Poll: Music Streaming Debate

[throwaway4372]

I had bought most of my CDs from Amazon over the years, but mostly had a bunch of MP3s and Winamp.
At some point I decided to go legal, so I bought some more stuff from Amazon to fill in the gaps, and used Amazon Prime Music to play it back.
Over time, they reduced MP3 storage, and started spamming advertising for their Music Unlimited subscription service.
The app itself was clunky and quite annoying to use, on both Android and Windows.

So I'm currently about a month in to a Spotify trial, and I'm going to keep that going.
The Spotify app is pretty much what I expect from a modern music app, on both Android and Windows.
Almost all of the music I want is available and everything just works.
I have PAYG mobile (because f paying a monthly fee for something I hardly use) so I like that they make it easy to download everything on Wifi.

The annoying thing is that none of these music services are particularly better than the MP3+Winamp setup I was using 20+ years ago.
And they're really expensive if you mostly listen to music you already own.
If it continues like this my whole life, I would end up paying for all my albums about 20 times over.

 

[Mesai]

Used Spotify for the longest times but moved to Apple Music as I had a free trial.

Spotify wins in on platform agnostic and recommendations, although Apple's suggestions are improving as I use it more (to be expected). Sound quality on Apple is much better though.

 

[chroniclard]

Recently switched from Spotify to Tidal(as got 3 months cheap) but its a bit guff for playlists. For instance I can use voice to search for a genre playlist in the car and it worked great with Spotify but the playlists Tidal comes up with are trash and often wrong. Spotify worked way better so will probably go back once the Tidal cheap period is over.

 

[melmac]

Sorry for the thread necro. Haven't had a music streaming service in a about a year and wanted to do a bit of research into getting a service that works for me. Previously I had Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and did a trial of Tidal. I thought Spotify was ok, until I got Apple music. Their spatial audio and lossless music sounded fantastic!! At the same time as having Apple Music, I was also connected to Amazon Music. However, I didn't use Amazon music much as the HD music wasn't available in Ireland at the time(Not sure if that's still the case, didn't look into it) And Apple Music just sounded better.

I tried Tidal, but just didn't get on with it. Not sure why, the app was a bit buggy, didn't think the MQA audio was as good as Apple music. Apple Music was just a lot less hassle with better song suggestions for me.

Since then though, I have fully left the Apple system. Don't have any apple products at all. That ruled out Apple Music for me this time around.

While looking around I came across Quobuz and that was the way I intended to go. But, while reading some forums about Quboz, Somebody mentioned Deezer. Never heard of it before. Had to look into that. Which is how I found this thread Even though I am only posting after a couple of weeks of actually using Deezer.

Anyway, I signed up for Deezer after reading some more about it. Decent price compared. Good quality and works well for me. The feature I like most so far is the Flow. It's brilliant at finding songs and artists that I haven't heard before. Songs and Artists that I actually like!!

Very happy with Deezer and will be subbing for the year when my trial period is over.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Thread necro but I couldn't vote because there is no option for 'Never streamed music'.
Yes I have gone on You Tube and maybe listened to a couple of minutes of a band but not streamed from a service.

 

[hornetstinger]

Can't see point of paid streaming service, it's basically renting

I just use Spotify free. If I like artists I'll buy it on CD and rip to flac

 

[Fuzz]

Premium Spotify user here. I use it every. single. day
Podcasts during the workday
Music in the car on the commute.
Discover weekly is pretty much all the car plays and I "heart" songs to fine tune the algorithm from there.. FLAWLESS.
Love the ability to just speak " play me some classic rock" although this is partly the cars tech rather than spotify itself but the resulting playlist is brilliant.

Have tried Tidal which the car can also do for reasons to do with the way payments are made to creators (Tidal gives more back to creators) but lack of content when I tried it and lack of podcasts made me switch back to spotify.

I own a few iOS devices and have always hated Apple Music right from the days it started on iTunes.. so never bothered with that

 

[Mesai]

Premium Spotify user here. I use it every. single. day
Podcasts during the workday
Music in the car on the commute.
Discover weekly is pretty much all the car plays and I "heart" songs to fine tune the algorithm from there.. FLAWLESS.
Love the ability to just speak " play me some classic rock" although this is partly the cars tech rather than spotify itself but the resulting playlist is brilliant.

Have tried Tidal which the car can also do for reasons to do with the way payments are made to creators (Tidal gives more back to creators) but lack of content when I tried it and lack of podcasts made me switch back to spotify.

