. Complete Bliss.
#8: Listen till your Depends are damp.
#9: Turn system off and go change Depends.
#10: Return and repeat steps #4 thru #7

For 100 bucks, a Toslink and a cheap dac... This is the easiest and least expensive way that I know of (outside of FM Radio) to have great sounding music 24/7. Even if you have a "to die for" audio system, this is still great listening. Mine plays nearly non-stop. If you don't mind feeling a bit damp, you can even listen a bit longer.

IMHO
Note: I am not affiliated with the ownership, sales or promotion of Depends in any way. Those that think that I am are either " all wet" and/or their thoughts are watered down.
I absolutely love Radio Paradise. They cross a number of genres but, at the same time, they seem to hit on the tunes that can successfully cross over and be enjoyable to everyone. Listener supported, commercial free. It's the only station I feel the need to listen to and I like it so well I also became a contributor.
Here's the 192k stream url which doesn't have the artist/song info but you can always open up the website to see.
http://stream-sd.radioparadise.com:9000/rp-192m.ogg
I enthusiastically recommend Radio Paradise as well--I even sent them $25 as a supporter. Give it a few hours listen, they really shift genres.
Shoutcast allows searching by bit rate. Usually, if a radio streamer bothers with 320kbps streaming, the sound is pretty good, IME, for internet radio.
Anyone have anything new to add to this thread? Especially Jazz and blues stations?
.
Lupinthe3rd, I don't think there are enough audiophiles to support such a service. Or, they'd have to jack up the rate so high, it would be unbearable. Rhapsody is $13 per month for 192 bitrate MP3. To get FLAC on a subscription basis, they'd have to charge $50 per month or more. Even then it might not survive if they don't get enough subscribers.
.
977music.com streams eleven free Internet Radio stations 24/7 with online music from the greatest artists from the 50's through the 80's, 90's and today.
I'm a somafm.com fan, more for the unique music selection than anything else. The quality is 128k mp3 which seems to be what the vast majority of internet radio is using.

Obviously 128 mp3 leaves something to be desired on our hi-fi equipment, but I can see how it works fine for the vast majority of casual consumers out there listening on lo-fi Big Box Store stereos.

I wonder when we'll start seeing hi-fi targeted internet radio, streaming at 256k+ or even FLAC? I'd gladly pay a monthly subscription fee to access such a service.
Jazz Radio, 128 kbps AAC+ (or 256mp3) with premium service @ $39/yr. Has 30 different genre of jazz from old to new to blues to vibes, etc.
MOG! For audio quality, you want 320kbs at least. MOG is a sight that only streams in 320. It is a pay jukebox webservice and has a large but not exhaustive collection.
The sound quality is amazing through an asynchronous DAC.
Sounds much better than Pandora, a bit better than slacker, and much much better than Spotify.
Recently found Epic rock radio, not sure the bitrate..but its like Cd quality.
http://loudcaster.com/channels/483-epic-rock-radio-err
A lot of the stations you guys are referring too can all be found on shoutcast.com and can be played backed on any player that can play Http:\\ streams I like using Shoutcast because you can just search for the 256 and 320kbps streams.

On a Windows OS and MAC OS I like to use VLC or Winamp. By the way the new version of VLC can now play back Blu-Ray Disc.

I don't know if they've already been mentioned but 2 stations;

1) WDR3 out of Cologne Germany at 256 kbps

2) BBC Radio3 via iTunes Radio at 320kbps 'so close yet so faraway'.
For jazz fans it's tough to beat jazz radio in Moscow, Russia:

http://101.ru/?an=port_channel_mp3&channel=85

Having traveled extensively throughout Russia and Ukraine upon first arrival I was pleasantly surprised to discover jazz radio in St. Petersburg and Moscow each had major over the air FM stations that exceeded jazz radio stations I'd discovered in the west.

It was an interesting way to acquire Paruski (Russian) language skills listening to the radio.

BTW, if anyone's interested one of the finest times to be had anywhere on the planet during the final weeks of May 'til early June can be experienced in Sankt Peterburk (St. Petersburg) during their annual White Nights celebration. 24 hours of daylight and one all day party.

Oh well, it was a heckuva place to experience ones midlife crisis. If I told you about the women in Eastern Europe you'd not believe me...man 'oh man...put a visit to Ukraine on the top of your bucket list and thank me later.

Enjoy!
Peter,
I was a member of the Philadelphia Audio Society many years ago and enjoined your meetings. Please get back to me about joining again. I live in Bellmawr, NJ.
Thank you,
Motorbike
You guys should check www.kdrplive.org Monday night for the Larry Monroe broadcasting Blue Monday. It is a great program.
I just stumbled across Jazz at Lincoln Center.

very nice!

not especially versatile but it has quality music

http://www.jalc.org/jazzcast/jazz_player.html
I gotta go with Radio Paradise. Great music selection makes it sooo enjoyable. It's hard for me to turn it off at bedtime.
-John
thanks for all the suggestions!

I like WFMU for terrifc and wacky music.

I have MusicStreamer II on windows XP.
What player do you guys suggest?
What do you use?

sorry to hijack the thread.
Anyone had the chance to listen to Riprock radio? its full with rock classics.
Check out Fusion 101 on Live365 and http://fusion101radio.com. Excellent 70 Jazz-Rock at 96kb and changing to 128kb this weekend.
Try roaming around the 157 stations on Shoutcast in the 320 bit rate category. No lossless category though.
.
Edgejazz,

Thanks for the station. I'm a jazz fanatic and the CBC station is excellent.

Check out the two stations below, they really cook:

Pure Jazz Radio

101.ru - Jazz (in Moscow, Russia)

mitch
.

