I just got invited as well, I had been using audio galaxy, but am trying google music as I type. Uploading 250 albums in FLAC is taking a while, but the sound quality seems good, and the android app is pretty nice.
Yeah I got in a few days ago....seems pretty good so far. I wish they would release more technical details about whats going on in the background. Their web interface is very nice but their Android app is very poor when compared to Subsonic. I'm sure this will get ironed out though. I would say subsonic is vastly superior at this point, but having said that it is not cloud based and is dependent on you having a central server and having half way decent upload speed on your home connection. But Subsonic is also free.
Other services such as this that I have used and still use include...
Subsonic
Which is a Java based streamer for Music, and Video. Amazing in every way and I cannot say enough about it. Amazingly good Android client, and web interface.
Free
Setup and configuration difficulty - Easy
Ampache
Basically a plugin for Apache that uses PHP, MySQL, and Apache. Excellent open source project but the Android clients are lacking (Lulaby, Amdroid). Has the ability to link multiple remote libraries over SSH, ie you your friends, ect can all share the same library.
Free
Setup and configuration difficulty - Very Advanced
ORB
A total POS with very poor Android Client and horrible web interface.
Free to Try
Setup and configuration difficulty - Easy
Google Music Beta
Very good so far, streaming is instantaneous even over 3G. Web client is excellent, Android client is ok but is sluggish when compared to other solutions. Lack of information in regards to transcoding leaves much to be desired.Questions I would ask Google.
- What bitrate is it streaming at?
- Is it just matching the files in my library with the files that Google has in their music library? And if it cannot match then uploading my files to the cloud?
- If so is the desktop client transcoding my high bitrate files to another format before it uploads them to conserve bandwidth?
- When I choose to make music available offline what bitrate is it saving the files as?
Free
Setup and configuration difficulty - Easy
If anyone wants to try these services out just shoot me a PM and I will set you up an account.
