I've tried both and like both services. The only thing drawing me to Spotify is Spotify Connect on my RPi using Volumio. Spotify Connect is much better than Airplay for streaming to my stereo. Though Apple does have lossless which can Airplay 1 or USB into my DAC. But is lossless or 256K AAC really better than Spotify's 320K?
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Apple Music or Spotify...can't decide
- Thread starter telemike
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staticV3
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Spotify uses AAC 256K: https://support.spotify.com/us/article/audio-quality/
- Thread Starter
- #3
Thanks, that's the web player. Mobile app doesn't really specify
Very high: Equivalent to approximately 320kbit/s
- Thread Starter
- #4
Spotify offers automatic, low, normal, high, and very high quality with different bitrates for different users by formatting the music as OGG Vorbis format. Following is the full table about all the bitrates that Spotify streaming at.
| Bitrates | Streaming Quality | Free or Premium | Platforms |
| 24 kbps | Low | Both | Desktop, mobile and tablet |
| 96 kbps | Normal | Both | Desktop, mobile and tablet |
| 128 kbps | Normal | Free | Web Player (AAC) |
| 160 kbps | High | Both | Desktop, mobile and tablet |
| 256 kbps | High | Premium | Web Player (AAC) |
| 320 kbps | Very High | Premium | Desktop, mobile and tablet |
How to Improve Spotify Bitrate for Lossless Music Quality
From this post, you can learn what bitrate Spotify uses and how to get high-quality music from Spotify and download Spotify MP3 format at the highest 320kbps quality.
www.tunefab.com
staticV3
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Those are the "equivalent" bit rates, not the actual bit rates that Spotify uses, see the link I posted.
Unfortunately Spotify doesn't specify "equivalent"
It's only better if you can hear the difference. Spotify Connect is a pretty big deal to me, as is gapless playback, so I'll keep it until Qobuz comes up with something as good.
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- #7
I tried Tidal Connect on the HiFi plan. The thing is one day the IOS app for Tidal went bonkers and lost connection to my libary and was frustrating. Not sure I can trust it so I cancelled the trial.
Spotify and Connect work great.
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Isn’t 320kbps at 44.1k equivalent to slightly over 7 bits per sample?
I haven’t used Spotify in forever and have no issues with airplay, but all my stuff is Apple. I would probably go with convenience over quality with streaming, but I wanted to say that Apple’s addition of lossless (most music is 16bit 44.1kHZ if not higher) is what sent me to this forum.
I was listening to music on Apple and suddenly noticed it sounded better. I hadn’t even heard of the move to lossless. Hearing the difference got me looking into why, and how I could improve my audio chain.
I haven’t used Spotify in forever and have no issues with airplay, but all my stuff is Apple. I would probably go with convenience over quality with streaming, but I wanted to say that Apple’s addition of lossless (most music is 16bit 44.1kHZ if not higher) is what sent me to this forum.
I was listening to music on Apple and suddenly noticed it sounded better. I hadn’t even heard of the move to lossless. Hearing the difference got me looking into why, and how I could improve my audio chain.
Zensō
Major Contributor
What kind of issues are you having with Airplay?
- Thread Starter
- #12
If I'm streaming from my iPhone and I have a webpage with a video, it cuts off Music and plays video. Any app that has audio will interuppt the stream.
Zensō
Major Contributor
Gotcha. That’s the good and the bad thing about Airplay. It’s great that you can stream any audio (or video) on the device and control it using the Control Center or even the lock screen controls, but the output is not exclusive. I go back and forth on preferring one or the other. For now I’m using Apple Music through Airplay and wired on the desktop, and also Roon + Tidal/Qobuz (which is exclusive like Spotify Connect). I’ll eventually settle on one or the other.
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Zensō
Major Contributor
I didn't like the Tidal or Qobuz iOS apps. It's hard to beat Apple Music if you're an iOS user, that is if you can live with Airplay. Always trade-offs...
Spotify if you actually care about music (well curated suggestions and playlists), Apple Music if you care about audiophile nervosa (lossless, hi-res, bit-perfect.etc)
Zensō
Major Contributor
Naw, those aren’t the only reasons. There’s also the user experience if a person is in the Apple ecosystem.
I like that Apple Music allows me to play different music on different devices at the same time (Spotify Connect switches among one active device). I like that Apple pays the artists more (though I haven't examined this closely enough to know much).
I like Spotify's discovery suggestions, but Apple is certainly not far behind.
Lossless schmossless..I'm old and can't hear like I used to anyway. They both sound great.
Flip a coin?
I like Spotify's discovery suggestions, but Apple is certainly not far behind.
Lossless schmossless..I'm old and can't hear like I used to anyway. They both sound great.
Flip a coin?
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