What streaming service do you use?

[slaweks]

In my case it is Amazon Music and Idagio for classical music.

 

[SSS]

Amazon Music is great for my taste of music which is country, blues, rockabilly and similar. On the other providers there is much music of good but to me unknown musicians who may be famous in far foreign countries.

 

[AdrianusG]

My choice wasn't listed: None

 

[Peterinvan]

I have Tidal HiFi Plus (Individual) at $20 CAD per month. When we downsized to a one bed condo, I ripped all my CDs to FLAC and got rid of nearly all of them, as I could not justify keeping them with our limited storage space.

I cannot claim to have golden ears in my 70s, but I am a wannabe Audiophile, and admit to having FOMO. Hence I pay for the best quality streaming. I research and purchase the best value equipment within my budget.

Tidal has finally come to its senses and are quitting MQA. Many tracks on my playlists are now showing as MAX-FLAC.

I have no issues with the UI on Tidal. I like the suggestions it serves up and the "radio" lists.

I have invested six years curating many playlists, mostly jazz, with some bass heavy pop for my workout playlists.

As a backup, I have exported all my playlists to .CSV files (using Roon). I can use Soundiz to restore these playlists on other streaming sites if the need arises.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Amazon Music is great for my taste of music which is country, blues, rockabilly and similar. On the other providers there is much music of good but to me unknown musicians who may be famous in far foreign countries.

For me, country blues means blues recorded before WWII. Amazon has a fair amount but because the search algorithm is poor it's difficult to find everything that's actually available. I own recordings that aren't available on Amazon.

 

[steve59]

Why only 1 selection? I have tidal for MQA and qobuz that I'm also subscribed to. If tidal drops mqa for flac hi rez i'll drop it for qobuz as all but 1 of the dac's in my system are mqa friendly.

 

[BitPerfect_]

Deezer for now, still streams lossless on Airplay 1.

Would you please share with me, using Deezer Connect, will output the max resolution available 16 bit / 44.1 FLAC? Thanks!

 

[BigFKahuna]

Would you please share with me, using Deezer Connect, will output the max resolution available 16 bit / 44.1 FLAC? Thanks!

I do believe that would be the max. Along those lines, it would be good to note how much of any streaming library can go better than that as most is not actually available in hi res, and then you have to decide if in your listening environment can you really hear a difference between CD and hi res quality?

 

[BitPerfect_]

For me, Deezer is the first app that allows me to play FLAC CD quality, bit perfect, wireless, thru Yamaha MusicCast app; I’m happy enough even with lossless 16/44.1.

There are some interface limitations streaming this way that’s why I was curious to find a point of view concerning the Deezer Connect. On iOS it’s not working for the moment, I don’t know how it was in the past or how it should be.

 

[BigFKahuna]

For me, Deezer is the first app that allows me to play FLAC CD quality, bit perfect, wireless, thru Yamaha MusicCast app; I’m happy enough even with lossless 16/44.1.

There are some interface limitations streaming this way that’s why I was curious to find a point of view concerning the Deezer Connect. On iOS it’s not working for the moment, I don’t know how it was in the past or how it should be.

I currently stream via Airplay 1 which generally works for me. I have tried the KEF Connect app with good results, however the big limitation is I have playlists of up to 6000 tracks and the Connect app does not play well with that. Deezer Connect is not (yet) supported by my LS60's and I hate to steal my wife's iPhone away to plug in to the speakers in order use the connect feature. With a new iPad in the works this might change. Having said all this, I have not yet found an ideal solution. I do have Apple Music but it does not reside within the Kef ecosystem and streams at Airplay 2, so I let others use that when they want to stream their own tunes. Such as my kid's bass-heavy hip hop and similar, where bass is of course the measure of a true stereo system!

 

[norcalscott]

I have been a subscriber to Tidal for a long time, and generally listen to it either through PlexAmp (with my self-hosted Plex server connected to Tidal, which works really well), or through USB Audio Player Pro, which seems to be more stable than the Tidal Android app. I have to say though, that most of my casual listening these days is to Radio Paradise, using their FLAC stream through my main audio system - sounds really good and my tastes align pretty closely with the programmers there - I discover a lot of new artists that way.

I like Radio Paradise so much that I contribute $15 per month to them - I figure it is worth at least that much to keep a high quality streaming radio producer going.

 

[Rhamnetin]

Qobuz. I give enough money to Amazon as is, don't need more Google in my life, plus I don't like Tidal's practices and I think MQA is a scam. Plus, it's on all my devices.

 

[darrellc]

Apple Music (and Classical) primarily because I have a family that want to play music, I need parental controls, we are all in on Apple ecosystem (my pref would be to run an android phone) and Apple has the all in one family plan. I also pay Amazon for my hi-res music but might switch to Tidal or just drop hi-res altogether.

