Frequently asked questions:
How can I listen to the stream?
You can listen to Sofaspace with every player that supports one of the offered media formats. Simply click on one of the two links in the listen-box on the right side of this page. Your player will start automatically. Get more infos about supported players here: Sofaforum
How do I send you my demo/mix?
You can either send it in on cd or upload it to our ftp server. Upload accounts are provided upon reguest. Please read the contact page and the submission guidelines.
Who stands behind Sofaspace and what is this all about?
Sofaspace is registered in Switzerland as a sole trader company. It's run mainly by it's founder Roberto Pérez. Though we're officially registered as a for-profit organisation, our goal is not to become rich. That's impossible with our free service. We don't even earn enough money to pay our bills. In fact, almost 100% of all costs are paid with private funds. The point is to bring this music to the masses and to strengthen the community. The official registration has only been done to get access to the distributors. We couldn't sell the music without it.
I like Sofaspace. Is there a way to contribute?
Sure. We need lots of things: bandwith, hardware, music, money, programmers. Whatever you have to offer. Contact us.
Can I book your djs for my party?
You can send us a message. We will forward it to the requested djs and try to establish contact for you.
My firewall is blocking access to the stream. What can I do?
Check your playlist. You'll usually get several entries for different servers on different ports. At least one of them is running on port 80 (http) and should be accessible behind all firewalls. If it doesn't work, contact your administrator. Show him our page. He might like the station and approve it for you. :)
The connection is interrupted without any visible reason.
Lots of things can cause drop outs. Our servers are distributed over several locations around europe. If the connections between the servers are bad then one of them can disconnect. Such failures are completely normal and usually affect only a part of the network. Unfortunately there's not much we can do to fix that. Furthermore do we restart our servers in fixed intervals. That causes everybody to get kicked for about one minute.
Note: Foobar2000's error recovery works much better that Winamp's. Changing players often reduces troubles. We've seen Foobar users staying connected for more than three days without interruption.
Is it allowed to record the stream and save it on my hard disk?
If it's allowed or not depends on the applicable laws of your country. We're obligated to discourage copying of our streams. But honestly, there's no way to control listener behaviour. We ask you not to record the stream. Instead buy the music you like. We play lots of good stuff from small labels which really deserve your support. By buying their music you not only help us but also the producers. If you record the stream then at least use it privately and please don't share it on p2p networks.
Why is the bitrate limited to only 128kbs?
Because the needed bandwith is very expensive. This number is furthermore only a reference value and says nothing about the actual sound quality. The ogg stream is running with variable bitrate. It goes up to 160kbs during complex tracks. The mp3 stream is fixed at 128kbs and is therefore classified as "low quality". Ogg vorbis sounds by far superior than mp3, even at 128kbs. Give it a try, it sounds great!
Shoutcast shows a limit of only 100 Users.
This value does not show the real limit. We use several servers. Not all of them are part of the cluster you see on Shoutcast. Our limit is actually much higher. Depending on where you tune in and which format you chose, you'll get a different server with different limits.
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