All About Streaming Music Services

[Mandryka]

Let me make a post here saying what I would like to do, just in case someone knows whether it's possible.

1. I want to stream my own music to my hifi using wifi. My library is about 2TB with about 75,000 tracks in many formats, mostly flac.

2. I want to be able to create playlists including my music and music from spotify and other streaming services, like youtube and qobuz.

3. I want to be able to search libraries and create playlists using a tablet.

At the moment I can do this with Logitech squeezebox and a PC with the music sitting in a hard drive.  But the squeezebox is unsupported and I'm concerned that the interface to streaming services will cease to function. It has already stopped working for youtube, as they changed one of their formats. Of course, the Logitech hardware will eventually fail (but I have a backup.)

I am prepared to buy new hardware (I wonder if I can do it with apple.) And I am prepared to change the file type of my own music library - though I would prefer a lossless format.

[Wakefield]

This month I decided to cancel my Apple Music subscription.

Unfortunately, its technical problems haven't decreased over the time, but the contrary. 

I have decided to come back to Classics Online, even if its monthly price is three times more expensive than Apple Music ($4.99 vs. $14,99).

Now, I'm curious: how many people here have cancelled their Apple Music subscriptions or simply abandoned after the trial period?

[Holden]

I didn't take up the offer. I already have Spotify and Apple didn't appear to be significantly better of worse. I don't see the reason for having two very similar services so I stuck with what I know.

[Wakefield]

I didn't take up the offer. I already have Spotify and Apple didn't appear to be significantly better of worse. I don't see the reason for having two very similar services so I stuck with what I know.

I find its sound quality superior to Spotify (I did some detailed comparison), and some of its features are conceptually interesting (for instance, to provide musical videos); but its search system is a nightmare and finally has dissuaded me of following with this service.

In addition, I exclusively listen to classical music, so there is a lot of options of Apple Music that simply I don't use.

[Wakefield]

Why Rdio died: https://hec.su/b1TJ

[psu]

I find Apple Music to be pretty good. The catalog is comparable to or better than Spotify (each has things the other does not) and by any measure is pretty deep and wide.

The main problems that you have with it come from it being layered on top of the existing iTunes functionality and therefore not quite acting completely seamlessly if you have an existing catalog of local or cloud-stored music.

I think it will evolve to be decent. I find the interface, though incomplete and janky, is still mostly better than the desktop or mobile spotify interface. But that's more of a personal preference.

[Daverz]

I decided to do a trial of Spotify.  So far, I have found one CD that Tidal does not have.  It appears they get their classical catalog from the same place.   

[Madiel]

Why Rdio died: https://hec.su/b1TJ

WHAAAAT???!!!

Seriously, I was about to subscribe. I've been using the free version on and off, much prefer it to Spotify, and recently took my month free trial to see how I felt about it without ads.

Bloody disaster. I hate Spotify's interface in comparison.

[otare]

I decided to keep my Apple Music subscription. It has all the rock-music I remember from my youth with bands like It's a beautiful day, Curved Air, Renaissance, Quatermass, Quicksilver Messenger Service etc... It also has all the Norwegian pop and rock music from the 60's and 70's. It sets up interesting playlists for me, and it has a very wide selection of classical music. I did a search for Julius Röntgen, and it presented me with works from 31 different CDs. It saves me from every buying a pop/rock CD again, and the selection of classical music is great.
I have had no technical problems whatsoever.

[Madiel]

Has anyone tried Deezer?

It's currently my chief candidate for an Rdio substitute. Some similiarites in its interface.

Also some similarities to Spotify, but hallelujah it has the basic bit of functionality Spotify is lacking despite literally years of complaints: a "Remove from Queue" button that works.

[Wakefield]

Has anyone tried Deezer?

It's currently my chief candidate for an Rdio substitute. Some similiarites in its interface.

Also some similarities to Spotify, but hallelujah it has the basic bit of functionality Spotify is lacking despite literally years of complaints: a "Remove from Queue" button that works.

Yes, in matter of sound quality is quite similar to Spotify and Rdio, but its catalogue is quite bigger than the last one and even bigger than Spotify too. Its classical music section is huge.

The cons? Principally, its interface, IMHO. Its web interface is only passable compared to Rdio; but its desk app is really bad, at least, its Mac incarnation.