Proud to share with you all CBC Jazz - a mix of piano jazz, jazz trios/quartets, vocal jazz, and similar interests. Excellent stream quality. Also available as app for iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhone.

Hope you like it.
Cruz123,thank you. Olove this TSF Jazz station . Do you know ant classic rock/pop French Internet radio stations ? Something to bring back old memory ...from Francois Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, Dalida... to Christophe, Enrico Marcias...
This thread is great.I am typing this while listening to TSF jazz via my Sennheiser headphone. Great music and good sound quality and I have a chance to refresh my long-fogotten French 101. Thank you, guys.
Eclectic24 - KCRW's (Santa Monica, CA) on-line music station. 128K I believe. Through the website (kcrw.com) or via iTunes.
Good sound, great music . . . DR Folk. So many to choose from, but this one I come back to quite a bit. Broad expanse of folk music, and I'm always surprised by the incredible programming.

Decent sound (lower bit rates) but arguably one of the better quasi public radio stations in North America is CKUA out of Alberta, Canada.
AVRO has a quite a few 256 kbps mp3 classical channels.

Adagio.fm has a 128kbps Ogg stream, and a user request system.

I'm afraid that Roku's products support neither Ogg nor AAC+, making them totally unacceptable to me.
This is the best one I've been able to find:

mms://media-wm.cac.washington.edu/KEXP-Uncompressed

KEXP, a college station from Washington University, Seattle. This is an uncompressed WAV stream at 1411, yes, 1411kb/s so should be literally CD-quality.

Could this be the shape of things to come?
WUFT, the University of Florida’s NPR station use to stream at 320k, but as of early July, 2009 they changed their format. The have limited their stream to 256k. Previously their programming was a mixture of mostly European classical, with NPR programming throughout the day and in the late evenings (2am till 5am) an excellent straight ahead jazz program from San Francisco hosted by Bob Parlocha. Now, they are 100% European classical. Needless to say I am now searching for a stream of 256k or greater that programs straight ahead and classic jazz.
"One difficulty is that smaller Internet radio stations are too often short-lived, streaming happily along one day and gone the next."

Often true and often not.

"Their stream URLs change at times, too, which makes maintaining a bookmark list (Winamp is good for this) difficult. The larger stations, like RP and Sky, are less prone to these difficulties, however."

Roku's radioRoku service catalogues stations and their urls and provides services that customers can use on their site to help keep things up to date. I find it's not a big problem for the more popular stations of which there are hundreds out of many thousands total.
One difficulty is that smaller Internet radio stations are too often short-lived, streaming happily along one day and gone the next. Their stream URLs change at times, too, which makes maintaining a bookmark list (Winamp is good for this) difficult. The larger stations, like RP and Sky, are less prone to these difficulties, however.
Radio Paradise is good but you'll find there are many others out there equally as good or better.

Enjoy!
From the above suggestions I followed the Favorites already programmed into my squeezebox and found Radio Paradise...I simply hit 'play' and yes, this is a really fantastic station. Also, it just dethroned my local station that only comes at 48K.

Radio Paradise is the closest I have ever gotten via the internet to my better sounding CDs
Nathanso, Thanks very much for the time time and energy you put into your post. The information is just what I was asking for. I will enjoy trying them out. Thanks!
In general, you want to locate streams with wider bandwidth. 128K MP3 is the absolute least I'll subject myself to unless the source material (e.g. 1940's swing/big band) doesn't require more fidelity. 192K MP3 is much preferred to 128K MP3 but is not easy to find, particularly for free. 128K AAC (or AAC+) sound about the same as 192K MP3. Certain classical stations in EU stream at 256K. Here are some stations you might enjoy (assuming Agon's site will allow these links)..

KAMU FM, 192K MP3: http://128.194.247.73:8000

StreamingSoundtracks.com, 128K AAC: http://209.9.229.205:80

Sky.fm and DI.fm. Dozens of themed streams. MP3 and AAC+ streams. Free at 96K, Paid at 192K. Mostly DJ-free.

RadioParadise.com - 128K AAC and 192K MP3, both for free! Listener-supported. Minimal DJ, no ads.

KANM Student Radio - 192K MP3, http://kanm5.tamu.edu:4040/

AVRO Klassiek 256K, http://145.58.33.31:8072

MR3 Classical - 256K, http://212.92.28.75:2006

Concertzender 192K, http://145.58.33.31:8114

Swiss Internet Radio - RadioCrazy Jazz - 128K, http://82.197.167.138:80

Smooth Jazz Expressions - 160K, http://64.92.199.69:8216

Kink FM Alternative-160K, http://81.173.3.20:80

La Grosse Radio | Rock & Alternative-192K, http://91.121.117.102:8192

Classics Remember Oldies-192K, http://88.191.51.234:8000

HifiHits.com Rock-192K, http://74.52.20.63:8000

RadioNonsense.com Rock-192K, http://209.51.162.170:9378

Deeper Into Music - 128K MP3, http://stations.loudcity.com/299/listen.pls

NetworkStudioFive - 192K, http://89.238.146.154:7000
I also am looking for the best quality in sound. Classical Archives has continuous non-commercial classical music 24/7. They state that their broadcast quality is 128-196 kbps MP3. How does this compare with other stations and are there even better quality sources? The sound is really very good and approaches CD. I am using Vista on a Toshiba laptop>PS Audio Digital Link III. I am excited at this new way of listening and would appreciate any and all comments and suggestions.
Radio Paradise - great mix of rock, folk & pop. Sounds better than a lot of Shoutcast stations.
Mike19
Audiocandy Red White and Blue Radio is a home run.

Material on this station regularly sounds as good as some of my best CDs with my current rig. Outstanding range, dynamics, imaging detail, soundstage....wow!