What streaming service do you use?

[Monster]

Just thought I would update my earlier post on this.

I was with Amazon Music Unlimited but the Amazon Android app and, even more so, the Windows desktop app were driving me nuts. The desktop app won't even allow casting to Alexa enabled devices, like the Wiim Pro. After the furore of the MQA debacle I swore I would never subscribe to Tidal, so I went for the three month Spotify free trial. The Spotify Android and Windows desktop apps were fantastic after the Amazon apps but the sound quality was pretty awful, even in the max 320 kbps mode. After three days of the Spotify three month free trial I renewed my subscription with Amazon Music Unlimited. Roll forward two months and Tidal come out with their new pricing plan and a commitment to move away from MQA to FLAC and I'm sufficiently tempted.

So what's my view of Tidal so far? Well the apps are great. As far as I can make out, pretty much as good as the Spotify apps. There is still quite a lot of MQA content there but, fortunately, the Wiim Pro will do the first 'unfold' of MQA files. Once 'unfolded', to my old ears, the sound quality doesn't seem appreciably worse than red book 16/44.1 CD quality, but it's certainly no better either. As the number of MQA tracks should diminish over time, I think I'm willing to live with that.

Anyway, I have 56 days left to continue exploring the Tidal music streaming service before making a decision whether to stick with them, or not. However, if Spotify ever get around to bringing out a 'hi-res' FLAC based service, at a competitive price, I would still seriously consider switching back to them.

 

[gat3keeper]

I'm using Spotify for years until few weeks ago, I switched to Tidal. I thought it was the highest quality for streaming possible or is it Qobuz ? I was surprised most people here us Qobuz and Spotify , only 3rd for Tidal.

 

[Monster]

I'm using Spotify for years until few weeks ago, I switched to Tidal. I thought it was the highest quality for streaming possible or is it Qobuz ? I was surprised most people here us Qobuz and Spotify , only 3rd for Tidal.

I think many here were put off by Tidal falling for the MQA nonsense. Certainly had Tidal not committed to moving away from MQA towards FLAC I would not have considered signing up with them. The reality is that there is still far too much MQA content on Tidal but that should improve over time.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I've signed up for a year of Qobuz after testing it against Amazon. Clear winner for the types of music I listen to most frequently. My one complaint is that the search is terrible, although not as bad as Amazon's. Searching for music by genre is a waste of time. You'd think that with tagged music you'd be able to search for something like renaissance classical and come up with a set of albums of classical music written in the Renaissance. Oh well.

 

[Robin L]

I only stream to find tunes vis ITunes, mostly to share to ASR. My attempts at streaming in the past gave me troubles, find playing my numerous CDs much less hassle.

 

[SnookHaus]

Qobuz, Spotify Free, and Radio Paradise for me.

 

[Tom Schneider]

Tidal primarily but also have Amazon Music for my wife since she streams music pretty much all day on her Sonos Era 300.

 

[Snarfie]

Youtube not specific Youtube music.

Did play yesterday Hitster with Spotify daughter en wife. Last card question before i had 10 cards was Thema Houston - Don't leave me this way. For a 65 years old peace of cake (Victory ) It was fun but the Hitster app was horrible daughter had to scan many times or had to restarted the app. Appart from that for a streaming service nice addition.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Most of the services incessantly push music which, as a jazz listener, I have zero interest in in their UI’s, so I write my own UI’s. Amazon and Apple, of course, make that impossible to do for mere mortals. Spotify, Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz have decent APIs, but Tidal makes it relatively easy to retrieve artist and album metadata, so it’s my preferred platform.

 

[Timcognito]

@Ralph_Cramden hope you are aware of the largest jazz library in the world kcsm.org streaming Jazz 24/7/365 no commercials. FYI

KCSM - Homepage

KCSM Jazz 91.1 is both an educational and public radio station located at College of San Mateo in the San Francisco Bay Area.

kcsm.org

 

[gabo4au]

@Ralph_Cramden hope you are aware of the largest jazz library in the world kcsm.org streaming Jazz 24/7/365 no commercials. FYI

KCSM - Homepage

KCSM Jazz 91.1 is both an educational and public radio station located at College of San Mateo in the San Francisco Bay Area.

kcsm.org

KCSM also has a playlist on Spotify.

I find Spotify very easy to do all this stuff with. You can create your own playlists, which I do often and have many. You can easily do searches for other playlists and there are thousands, both by the "corporate machine" and by individuals. Many of them like the KCSM one (which currently has over 1000 hrs) are updated and changed around frequently. If you have friends on Spotify, you can find their userID and share playlists.