 

[ddaudio]

I have Qobuz and I agree it's a PIA to find a platform for it. No Android tv, no apple tv, no Roku, no Android box... It's pretty ridiculous.

I have Roon in the interim linking directly to my Oppo 205 til I find a streamer cuz most streamers do support it in hi-res format.

As a bonus with Roon they have the awesome Netherland FLAC internet radio station Pureclassix (Multi-decade!Pop/R&B/Funk)...which I can listen to for hours and hours. Tremendous sound quality that consistently amazes me.

You could try LMS as a platform for Qobuz (and many other things as well as your local music library if you have one). It will even handle multiple Qobuz accounts, so you can have different people signed in with their own favourites and imports into the central database, playing on different clients, from a single server.

For classical music, the LMS Qobuz plugin is better than their native app*. There is a great modern UI in the Material Skin plugin, and another highlight is a fully featured BBC Sounds plugin. It also does Spotify, Tidal, Radio Paradise and lots of other things.

Client-wise, there are plugins for Airplay, UPnP and Chromecast, so you don't need a Squeezebox hardware client at all (and the WiiM Pro and Pro+ have the native software client built in, which you could also run on Windows, Linux and Android).

The server will run on just about anything.

Best of all, the whole ecosystem is free and open source. It can take some setting up, because such flexibility necessarily brings a certain degree of complexity. But once you're there, I doubt you'll be looking elsewhere. There is a very active and responsive support community, which includes all the main developers.

* I would say that, as I am the developer of the classical enhancements!

 

[Brian Hall]

I changed my vote from Qobuz to Spotify since I just canceled Qobuz. I also have Amazon HD. I really can't hear a difference between Qobuz Hi-Res, Amazon HD and Spotify Premium.

 

[benanders]

Other / None - always my files through a minimalist phone app-friendly OS.

mp3, WAV, FLAC, etc. all fine from my perspective; I avoid streaming subscriptions bc providers still don’t clearly state which [re]master(s) is(are) available. File format may not be perceptible, but I think master matters.

 

[Soandso]

I’ve always liked Jazzgroove for its curated non-vocal mellow jazz stations and recently came back to paying them. After a year off subscribing they’ve enough new content to satisfy me and the audio quality is very engaging. I’m currently taking Spotify up on yet another of their promotional cheap 3 month Premium offers since it holds extensive jazz playlists I made back when I originally free trialed. Right now I’m deliberately giving most play time to my own Spotify jazz playlists and when this 3 month bargain ($9.99) is up will go back to mostly Jazzgroove’s curated streams. If I go on a trip I’ll pay a month of Spotify so can download my playlists for off-line listening. I have already trialed most of the other music streaming services and had the lossless Qobuz experience as well. Amazon a year after its free trial also subsequently gave me a cheap 3 month promotion ($3.00) but I prefer not to support them since alternatives are available. Sometimes I go back to long running WBGO and free stream jazz from their last 2 recent weeks‘ “Archive” selections. They’ve diverse temporarily Archived channels‘ programing comprising hours of mp3 music that‘s fine for non-critical enjoyment.

 

[Seekje]

I changed my vote from Qobuz to Spotify since I just canceled Qobuz. I also have Amazon HD. I really can't hear a difference between Qobuz Hi-Res, Amazon HD and Spotify Premium.

Hello Brian, here a small reply from the Netherlands, i just cancelled my Qobuz and Tidal subscription just because just cant hear any difference in sound
quality between these two and Spotify Premium on my system, A Marantz Model 40 N amplifier and Wharfedale Evo 4.4 speakers Spotify sounds great to me.
A lot has to do with the fact that people will hear it because they pay for it imho. I am 64 years old but also my 30 year old son could not spot any difference....
I also had a Eversolo DMP A6, same result..
Kind regards from the Netherlands

I changed my vote from Qobuz to Spotify since I just canceled Qobuz. I also have Amazon HD. I really can't hear a difference between Qobuz Hi-Res, Amazon HD and Spotify Premium.

 

[Monster]

I changed my vote from Qobuz to Spotify since I just canceled Qobuz. I also have Amazon HD. I really can't hear a difference between Qobuz Hi-Res, Amazon HD and Spotify Premium.

I really wish I couldn't hear the difference between Spotify and Amazon HD.

I have a free three month trial of Spotify ATM and the user interface for Spotify is miles better than Amazon Music Unlimited. I also have a discounted subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited, so I can compare them back to back. Unfortunately, because I can hear the difference I will be cancelling Spotify before the end of the free period.

 

[IAtaman]

I really wish I couldn't hear the difference between Spotify and Amazon HD.

I have a free three month trial of Spotify ATM and the user interface for Spotify is miles better than Amazon Music Unlimited. I also have a discounted subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited, so I can compare them back to back. Unfortunately, because I can hear the difference I will be cancelling Spotify before the end of the free period.

Before you cancel, why don't you try to compare the two volume matched and un-sigthed.