Streaming Services Musings - What are Your Thoughts (warning - long post follows)

I've never actually used Spotify or Tidal but suspect you've summed it up pretty well.

I have Qobuz Sublime and while that only allows CD quality streams, the bonus is 30-60% off a large proportion of the hi-res catalogue.  MP3 or CD quality is fine for discovering new music /artists, but if I really like something I'll probably purchase the hi-res download if available as I'm realistically only going to want hi-res at home from a NAS.

Qobuz quite heavily leans towards classical and classic rock/pop/jazz, I suspect Tidal and Spotify offer a bit more variety but it depends what you're after.

Having toured the various free trials for some time, using Naim streamers rather than Linn, I have stuck with Tidal for the time being, because of its integration into the Naim app, and because it offers a lossless service. I thought Spotify was a much better service in every respect except for sound quality, but without a lossless stream, I'm just not interested. I found Qobuz interesting, but they ripped me off, they know they did it, and they stated quite plainly that they intended to do nothing about it, in a response that could only have been written by Michel Barnier, so they will be getting no more custom from me!   

ChrisSU posted:

Having toured the various free trials for some time, using Naim streamers rather than Linn, I have stuck with Tidal for the time being, because of its integration into the Naim app, and because it offers a lossless service. I thought Spotify was a much better service in every respect except for sound quality, but without a lossless stream, I'm just not interested. I found Qobuz interesting, but they ripped me off, they know they did it, and they stated quite plainly that they intended to do nothing about it, in a response that could only have been written by Michel Barnier, so they will be getting no more custom from me!   

What did they do so badly?

Clive Gidney

If you want to listen to MQA on your Linn get a ROON subscription.  ROON will do the MQA unfolding and pass on a higher res signal (higher than 16/44) to your DS.

Works fine on my KDS

Alley Cat posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Having toured the various free trials for some time, using Naim streamers rather than Linn, I have stuck with Tidal for the time being, because of its integration into the Naim app, and because it offers a lossless service. I thought Spotify was a much better service in every respect except for sound quality, but without a lossless stream, I'm just not interested. I found Qobuz interesting, but they ripped me off, they know they did it, and they stated quite plainly that they intended to do nothing about it, in a response that could only have been written by Michel Barnier, so they will be getting no more custom from me!   

What did they do so badly?

To be honest, I'm not sure if it's appropriate to use Naim's forum to slag them off too much, but on one occasion their support regarding a failed download was just to fob me off, and on a separate issue, they overcharged me, admitted it, and bluntly informed me that they intended to do nothing to rectify the situation.  

I thought your summary was quite good.. although for Spotify it’s 320kbps of course. I have found the selection on Qobuz hugely improved of late for R&B, rap and electro and overall only second to Spotify in selection.. and I prefer the Qobuz discovery playlists to Tidal.. I find for what ever reason the sq on Qobuz superior to Tidal... you sometimes hear a distortion on Tidal that just isn’t present on Qobuz, as well as some tracks seem to have more compression or gains adjusted on Tidal... my other family members noticed it too so I assume it’s not just me being neurotic...... so I have cancelled Tidal.

I have tried Spotify free service (with adverts) not premium, and I have been pleasantly surprised: it doesn’t sound as bad as I expected, in fact is quite listenable for the purpose I use it, which is listening to music new to me to decide if I like it, as a precursor to buying. The ads are irritating if listening for an extended period, but tolerable as it is easy to hit the mute key on Dave to silence it for a few seconds, and in my view for the purpose I use it the cost of subscribing is not justified to kill the adverts. As noted by the OP, they have quite a wide selection of music.

Regarding integration, my normal player is Audirvana, and that integrates both Tidal and Qobuz, but unlike Naim streamers it does not support Spotify, so I have to leave Audirvana, and instead use the Spotify app on my Mac Mini, outputting to Dave. I haven’t tried either Tidal or Qobuz through Audirvana as Spotify (and occasionally other sources like uTube or artists’ sites) fulfils my sampling needs. When I had a trial of Rune, although I had no interest in Tidal its integration with Tidal was very evident, apparently linked just like one’s own music store, which I guess may be a bonus for those who do subscribe to and regularly use That service.

What Roon also did do was offer suggestions of things it thought I might like, and links to artists and music related to whatever I was listening to. Seemed to be mainly online info rather than links to Tidal, but I didn’t explore. In fact I found it quite irritating, with so much popping up rather like social media continually prompting to like things or make ‘friends’ (and in my case the suggestions were rarely of any interest) - however others seem to like what Roon does, so if this sounds like your cup of tea then it could be worth investigating, especially if Tidal is also of interest.