[Madiel]

Okay. I've never really felt the need for a "desk app" - if I'm connected to the internet for streaming, then the web version is fine.

The interface is a little busier than Rdio, but I'm finding it workable. A bit of experimenting is showing me that I can do the key things I want to. Once I figured out how to use the check boxes, several things became much simpler.  I generally use streaming services for sampling works, so I'm not especially desperate to have favourites or create playlists but it seems as if that functionality is readily available.

Search seems no worse, although I was thrown by a particular recording being listed as "ouevres pour piano" instead of "works for piano"! It seems that getting complete consistency for Classical recordings is an impossibility (pop music by title and artist is so much easier), but anything is better than Spotify's suggestion of "The Barber of Seville" as a top pick for Samuel Barber. 

[Mandryka]

Last month I bought the 250,000 song storage option for the Amazon Cloud Drive, for only $25/year - and have begun uploading my library, which is almost 175,000 "songs".  I will probably cancel Apple Music since their upload option does not work nearly as well, forcing you to use iTunes, and topping out at 25,000 songs.  I was told by them that the only way I could sync my library with the Apple cloud would be to pare down my library from 175K to 25K tracks.

The Amazon player pretty good.

Can you give me a link to this storage option on the Amazon cloud that you bought? I just can't find it.

[Mandryka]

You first have to have an Amazon Music subscription.  But here is the page explaining how to upgrade the storage subscription.  This is from the Amazon US site, if you use Amazon UK, you will need to find a similar page on that site.

Thanks, it's not quite right for me because of the limitation to MP3 and to albums in the Amazon library. It's a shame because I'm very keen to get some backup away from my house.

[Mandryka]

It is not limited to the Amazon library, any track in on your computer is imported and nearly all formats are compatible, ogg, flac, aiff, m4a, wav, wma, etc.

Aha - but I think that when a track is not in the Amazon library it has to be in a lossy format. As far as I can see this can be very high quality. Still you're right and I shall explore it and other options once Christmas/New Year is out of the way.

[Wakefield]

Last month I bought the 250,000 song storage option for the Amazon Cloud Drive, for only $25/year - and have begun uploading my library, which is almost 175,000 "songs". I will probably cancel Apple Music since their upload option does not work nearly as well, forcing you to use iTunes, and topping out at 25,000 songs.  I was told by them that the only way I could sync my library with the Apple cloud would be to pare down my library from 175K to 25K tracks.

The Amazon player pretty good.

Some days ago, I said here I decided to cancel my Apple Music subscription, but what I really did was to cancel the auto-renewal of my subscription, which expires on December 1. So, currently I use two different streaming services: Apple Music and Classics OnLine. And I am having a hard time in order to maintain my decision about Apple Music. It's true its search engine is a mess and every day seems more evident that mixing everything into iTunes wasn't a good idea. But still its sound quality and gapless reproduction are stellar, no to mention the excellent catalogue. Decisions, decisions...   

[Wakefield]

I was happy to discover that the Amazon player also has gapless playback.  Spotify and Amazon are enough for me.

I have a sort of prejudice against Spotify. I have never liked its sound quality, and it's not just a thing in favor of Apple Music because I have preferred almost every other streaming service that I have tried: Rdio, Deezer, Magnatune, Naxos Music Library, Classics OnLine. I don't like its layout neither. I think simply it's not for me. 

Amazon sounds like a good option if copyright restrictions allow me to try it from Chile.

[Daverz]

I have a sort of prejudice against Spotify. I have never liked its sound quality, and it's not just a thing in favor of Apple Music because I have preferred almost every other streaming service that I have tried: Rdio, Deezer, Magnatune, Naxos Music Library, Classics OnLine. I don't like its layout neither. I think simply it's not for me. 

Amazon sounds like a good option if copyright restrictions allow me to try it from Chile.

I wonder why spotify sounds so bad.  The spotify app is much better than Tidal's.  Still, I'll probably cancel spotify and keep Tidal.

[Wakefield]

I wonder why spotify sounds so bad.  The spotify app is much better than Tidal's.  Still, I'll probably cancel spotify and keep Tidal.

I was wondering if I'm deaf and I'm the only person here who thought this way. It's a relief to see at somebody else thinks the same. 

[Wakefield]

... btw, just for the record, I'm a weak human being. Today I activated the automatic renewal option on Apple Music again, just before the expiration date of my subscription. They won... again.