It's similar to listening to a "station" except it's specific to what you want to listen to. Just search for a playlist, put it on "shuffle" and engage "replay" and hit go. It will play indefinitely, shuffling around the songs, and if it ever runs out of songs will start over.

You can save these playlists in your profile for easy access. For example, I was recently interested in the deceased drummer Jeff Porcaro, did a quick search and found a playlist with every song he ever recorded! Brilliant.

And for those who complain about the quality, most of those complaints are from non-subscribers who get very low quality. As a subscriber, I find the "highest quality" setting gives quality that is as good as I can hear. As an aside, I also listen to audio books once in a while, with a standard membership you get 15hrs per month of audio books. Good enough for a trip or two in the car. There is a reason it's the biggest streaming platform.

 

[Timcognito]

KCSM also has a playlist on Spotify.

I find Spotify very easy to do all this stuff with. You can create your own playlists, which I do often and have many. You can easily do searches for other playlists and there are thousands, both by the "corporate machine" and by individuals. Many of them like the KCSM one (which currently has over 1000 hrs) are updated and changed around frequently. If you have friends on Spotify, you can find their userID and share playlists.

It's similar to listening to a "station" except it's specific to what you want to listen to. Just search for a playlist, put it on "shuffle" and engage "replay" and hit go. It will play indefinitely, shuffling around the songs, and if it ever runs out of songs will start over.

You can save these playlists in your profile for easy access. For example, I was recently interested in the deceased drummer Jeff Porcaro, did a quick search and found a playlist with every song he ever recorded! Brilliant.

And for those who complain about the quality, most of those complaints are from non-subscribers who get very low quality. As a subscriber, I find the "highest quality" setting gives quality that is as good as I can hear. As an aside, I also listen to audio books once in a while, with a standard membership you get 15hrs per month of audio books. Good enough for a trip or two in the car. There is a reason it's the biggest streaming platform.

Yes but Spotify short changes music creators. All the services they provide are nice but I'll stick with Qobuz which about to launch a connect feature. Their selection is better than Spotify, as I listen to very little "popular" music and more college station, independent and small label music.

 

[pablolie]

Yes but Spotify short changes music creators. All the services they provide are nice but I'll stick with Qobuz which about to launch a connect feature. Their selection is better than Spotify, as I listen to very little "popular" music and more college station, independent and small label music.

It's the artists' choice to accept the nature of the platform. I use Spotify extensively, but also support/follow/pay on Bandcamp when they avoid Spotify for the reasons you mention.

I also continue to buy music so I can own it in my library outside of agreements between Spotify and the artists that can expire at any time.

Supposedly Spotify is very financially rewarding if you have big name recognition (extra $$ without any work on promotion etc), Bandcamp clearly much superior if you have a smaller but dedicated fan base.

Examples...
1. Classic R&B artists... they are either old. or. dead, and I already bought their albums. But if I. listen to them on Spotify, they (or their estate) make extra $ with zero effort.
2. Artists that decided to opt out of mass platforms... like Ottmar Liebert for example. I unquestionably support their creative output on Bandcamp.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

@Ralph_Cramden hope you are aware of the largest jazz library in the world kcsm.org streaming Jazz 24/7/365 no commercials. FYI

KCSM - Homepage

KCSM Jazz 91.1 is both an educational and public radio station located at College of San Mateo in the San Francisco Bay Area.

kcsm.org

I listen to jazz radio on occasion, though I'm usually an album listener.

 

[TunaBug]

In the car I use Slacker because that's Tesla's backend streaming partner, and I'm pleased with the selection and price ($0). At home I listen mostly to my own library, served/streamed in house using piCorePlayer.

 

[gabo4au]

Yes but Spotify short changes music creators. All the services they provide are nice but I'll stick with Qobuz which about to launch a connect feature. Their selection is better than Spotify, as I listen to very little "popular" music and more college station, independent and small label music.

I am an artist! And agree with everything you say about that. But none of the services are friendly to artists. We can't make any money period! We no longer promote ourselves or really even try. We have been very successful at other endeavors, including session work, designing studios, and other engineering. So these days we just play and record for the love of it..

We're on all the streaming platforms, including bandcamp, soundcloud, reverbnation, etc..

The Moderns. Our latest album released in March of this year titled NEXT! Check it out!