Interestingly, nobody has mentioned Apple Music... I use Spotify in my car, Tidal HiFI and Qobuz for my home audio, but my Qobuz sub is finishing shortly and I wont be renewing it. Just for fun, I signed up for the month trial of Apple Music... Wow! Its so much better than it used to be. It constantly serves up music I love and albums keep coming up that I knew long ago and loved hearing them again. And it sounds great. In a blind test I couldn't tell the difference between AM or Tidal through my Nova/ATC40's combo, not with my 57 year old ears anyway! Please give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised. 

Tidal and Spotify for streaming. Qobuz has a limited catalogue for my musical tastes although I use it to purchase music when I can find it. I use Spotify mainly for new discovery and on the move listening as there playlists are the best for this. Tidla for lossless  and its integration to Roon which I use for my library and covers my music tastes more. 

Tidal for streaming through Roon & Naim App (though better integration on Roon than Naim App, and SQ as I bridge Roon and feed the NDS with WAV, plus MQA support for Tidal Masters), Mobile on the iPhone and earphones/headphones while traveling & away, and then Desktop app while at the desk in the office (only interruptions are these meetings & calls they keep insisting on ????).

Have bought HiRes content from Qobuz before, but they are somewhat late to lossless streaming, plus their Sublime subscription, to get the HiRes streaming, is a upfront all-at-once annual commitment, where Tidal Masters comes with the HiFi subscription level.

Spotify abandoned years ago, following the initial integration into n-Stream & the limitations of 320 kbps was very audible.

Apple Music, liked by some, as easy as inbuilt to iOS on the iPhone, yes, but not when only 256 Kbps AAC. I believe they have their catalogue in lossless ALAC, plus an iPhone & iPod can do 24/48. Certainly the Gen3 60G iPod I have in the glovebox of the car, can play 24/48 ALAC files, through the BMW headunit with IDtags displayed for Artist/Album/Trackname.

BTW Why do we still call it a glovebox? Who keeps gloves in it, or even wears driving gloves these days? A Caterham 7, where you might need gloves, given you are exposed doesn’t have one!

simes_pep posted:

BTW Why do we still call it a glovebox? Who keeps gloves in it, or even wears driving gloves these days? A Caterham 7, where you might need gloves, given you are exposed doesn’t have one!

My wife waers gloves in winter, in the car, whether passenger or driving. On her her half hour drive to work on a cold day the inside of the car has warmed up, but not to the temperature she regards as warm enough to trigger glove removal. Her gloves go in the glove box over summer...

jukemark posted:

Interestingly, nobody has mentioned Apple Music... I use Spotify in my car, Tidal HiFI and Qobuz for my home audio, but my Qobuz sub is finishing shortly and I wont be renewing it. Just for fun, I signed up for the month trial of Apple Music... Wow! Its so much better than it used to be. It constantly serves up music I love and albums keep coming up that I knew long ago and loved hearing them again. And it sounds great. In a blind test I couldn't tell the difference between AM or Tidal through my Nova/ATC40's combo, not with my 57 year old ears anyway! Please give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised. 

I have Apple Music but rarely use it and am considering cancelling.

I have Qobuz which I find fine for most music, but it's a shame they don't offer a family subscription of some kind.  Apple Music feeds a bit of enjoyment of Music Videos but I probably already purchased most of those I wanted from them (in crap quality mostly).

I hate the iOS and tvOS Music app or whatever it's called these days as it doesn't offer me what I want.

I do not want recommendations and so forth thrust at me, I want a simple search for Artist or Album/Song title and be able to  browse all available content not 'most popular' etc - I constantly find things seem to be missing but I cannot figure out if it's just the way search results are presented.  Equally for example on AppleTV which I;d like to use as a video jukebox, there's no way to randomly play one of your purchased videos or say randomly play all of an artist's music videos.  If there is it has eluded me, but I got so fed up with the naff App designs and confusing implementation of iTunes Match/iCloud Music Library vs locally stored music on iOS devices that I may not have invested enough time getting to grips with it.  I'd also add that Apple software and configuration options are increasingly cryptic - say you've synced music to your phone, you used to be only able to view that OR you had to enable iTunes Match/iCloud Music Library for those features which then did not show your locally synced audio, and the options to switch between the two never made it clear if synced material would get deleted if you switched to cloud audio.

I wonder if the quality of service from these streaming companies varies by geography. Here in Minneapolis, Tidal via the Naim app has been very reliable, and the sound quality is excellent. My only complaint is that I can only rarely tell which release of an album I am listening to. For that reason alone, if I own the rip, I’ll usually play that instead.