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Spotify Speaks

voodooless

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They got a nice letter from me yesterday answering why I was canceling my long held subscription. Also the same was posted in my Community account. I sure hope they got many more.
Enough!
Good of you to take the plunge and give an example for us lazy procrastinators to follow :cool:
 
D

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Tidal was constantly pushing me music I did not want to listen to. Half of my suggestions were essentially advertisements. Out went Tidal, even before the MQA controversies. Qobuz was much, much nicer in terms of recommendations, but buggy as hell, at least on some of the devices I owned. Despite the sympathy I had for them, as a minor but well-meaning, for my tastes, player, out went Qobuz.
i actually liked tidal recommendations better, does qobuz even have one beside the weekly q playlist?

tho spotify was still better than both, im actually trying qobuz with last.fm integration right now :) many people report better recommendations on last.fm than on spotify...

and yea tidal sounds worse than qobuz... (but i also avoid it because of the mqa crap altogether...)


kinda hard to believe spotify didnt found a easy/fast way to integrate flac but maybe they wanted to integrate cd quality, but dont want to release it now without highres because everyone else has already high res? maybe they push it to save bandwidth? :D
 

matt3421

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320 vorbis is overkill anyway. and im pretty sure spotify has never made a profit. increasing their bandwidth costs will only hurt them more
 

litemotiv

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They got a nice letter from me yesterday answering why I was canceling my long held subscription. Also the same was posted in my Community account. I sure hope they got many more.

I sent them the same letter about 1.5 years ago. :)

Interestingly, when i cancelled my subscription i was sure that i needed lossless streaming so the decision felt rational, but now 1.5 years later i feel just fine most of the time just streaming Youtube tracks.

So while i still like to see Spotify adopt lossless soon because in 2022 there is just no good reason anymore for any streaming network to keep offering lossy only, at the same time i don't really care anymore what kind of stream i listen to.

When you stop being compulsive about these things and just listen to the music, then after a while anything sounds 'just fine', funny enough.

The mind is a strange thing...
 

Madjalapeno

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I stopped with Spotify when they started paying huge sums of money to Podcasters.

I want to support musicians, not someone who likes the sound of their own voice.
 

Freeway

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I think the (vast?) majority of Spotify users do not care about lossless, if they even know what it is.
They listen via wireless/Bluetooth. Probably mainly headphones.
Easy to 'share' music. Kinda like the Facebook of of music.
Honestly, when I volume match Qobuz (with or without ASIO driver) to Spot there is negligible difference if any.
 
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Sal1950

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I would probably go back if at some point in the future they offer multichannel and Atmos files since IMO they offer the best UI in streaming. But ---------------------------
 

DanielT

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I sent them the same letter about 1.5 years ago. :)

Interestingly, when i cancelled my subscription i was sure that i needed lossless streaming so the decision felt rational, but now 1.5 years later i feel just fine most of the time just streaming Youtube tracks.

So while i still like to see Spotify adopt lossless soon because in 2022 there is just no good reason anymore for any streaming network to keep offering lossy only, at the same time i don't really care anymore what kind of stream i listen to.

When you stop being compulsive about these things and just listen to the music, then after a while anything sounds 'just fine', funny enough.

The mind is a strange thing...
What you should send Spotify is an email and ask if what the Spotify moderator writes is correct. An email higher up in the hierarchy within Spotify. To any decision maker within Spotify. That answer would be interesting to read.:)

If there had been any answer.:oops:

....how to even get hold of such a person email. It can probably be difficult just that.
 

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rkbates

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I did yesterday.
They would have to offer the equivalent of Apples multich-Atmos catalog to lure me back.
But that's just a easy-peasy mouse click or two away. I've turned on and off all the streamers at least once with the exception of Tidal, I won't go there.
I need to call BS on this. You can't cancel Spotify in a day. It took me 3 days to work through all of the "are you sure?" dialog boxes.
 

Slayer

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I'm with Sal on this, Spotify can take a flying leap as far as i'm concerned. It's not so much about the audio quality that rubs me the wrong way, it's the business tactics.
Stringing the consumer along to retain members and gain new members in the process of empty promises to bring you better audio quality. The whole thing, Just Chaps my A..... so to speak.

