Topic: Music Streaming Services

[MBL?]

What do you use and have you tried others?

I’ve tried Spotify, YouTube music, Amazon, tidal and Apple Music.

I was initially Spotify like everyone else but moved to YouTube because premium removes the adds on normal YouTube and because there is loads of stuff on there that isn’t anywhere else since it was only uploaded there albeit in really bad quality. I then tried Amazon and tidal as they had higher quality streaming options but I honestly couldn’t tell the difference with my headphone setup bar when it’s a YouTube oldie that was uploaded to the normal site years ago. In the past week I ordered a new Sonos speaker that does Atmos but the Atmos only works with Amazon and apple. Thought the Amazon app was shite so wasn’t signing up to that again, only option was apple and I normally give them a wide birth bar iPads.

I’m hearing a noticeable improvement in quality over all the other apps now on apple. It could be my setup but my setup handles all codecs so I’m not sure why this is. I used beyerdynamics tygr 300’s and a FiiO btr3k dac for all when listening, not high end stuff but should be a decent way to notice differences which I could never really hear until trying the apple one.

[[new username under construction]]

erm Bittorrent and save your money?

[ScouserAtHeart]

Have Youtube Premium and Apple Music.

Youtube Premium is use because of the no ads thing, not really for music. I noticed I was watching more of than I do any other vide streaming service so it was worth it. Plus it's really cheap here. Like the equivalent of 13 pounds a year.

Apple Music is what I use mostly. It's just so well integrated to everything else I own. I get Apple TV+, 50GB of cloud storage, and Apple Music for less than two pounds a month, so again very good deal. Like you, it was the Spatial Audio that won me over.

[Zlen]

Tidal HIFI.
Best sound quality.

[RobbieRedman]

Tried Spotify for a few months but didn't see the value and free option is jarring with adverts.

I have one main Youtube account where i set up all my playlists and then just get a new free trial each month by setting up a new account each time, and subcribe to the main one. It's great having no adverts and also be able to lock phone and still listen (for free). I watch more YT than anything else too so makes sense.

[Claire.]

Apple Music for lossless/spatial and it's on all my devices anyway.

I did use Spotify for years up until AM launched and then I switched over cos I was getting it for free and have stayed.

[ooter1]

have a tidal subscription through argentina, costs me less that 1 euro a month and i can share my login with up to 5 people. 

[MBL?]

Have Youtube Premium and Apple Music.

Youtube Premium is use because of the no ads thing, not really for music. I noticed I was watching more of than I do any other vide streaming service so it was worth it. Plus it's really cheap here. Like the equivalent of 13 pounds a year.

Apple Music is what I use mostly. It's just so well integrated to everything else I own. I get Apple TV+, 50GB of cloud storage, and Apple Music for less than two pounds a month, so again very good deal. Like you, it was the Spatial Audio that won me over.

The reason I won’t be getting rid of YouTube premium is the ads and like yourself I watch YouTube more than anything else. I should stop being lazy though get a vpn and get it cheap from another country. Would need an online paying method as well.

[MBL?]

erm Bittorrent and save your money?

No way would I go back to downloading music. Streaming services are a must these days unlike Netflix etc that can easily be replaced by not so legal available streaming methods.

[ToneLa]

YouTube Vanced off my blower (to never see ads). I also rip music from Deezer with a little download tool

Also have Spotify as I listen to so much I basically use loads of storage for tunes. I like exploring and finding new music (doing SoundHound when out, or checking out certain genres, or a specific artist that's in my head for whatever reason) so, in a real out-of-character thing for me am happy to pay for Spotify

Also because if you go on the Lyrics bit for a song it might have a little looped video for the tune
The one for Riders On the Storm is an animated  Jim Morrison driving down a highway in the rain

Edit: giving Tidal a try. See what the hi-fi quality is like

[Riquende]

No way would I go back to downloading music. Streaming services are a must these days unlike Netflix etc that can easily be replaced by not so legal available streaming methods.

Even as someone who happily still torrents all the video content I'm after, I've given up adding to the MP3 library I started waaaaaay back in the Napster days. It wasn't a conscious decision, and maybe even 5 or so years ago I was still using ripping tools to grab hold of anything I'd stumbled across on YT, but it got to point I had several hundred MP3s just sat in my 'Downloads' that I then never did anything with. Around the same time I dipped my toe into the Amazon Echo setups, and so started paying for Prime Music. I'd always assumed that the streaming services only really catered to mainstream audiences so was pretty impressed by just what I was finding on there, including all the content I was still downloading. There are still a few favourite albums that are just too obscure for Amazon, so my backup is a Plex server that is linked into the Echos via a skill to provide that particular music when desired.

