“When I click a Frontline episode, I should be hearing the sultry tones of Reece and Frankie in high quality with high quality content. Due to podcast decisions, this is becoming less and less the case.
Signals has been a mainstay on my commute for the past 2 years, so I'm not a listener from the beginning. Reece and Frankie are excellent hosts and know their material. Whenever they put out Signals, I know I'm going to be entertained. I subscribed to this podcast due to my love of the Warhammer 40k game and their passion to talk about it and to drive the competitive brand forward.
Podcasts prior to the past month were nearly inaudible. The volume was so abysmally low that it was impossible to listen to in a car or from a speaker system unless everything was set to max volume. Even with that, the slightest of outside sounds would drown them out. Podcasts are something I listen to while mowing. Even with overear headphones, this WAS impossible. Changing from another podcast to theirs and back showed that they may not have understood how bad the issue was. NO MORE, THOUGH! They recently fixed this issue, making it possible to hear them at normal settings! The past 2 or 3 episodes have had AMAZING audio quality. Big kudos on the improvement.
My problem lies with the Network that they have recently established. As a player, collector, and hobbyist of WH40k, that is my passion. When I subscribe to a podcast, I want to hear that podcast. When they implemented their second podcast, "The Ninth Realm", which covered Age of Sigmar, I attempted to listen to a few episodes. The quality of TNR is solid. Jason and Mariana bring significant knowledge to the table.
The problem with TNR: I have no interest in that game, unfortunately. For anyone who isn't aligned with their personal hobby habits, this means that SftF podcasts use up an enormous amount of space on phones if you subscribe. It's a good podcast. It's not a podcast I should be FORCED to subscribe to if I want to listen to signals. While it is true that many 40k players also play AoS, these players can subscribe to two separate podcasts and receive them both. I can't pick and choose what my phone downloads.
My phone is currently set to download only three episodes of each podcast I am subscribed to. Today, upon entering my car for my 1 hour commute, I found that my phone had two episodes of Chapter Tactics and one episode of The Ninth Realm downloaded. No Signals.
The biggest offender was brought to SftF by their introduction of Pablo's "Chapter Tactics" podcast. It seems that they stripped their Monday show, "Metabusting Monday", diluting their main show down to two news shows a week. Metabusting Monday seems to now be Chapter Tactics, hosted by someone else who lacks the charisma and understanding of entertainment that our lovable hosts have. While the quality of Signals has improved, Chapter Tactics maintains poor audio quality and unfortunate pacing. It seems like there is a lack of planning or editing, as the show runner frequently stumbles over transition and talks over his guests. The "firing from the hip" mentality to show planning may work for R+F, but Pablo doesn't have the experience to be doing so.
I would give Signals a 5/5, TNR a 4/5, and Chapter Tactics a 1/5. Signals is diluting their main podcast by splitting it into two, one which is of significantly lower quality. They have stated that their intentions are to have a "Network" of podcasts, since opening podcasts on iTunes is a pain. The problem is that this network is noncohesive in terms of entertainment. Listeners should not have to snipe individual episodes of a podcast. The "New Episode" notification should always be a positive experience.”Read full review »
Eauxlune via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
10/26/16