I own a few iOS devices and have always hated Apple Music right from the days it started on iTunes.. so never bothered with that

Same here. I listen to a couple new songs every week (through discover), which would get expensive if I had to buy every album - that and I typically wouldn't listen to every song on the album.

If you aren't really into music or just have a default playlist that you're happy with, then it's probably not worth it, but I definitely maximise the value of the service.

I didn't like Apple Music at first but it's just unbeatable with AirPods.

 

[Fuzz]

I didn't like Apple Music at first but it's just unbeatable with AirPods.

That's the only disappointment I have with spotify, it can't seem to link devices well at all, so when I get out of the car at work, the phone can't remember where the car was and tries playing something completely different. The same scenario on the way from work to gym. I cue up some "workout" playlist while in the car, get to gym, put airpods in, and head into the gym and the phone is like "OK, so you want to continue with the podcast you were listening to an hour ago then?
Fuuuuuuuu

 

[Mesai]

That's the only disappointment I have with spotify, it can't seem to link devices well at all, so when I get out of the car at work, the phone can't remember where the car was and tries playing something completely different. The same scenario on the way from work to gym. I cue up some "workout" playlist while in the car, get to gym, put airpods in, and head into the gym and the phone is like "OK, so you want to continue with the podcast you were listening to an hour ago then?
Fuuuuuuuu

Haha yea, same frustration that I had with Spotify.

I think the main issue with AM was how long it took to figure out which music I liked, but I'm very happy with it now and there have been some improvements to the overall system. The lack of apps for other systems still annoys me, but it does make having MacOS as my work system more tolerable.

 

[Aliexpress]

Was using spotify for a long time before switching to tidal. Pretty happy with it.

 

[MrRockliffe]

Spotify as the best general streamer - the app is generally well laid out, quick and the algorithms work well.


Amazon Music as the best high quality offering, as it supports Dolby Atmos music on Sonos

 

[Yaayuh!]

Spotify I find has the best UI, compatibility and algo. I have no issue with the quality, just ensure its set to max rather than Auto.

 

[Andybtsn]

Since this thread I’ve used Spotify, getting sick of the songs I hear when I just want to listen to an artist, I’m not bothered about a 1997 demo version of a song.
I still miss Apples song quality and ability to just add the albums I want. There is still no release radar or daily playlists with Apple though so I can’t see me going back, there is a preview windows app finally though so no need for iTunes.

 

[mattyfez]

I just load flack files onto my phone and play them with power amp.
Stuff paying a subscription to listen to music.

At home I stream music from a local
drive to an integrated amplifier.

 

[Things change I've changed]

I just load flack files onto my phone and play them with power amp.
Stuff paying a subscription to listen to music.

At home I stream music from a local
drive to an integrated amplifier.

I could do this also, I have hundreds of CDs at home, the main reason I pay for Spotify is the music discovery, I get a massive kick out of hearing new music and Spotify is fantastic for that, I also love playing a FLAC from my phone using my Mojo 2 on the move, sounds sublime.

 

[hornetstinger]

I could do this also, I have hundreds of CDs at home, the main reason I pay for Spotify is the music discovery, I get a massive kick out of hearing new music and Spotify is fantastic for that, I also love playing a FLAC from my phone using my Mojo 2 on the move, sounds sublime.

Rip and encode to your music server, job done.

Eac with flax 1.4.2

 

[Deleted member 101777]

[Post deleted.]

 

[JasonM]

The streaming service won't make to much difference sound quality wise, for example if your comparing FLAC between Apple or Amazon you likely won't notice any difference.

What does make a huge difference is the quality of the DAC, and also interference that gets from the mains and also ethernet into the computer / external DAC and enters the analogue stage. This interference vails the output, a bit like driving a car with a dirty windscreen, you won't realise how much it's effecting your audio until you begin to remove it. This interference also effects digital clocks and audio timing.

Another thing that effects audio is voltage spikes that can happen 100's of times a second, again you won't realise the detrimental effect until you attempt to reduce them.

 

[mattyfez]

The streaming service won't make to much difference sound quality wise, for example if your comparing FLAC between Apple or Amazon you likely won't notice any difference.

What does make a huge difference is the quality of the DAC, and also interference that gets from the mains and also ethernet into the computer / external DAC and enters the analogue stage. This interference vails the output, a bit like driving a car with a dirty windscreen, you won't realise how much it's effecting your audio until you begin to remove it. This interference also effects digital clocks and audio timing.

Another thing that effects audio is voltage spikes that can happen 100's of times a second, again you won't realise the detrimental effect until you attempt to reduce them.

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