Classical is the second-largest category here and the one where the directory model works best, because classical listeners tend to want something specific rather than something pleasant. A general classical station is a compromise: it has to move between a Bach cantata, a Mahler symphony and a Chopin nocturne without giving anyone whiplash, so it tends to programme the middle of the road.
The alternative, which a number of stations in this directory offer, is the single-composer channel. Instead of a station that plays Vivaldi occasionally you get a station that plays only Vivaldi, or only Cherubini, or only sarabandes. This is a format that exists almost nowhere on broadcast radio because no transmitter licence could justify it, and it is genuinely useful: if you want baroque strings running for six hours while you work, a channel that cannot wander into a Shostakovich symphony is the one you want.
Classical also has the widest dynamic range of any genre, which has two practical consequences. First, bitrate matters more here than anywhere except jazz; a quiet passage encoded at 64 kbps will audibly hiss. Second, classical stations are the worst choice for noisy environments, because the quiet passages disappear under traffic or an air conditioner while the loud passages startle you. For commuting, a station with compressed output serves better even if it is technically the worse recording.
National classical stations are worth seeking out for repertoire rather than quality. Czech stations play far more Dvorak, Janacek and Martinu; Scandinavian stations play Nielsen and Sibelius properly; Italian stations programme opera as a matter of course rather than as a weekly special.
