Another reason to dislike streaming and Spotify

Why did you stop at just seven points? I could have read this inspired nonsense all day! You had me hooked at the idea of “investing in hardware” (see a financial advisor btw) and Spotify making hardware. That’s the beginnings of a great yarn!

 

When SiriusXM a few years ago changed their audio codec to AAC, Onkyo never did provide a firmware update for my TX-NR809, rendering it useless for SXM online. Now I'm told that Denon is having an issue connecting to the SXM servers, so my AVR X5200 won't play SXM for the foreseeable future.

 

The streaming, Spotify, BlueTooth, and other such integration is the smartphone mentality and AVR mentality spreading to 2 channel audio. aka Planned Obsolescence. I prefer keeping the digital end of things as separate, so beloved gear isn't rendered obsolete. YMMV. We need a good, reasonably priced, CD, hard drive, Internet and streaming radio, and DAC media server built into one box. The best of all worlds, and have removable hard drives or SSD storage.

 

Here's a related line I came up with some time ago...

"All technology is interim technology." Of course, if you use it I'll expect my suitable royalties.

 

Why would putting all that functionality in one box be a good thing? Wouldn’t that mean as soon as one function becomes obsolete you have to update all the others even if they still work fine? That’s exactly what the OP is complaining about having to do. There are some things that need frequent updating and others which don’t. A CD drive is not going to become obsolete while streaming radio surely will. Best keep components with radically different lifetimes in separate devices.

 

Since I’ve been buying computers and software since the late 70’s and early 80’s I have a little experience. MS Dos anyone?

Genuine beneficial upgrades in speed and performance are rare these days. Mostly it’s just churning.

I use the term “invest” in the vernacular I do not plan on funding my retirement with outdated gadgetry.

Do you not believe manufacturers have to license the use of the name and technology from Spotify? Spotify has to dream up some way to lose less money.

I paid $600 for my tuner years ago and it still picks up radio stations. It’s not environmentally friendly to throw out your hardware every 18 months or so.

I suggest you go out now and invest all your life savings in bit coin, and hold on to it for the long haul.

 

Probably not for much longer. The UK plans to switch off FM broadcasts in the next few years, following other European countries, and the similar development for TV signals. The US will follow suit. Probably best to list your tuner in the classifieds now while there’s still a sizeable group of buyers lacking the smartphone mentality

 

Yet another great reason for me not to bother with streaming.

 

Anyone who thinks the gov't knows best isn't as smart as they think they are.

 

That’s it I’m going back to shortwave! ;-)

 

I was pretty upset when they removed support for my 2 squeezebox touches.

 

Or as David Lee Roth so eloquently put it..."here today, gone later today." But using that one likely might cost you.

 

Exactly - the Apple model...

 

At this point in the life of the planet, planned obsolescence is absolutely a crime against nature, let's not mince words. Sustainability=survival.

 

This and so much this. Can't believe how many people are willing to accept a poor customer experience these days just because it's common to be treated so poorly. The fact that the technology of the underlying delivery platform has changed has bugger all to do with me being forced to accept shoddy customer care. And it's happening in a number of different spaces and industries these days. It's almost like technology has magically absolved vendors and retail brands of a wide range of what used to be standard customer service (also known as 'giving a sh1t'). Grr.

 

Spotify is just another way for unknown concerns to spy on us. I haven't streamed from any source for a very long time.

 

I don't know if you were aware that there is now an elegant 3rd party plug in "Spotty" that allows you to utilize Spotify on your LMS Squeezebox Touch devices. Works like a charm! Check out the Squeezebox forums -

 

“Been enjoying the Sgt Pepper remix, eh? Dangerous iconoclast, clearly. We’ll be keeping an eye on you.” (RIAA director of counter-subversion)

 

I'm too cheap to pay a monthly subscription, so no worry's for me. I love ripping CD's to my iPod

 

"No, officer - I can assure you that this windowless van I'm driving around in is not full of candy, but in fact full of confiscated CDs..."

 

Ya, I have at least 7,000 songs on my Classic, all individually loaded from cd and cd-r. I don't need to "stream" nothin'.

 

Pretty much, I have absolutely NO reason for streaming. With record and CD collections numbering in the thousands, why should I pay to stream what I've already got? If it's new and I want it I buy the physical copies.

 

Thanks for that. I've actually sold one and intend to sell the other. I've bought a couple of cheap bluetooth transceivers through which I can play music off my phone. If I can find my raspberry pi I intend to setup that too

 

£15 a month for me and my family account means five of us use Spotify. Great way to get the kids into music.

 

BTW I just set up a Raspberry Pi/ Hifiberry / Max2play Squeezebox for my buddy. Works great - was able to either grab music from my NAS or from attached portable HD. Tho I didn't try it (he didn't have Spotify premium) I'm sure Spotty integrates as well.

So many options out there -