Yahoo Music Unlimited 1.1 review

We're surprised, however, that Yahoo didn't beef up its subscription or download catalogs much for this release. YMU still offers more than 1 million tracks, most--but not all--of which are available via subscription and for individual purchase. However, iTunes and Virgin offer more than 2 million songs. Yahoo carries all the main artists many will likely search for but not the same range of little-known tracks offered by the competition.

While it plays only purchased, protected tracks from YMU, Yahoo Music Engine's jukebox functionality handles a broad assortment of audio file formats, including MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, and the lossless FLAC. Yahoo Music Engine can also rip CDs to all the aforementioned formats except WMA, and MP3s can be created at bit rates up to 320Kbps, including variable bit rate, or VBR.

As for streaming radio stations, both YMU subscriptions include Launchcast Plus Premium Radio, with more than 120 programs queuing up songs that you can skip past if you don't like them (unlike the static stream offered by terrestrial or most other online radio stations). Impressively, YMU's subscription offers streaming and downloadable 192Kbps WMA files. That's a higher bit rate than what you'd get with Rhapsody To Go, which has 128Kbps WMA streams and 160Kbps downloads, or Napster To Go and Virgin Digital with Red Pass, both of which offer 128Kbps WMA streams and downloads.

To transfer subscription-downloaded tracks from Yahoo Music Unlimited, you'll need a Janus-compatible portable player such as the iRiver H10 (5GB or 20GB) or the Creative Labs Zen Micro. MP3 players that aren't compatible with WMA subscriptions but accept secure WMA tracks (this includes most big-name, non-iPod players sold within the past few years) can play tracks purchased individually for 99 cents without a subscription.

A new right-hand playlist panel simplifies the transferring and burning of songs within the application. Each account can be used with up to two different portable players; in comparison, Napster's competing to-go service supports two, while Rhapsody allows up to three. You can access a YMU account from three different PCs, and now, any playlist you create on one PC automatically transfers to all your registered computers. This thoughtful addition makes it easier to keep your chosen slice of YMU's music catalog organized across multiple locations. It's also worth noting that if you hit your three-PC limit, you can deauthorize any of them, allowing you to add a new PC to the account.

Our testing of version 1.1 of the Yahoo Music Engine revealed a newfound stability in the application--a welcome change from the shakier beta. We experienced no crashes, hiccups, sluggishness, or transfer issues. Our only disappointment is the slight lag in changing screens (for example, going from the My Music section to the main YMU store page); we typically had to wait 5 to 10 seconds for this page to load on our broadband connection.

The 192Kbps WMA downloads and streams generally sounded good, as they should have, considering their high bit rate. But when we compared them side by side with the same tracks rented from competing services' 128Kbps songs, the improvement ranged from undetectable to subtle, depending on the track. In other words, YMU's higher bit rate is a nice bonus, but it wouldn't be a determining factor for us (many audiophiles don't care for CDs, let alone compressed files).

Track downloads started quickly, with most taking a mere 5 or 10 seconds to download all the way. The software's integrated CD-burning engine successfully burned and finalized a 698MB playlist of MP3s to a CD-R in less than 5 minutes via a 40X-maximum-speed burner. The software can also burn MP3 or normal audio CDs using from your unprotected music library.

Searching other users' playlists is fun, and as you rate more artists, YMU seems to develop a good idea of your tastes, making decent recommendations. Rating artists helps YMU create a personal station you might like, accessible through the Launchcast radio button on the left. We like that Yahoo lets you fast-forward past any song, but we found it odd that even with an unlimited streaming subscription, we couldn't rewind to tracks the station had already played. We had to do that manually, by searching on the track in YMU and launching it from the artist page.

Once you've rated enough artists, YMU is supposed to recommend playlists by other users whose tastes are similar. But even after rating more than 100 artists, we didn't spot a single user playlist recommendation from YMU, so perhaps that feature has yet to be implemented.

Yahoo Music Unlimited includes extensive online documentation via the Help menu. The support section is searchable and arranged into a dozen clickable categories, including a freshly updated FAQ and troubleshooting section. An online Flash tutorial covers essentially the same topics. Tech support is available by phone from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT, Monday to Friday, and online forms are available for submitting bugs and feedback.