Electro is used loosely across this directory to cover most electronic music, which means the tag sits over house, techno, trance, drum and bass, EDM and downtempo without distinguishing between them. Those genres share equipment and share nothing else: a big-room EDM stream and an ambient chillout stream are opposite ends of the same tag.
The practical split is between mix-based and track-based channels. Mix channels run continuous DJ sets with long blends, so there are no clean boundaries and no obvious place to stop listening; they suit long sessions. Track-based channels play singles back to back, which is easier to dip in and out of but makes the joins more noticeable.
Electronic music is also the genre most affected by mastering loudness. Festival and big-room channels are mastered several decibels hotter than the average stream in this directory, so switching from a classical channel to an EDM channel at the same volume setting is unpleasant. It is worth turning down first.
On bitrate: electronic music is more forgiving than jazz or rock because it is largely synthetic and heavily compressed at the production stage, but sub-bass is the exception. A deep house or drum and bass stream at 96 kbps loses the bottom two octaves, which is where the genre lives. For anything bass-led, 192 kbps is worth the extra 28 MB an hour.