I only really listen to MP3 files now in the car, I keep a USB stick there with several hundred 'classics', but increasingly I find myself using the Amazon Music app to sync a couple of playlists (so they stream locally and not use data) instead. I can't get my Plex stuff that way though, I'd need the specific app for that and I can't be bothered paying extra to occasionally listen to half a dozen albums.

What this thread has illustrated to me though, with the YT premium comments, is that there are people who apparently don't use browser ad blockers to stop all that sort of thing happening.

[[new username under construction]]

Yeah I'm still being a tight ass an not paying anyone Soulseek and FLAC format and sorted

[CheshireDave]

YouTube vanced (basically YouTube premium without the cost), a cracked version of Spotify (all the benifiets of premium again without the cost) and an IPTV sub giving every channel I could ever want, all the PPV stuff and everything which is on Prime, Netflix etc and a whole lot more for £25 a year.

For podcasts I tend to use BBC Sounds and Castbox. Both are free.

[.adam]

Spotify, generally.

My brother-in-law has a Tidal Family Account and shared a login for that with me too. Been using it a fair bit but can't say I notice a great increase in quality on the home speakers (Sonos Fives and Ones). Might give it a go with the Sony cans to see if it makes much of a difference.

[ToneLa]

YouTube vanced (basically YouTube premium without the cost), a cracked version of Spotify (all the benifiets of premium again without the cost) and an IPTV sub giving every channel I could ever want, all the PPV stuff and everything which is on Prime, Netflix etc and a whole lot more for £25 a year.

For podcasts I tend to use BBC Sounds and Castbox. Both are free.

Sup my YouTube Vanced amigo

Throw in Plex and I've got that setup (my IPTV is a bit worse at on demand than the Plex service)

What's the cracked Spotify called?

[Sheer Magnetism]

I have 13 years of playlists on Spotify, that to me makes it a no brainer. I'd probably give Tidal to a go otherwise but a tenner a month is nothing - under half the price of one new LP.

[ToneLa]

You can import playlists to Tidal

[CheshireDave]

What's the cracked Spotify called?

Just one I found on a popular torrent site years ago. Only works on android though. Basically you need to set up a free account. Uninstall the latest version of Spotify, install the cracked .apk and log in with your free account.

The file i use is called Spotify Music 8.6.0.830 [Final] [Mod Apk] {B4tman}

[filopastry]

have a tidal subscription through argentina, costs me less that 1 euro a month and i can share my login with up to 5 people. 

Same and the quality is excellent, sounds fantastic on my Kefs

[Wabaloolah]

Spotify Family, not even sure what the cost is, think it's about £15 a month, myself, daughter, son and wife all use it daily.

Couldn't do without it, used to torrent and had all the songs I downloaded on an iPod back in the day. Tried Deezer, Amazon music, Apple music and YouTube but prefer Spotify

[McSquared]

have a tidal subscription through argentina, costs me less that 1 euro a month and i can share my login with up to 5 people. 

Nice one, just did this myself. I prefer spotify as i think their suggestion algorithms are better, but i was using tidal due to the integration with djay pro ai, but couldn’t really justify the extra cost, but with this Argentina sign up trick (used hola free vpn for sign up), i got the standard hifi tidal for ars99 = £0.38 per month. Just use tune my music to transfer playlists

[MBL?]

Same and the quality is excellent, sounds fantastic on my Kefs

Which Kefs do you have? They are all supposed to be great but I couldn’t justify the outlay personally so went with the Sonos era 300 (absolutely delighted with it and would recommend to anyone looking in that price bracket) and will probably add another further down the line for proper stereo.

[ToneLa]

Still using https://www.ibroadcast.com/ a lot but then I have decades' worth of my own FLACs / MP3s

Just thought I'd give it a shout out, to seem old

[TepidT2O]

I’d never used a streaming site but got 6 months of Apple Music free

Pretty spooky how it comes up with a play list that includes stuff I’ve never heard yet I really like. Not always obvious stuff either

[Claire.]

dunno mate, it's always recommending me country music or dance for some reason and it's about as far from my taste as you could get.

[Graeme]

Always used Spotify, but have just signed up for a family subsciption of Apple One.

