Jazz Radio Lounge

Jazz Radio Lounge sits at 276 of 710 in France's listing, in the body of the list rather than at either end. This is where most of a national dial actually lives, and it is the part a country hub's first fifty rows never reach.

Among 710 stations in France here, this is the only one that puts jazz lounge first. The jazz lounge rail below therefore leaves the country entirely, which is the more interesting direction to travel from a page like this.

Jazz Radio Lounge streams at 64 kbps against France's median of 128, which is less than half the local norm. On a dial where 74% of stations reach 128 kbps, a rate this low stands out, and it usually means either a speech station that never needed more or an encoder that has not been touched in years.

The format here is AAC+, against a listing for France overwhelmingly made of MP3. Both play in a browser; the difference shows up in how much quality survives at a given bitrate, where AAC has the advantage at lower rates.

Its audio comes straight from jazzlounge.ice.infomaniak.ch, an address unique to this entry in France's listing. That is the simplest case there is, and it is the one where pressing play tells you the whole truth about whether the station is on air.