Radio X

In Italy's ordering this is number 105 of 400, which is the middle of the list. The stations either side of it are a better guide to what the country sounds like than the head of the list is, because the head is the same few famous streams in every country.

The hiphop corner of Italy's dial is two stations deep in this snapshot. Small clusters like that are usually the most rewarding thing on a country page, because they are what the national broadcasters at the top of the list are not.

Radio X streams at 192 kbps, above Italy's median of 128 kbps. It sits with the 70% of the country's stations that reach 128 kbps or better, which is the line this site uses for a stream worth listening to properly rather than in the background.

The stream is served from eu2.fastcast4u.com, which no other entry in Italy uses in this snapshot. Nothing else in the listing shares its fate: if this address stops answering it is this broadcaster's own outage, and if it plays, it plays.

Their site is radiox.it, a domain registered in Italy. Where a station's own address and its listed country agree, the entry is a little more trustworthy than one where they do not.