Then you have this continued narrative for some 15 years or so, claiming they have made no profit. LOL
Do people really think a company can survive this long with no profit? Well, I suppose you can, if you list the owner/owners as employees and pay yourself an exorbitant amount of money.
While I have no issues with the current sound quality, I will stick to Amazon HD For a Few Dollars Less. (Clint would be proud) :):facepalm:
 

litemotiv

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Do people really think a company can survive this long with no profit?

Sure, that's just how modern tech businesses work, for instance Amazon didn't make a profit for close to 10 years. The modern business model is to pump in capital for many years in order to stay competitive and gain market share, then slowly starve smaller competitors and finally make a huge profit. It's a carefully planned decade long operation.

Spotify has over $40 Billion in capital, due to a number of very large corporate investors including Tencent, China's largest tech company, which has about a 10% share in the company. Spotify isn't going away any time soon and they are in a good position to become very profitable within 3 to 5 years.
 

Slayer

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Sure, that's just how modern tech businesses work, for instance Amazon didn't make a profit for close to 10 years. The modern business model is to pump in capital for many years in order to stay competitive and gain market share, then slowly starve smaller competitors and finally make a huge profit. It's a carefully planned decade long operation.

Spotify has over $40 Billion in capital, due to a number of very large corporate investors including Tencent, China's largest tech company, which has about a 10% share in the company. Spotify isn't going away any time soon and they are in a good position to become very profitable within 3 to 5 years.
I understand what you are saying. However, it only took Amazon 6 or 7 years to make a profit. Jeff and other investors had no worries regarding the company's future, all could see the company was going to be a huge success. I don't think anyone with any business sense was worried the company would fail. If anything, they could see the writing on the wall.

On the other hand, you have a company like Spotify with lots of competition, who still claim or in actuality, is still not profitable after 15+ years. Sorry to say, I just don't trust Spotify, their word in my opinion is completely meaningless, whether it be regarding audio promises or their business practice. Just my opinion.
 
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Sal1950

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It took me 3 days to work through all of the "are you sure?" dialog boxes.
Were both your hands broken? LOL
The "are you sure" pop-ups were a PITA bit still it took me all of under 3 minutes. ;)
 

Sombreuil

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DanielT

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I'm trying to create an email to What Hifi. Think what you want about them but now they can do some real digging journalism, instead of waffling about sound in between different digital cables for example. BUT I did not manage to create any sensible email. I do not have English as a mother tongue and it will not be good when I have to put together a formally meaningful email. Can no one else email What Hifi? and ask What Hifi if they can dig deeper regarding that Spotify moderator's statement. Get them to act like real journalists and chase the right decision makers within Spotify and get clarified what is really going on?

Sensible journalism and What Hifi, am I again too gullible and naive?
 

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DanielT

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Yes! Real journalism is all but dead. Stop beating a dead horse.
That for once they would do something sensible is perhaps naive to believe if one is to be realistic but I try to be optimistic. The most sensible thing is to have a realistic view, but cynicism is boring and you can get bitter. Okay naive and gullible, then can be seen as if you are a little stupid.Hm, difficult balancing that.Now I'm talking about life in general. Hifi is really nothing. It's just a few gadget and a hobby. Although you spend some time on your Hifi so ..:)

Edit:
Although being a cynical Hifi fart is kind of part of the whole aduiophile package. In some bizarre way, it has its charm. :)

Please note I'm not talking about you now!
 

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_Dekker

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Tried Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify.
I do not care about lossless, did a lot of AB testing on that and I simply cannot tell a difference.
If your hearing stops at 15kHz then 192kB/s is already good enough (the lower the bitrate, the more high frequencies are cut off).
What I DO care about is the mastering quality of a CD, or in other words: lack of overdone compression.
On Spotify/Tidal most albums are simply the latest "Remastered" versions which in the majority of cases results in more compression. That just pulls a chunk of emotion out of the music.
Qobuz sometimes also offers the original or earlier recording which I like.
This specifically applies to pop/rock music. With Jazz or Classical (which I don't like) this is much less of an issue.
Spotify simply has a bigger library of what I'm interested in so that's what I kept.
 

voodooless

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Please note I'm not talking about you now!
Ah, I’m a cynic, so would not be offended ;). Strange enough, I’m also a hardcore optimist :cool:. Still not sure how that works together.
 
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