£22.95 for Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, 200GB iCloud that all 5 of us in the house can use I think is pretty decent.

[Zlen]

Always used Spotify, but have just signed up for a family subsciption of Apple One.

£22.95 for Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, 200GB iCloud that all 5 of us in the house can use I think is pretty decent.

Their family packages - if you have enough people to make use of it - are really amazing value. Is Fitness+ also in the bundle? I'd rather have that instead of Arcade.

[Claire.]

fitness is included in the premier one.

[Graeme]

Yeah no Fitness+ on the Family, you need the Premier which is £32.95

[Hedley Lamarr]

I had to sign up to Premier as my daughters use more than 200gb each with TikTok nonsense .  It's great value and there are no real restrictions on who can use it, one of my mates buys me a beer or two to use Music and Apple TV.  I've never used Arcade though.

[ooter1]

I've been getting cheap tidal through Argentina for a while now but that loophole has been closed unfortunately, does anyone know of another cheap option for a music streaming service through another country?

[Redmaj]

Cracked Spotify is the way to go. Been using it for a few years now.

[ToneLa]

Keep meaning to do cracked Spotify but I just got 6 months free of Apple Music (EE customer)

So far so blah - spatial might be interesting if I find any music I actually like in it. Nice having everything lossless. Otherwise there's not much to differentiate it from Tidal or Spotify etc.

As ever first thing I did was turn off the autoplay thing - hate listening to an album, then tracks by some unrelated artist start playing. I guess that's "the algorithm"

[ToneLa]

and the six months Apple Music has run out. Best find: Trees the Napoli darkwave gaze band

Installed JamesDSP on my phone to improve the sound quality

Now on Amazon Music free trial - 3 months 

I've tried them all now I think. They're all the same in terms of library = very mainstream, I find very few differences between all of them

====

I am gonna buy a years' sub to iBroadcast as I have been uploading my library to them. And they're taking advice from me for new features, heh, they're considering it. You can use it free it just limits your quality no ads

Soulseek still works

Also PipePipe from the fdroid store lets me do Youtube audio with the screen off and no ads

=======

I am anti-Loudness
I am anti-Ads

I am anti-algorithm

first thing I do on these services is turn off the "Keep playing" thing. Frankly, if i can't remember an artist, they're not memorable enough

[Graeme]

6 months down the line with Apple Music as part of the Apple One subscription.

Music quality is great, music selection is fine, but speaker integration is really piss poor. Loved on Spotify that I could have a song open and then play on any speaker in the house via the app regardless of whether it was one of my Sonos or Alexa devices. Now I have to either AirPlay for the Sonos or use a voice command on the Alexa device to play from Apple Music.

[filopastry]

All that's changed for me is that I had to go from Tidal Argentina to the more expensive Tidal Malaysia, but after them effectively cutting prices on the lossless stuff, it is still pretty cheap for the family plan.

[RedSince86]

I have MP3's with just over 32000 songs.

Been really thinking of converting them to Flac and buying a Digital Audio Player, i want a better sound than my Phone and Ipod.

Sony Walkman's (Android UI)  look really good, but i'm hearing it's better to buy them from the Japanese Sony website, as the ones sold in the EU ( i thought we left the EU ) have sound limiters on them which the Japanese bought ones don't.

Got my eye on this one https://pur.store.sony.jp/walkman/products/NW-ZX707/NW-ZX707_purchase/  but also researching the Chinese ones in around same price bracket that have a really good sound.

And Amazon has loads of Chinese made ones that are top quality ranging from i've read in reviews and on Reddit Digital Audio player subreddit.

You can put storage cards in these DAP's with 126GB-512GB, really easy to put on the DAP once you plug it in to your PC or Laptop.

Anyone here got a DAP player?

[jillcwhomever]

I have gone over to Spotify premier now that I have a Pixel phone and I do like it I must admit. What I used to detest about itunes was when your paid for downloads would one day suddenly not be there anymore. That used to frustrate me so much with Apple. Having said that I still have the issue as I use my itunes library for my ipod nano. In the old days when I had an iphone I had way too much music on it, and I much prefer the idea of just doing play lists on my pixel phone and changing them from day to day. It's so much easier. 

[MBL?]

Binned apple music and just using YouTube premium now. Couldn't justify apple even though I was using it regularly. Got rid when I was doing a purge of monthly subs I'm paying. Would recomend anyone to have a proper look at how many subs they have. Was a few in there I can barely remember signing up for.