Switching away from YTM but to what?

[olieb]

Just downloaded Spotify, seems much more useable than last time. I guess it's either that or Tidal. In principle I guess it could also be Apple Music but I really do not feel like giving money to the dark side

But nevertheless the dark side pays more per stream than most of the competition. Only Tidal is more generous and probably playing nicer with Android, too. (On Qobuz I could not find info)

Streaming Royalties Calculator: What Your Streams Are Worth

Find out how much music streaming platforms pay artists, learn the factors that affect royalty payments & use our Music Streaming Royalties Calculator.

dittomusic.com

The figures vary but the ranking is very much the same on many sites with comparison.

 

[Sal1950]

With iTunes you could add your own music but it wasn't streaming.

Beware, I do remember some years back many online folks going nuts screaming.
After integrating their local library with their itunes library, itunes was deciding you didn't
need 2 copies of the same album and if found some (what it thought was a duplicate) on your
local list would delete it.

 

[Head_Unit]

I also have Apple Music but I can't find any function to "add" my music...

File --> Import --> point to the files (can't be FLAC or probably some others, I use XLD to transcode FLAC to Apple Lossless aka ALE).
That's on a desktop, I don't know how you do it on an iPhone or iPad.
Depending on the embedded metadata you might have to hunt it down in all your files to add art and artist and so on.

I think some may be confusing the ability of some streamers user interface to integrate their local music library with the online library.
I could be wrong here ?

No I think you are correct. And that is not what I am talking about at all, I'm talking about uploading to Apple's* servers so it becomes like another thing in their cloud you can stream or even re-download.

*Somewhere one of their people was insisting that stuff is NOT on "Apple" servers, I think drawing a distinction between their service and your personal files. Only you or your family if a family account can see and play these uploaded files.

 

[Esprit]

That's on a desktop, I don't know how you do it on an iPhone or iPad

There isn't, nor is there on Apple TV.

 

[Mal]

After using Amazon Prime Music for a number of years I've cancelled and reverted to Spotify. Maybe my musical choices are obscure, but a lot are not "HD" and sound worse than Spotify's more consistent 320K MP3 quality. Additionally, Amazon can't distinguish between artists with the same name and has terrible suggestions that don't align with my tastes at all. Amazon Music is also buggy and will only play continuously on one Echo at a time. If I try to use groups or "everywhere" every second song stops and I have to restart manually. According to forums this issue has been in existence since 2021 or so - Spotify is much better about improving their usability over time.

I use a mix of connectivities, such as Bluetooth, USB (Android Auto), Alexa/Echo, Heos. In every case, Spotify works better and Spotify Connect doesn't rob you of half the functionality you're used to.

I'm just in the process of doing the opposite! Spotify Premium never sounds as good as my old CD player on my KEF LSXs (even though I can only connect CD player via aux...) I actually can't stand the thin sound of Spotify any more, I gotta move...

On comparing high quality classical CDs I actually thought Amazon Prime Unlimited sounded better than my CD player (largely due to optical connection, I suspect...)

I'm not finding playback of Amazon Music buggy, but the app can be infuriating (e.g., when playing a string quartet it doesn't show the full title of the track playing...) Spotify's app is much more user friendly, but sound quality has to be determining factor... and as the LED display on my CD player is bust at least Amazon Music is never worse at displaying metadata than my CD player(!) Spotify has much better connectivity For instance, via Spotify Connect I can choose tracks on my Amazon Fire Tablet and play them on my Amazon Fire Stick. But I can't do that under Amazon Music (even though everything in the chain is Amazon!)

Amazon Music Unlimited at least displays the quality of music playing - my tastes are fairly mainstream classical, with diversions into fairly mainstream rock, and everything I've seen has been at least CD quality.

 

[Mal]

Amazon works for my family, and whatever the better music service is called now (prime music?) is pretty good.

I use it either through JRiver or WiiM though so I'm slightly protected from the vanilla app ... WiiM especially is pretty good at integrating streaming and my own files (FLAC, mostly).

I'm thinking less about the individual streaming service these days and more about the music

The "better music service" is Amazon Music Unlimited. Amazon Prime Music is what you get free with Amazon Prime (limited bit rate & shuffles tracks...) Can you expand on how you protect yourself from the vanilla apps? Is there a JRiver or WiiM app?

 

[JeremyFife]

The "better music service" is Amazon Music Unlimited. Amazon Prime Music is what you get free with Amazon Prime (limited bit rate & shuffles tracks...) Can you expand on how you protect yourself from the vanilla apps? Is there a JRiver or WiiM app?

Yeah - Music Unlimited. I mostly use WiiM - seamless and very good.

I also play through JRiver but as a WMD implementation. That's the standard Amazon app and I don't find it as good as WiiM. Works fine for what I need though. One day I'll investigate JRiver properly.

WiiM is my preferred app, for sure.