The Pros and Cons Of Streaming

Spotify doesn't offer high res sound, it doesn't even offer CD quality sound . Its highest resolution is 320 kbps Ogg Vorbis lossy compressed files. Tidal and Qobuz offer redbook and high res resolution (though Tidal's higher resolution offerings arr MQA encoded). But there is no such thing as high res Spotify.

 

I"m guessing they are 96 kbps normal, 160 kbps high and 320 kbps very high.

 

I actually am very pleased with the way Spotify premium sounds with 320 Ogg Vorbis - when it comes down to it I have much more of an issue with the lack of being able to choose the mastering I listen to rather than compromised quality due to data compression

 

I must say, I don't get concerning one's self with mastering quality if you're going ahead and listening to them via lossy compressed digital. You're not really hearing what good recording engineering and production is capable of with that lossy compression, though 320 Ogg Vorbis is certainly better than old, lower bit rate MP3. But, to each his own.

I know this is a mastering engineer's forum, but personally I don't get hung up on masterings and re-masterings too much. For one thing, much of the music I listen to is only available in a single mastering; and most of the music I listen to on streaming is new music, available in one mastering (though the mastering for Spotify transcoding may be another one, so another reason to stick with 16/44.1 FLAC on the other platforms maybe). For another thing, I tend to avoid re-buying music I already own. If I bought a copy of an album in the '70s or '80s, I'm probably not going to buy a new copy now because it's been remastered. I do get serious about finding the best transfers from 78 I can find on older recordings I love because I find the differences there can be enormous. And I've certainly heard some bad remasterings of older material (and some really good ones too). And I've heard some really crummy, grey and black market editions of historical material from poor sources, those I'd avoid or replace with better sounding ones if possible. But 12 different remasterings of Layla?. No edition sounds very good anyway. I'm not listening to that for the recording quality.

FWIW, I think 320 Ogg Vorbis over Spotify is fine for the way most people listen to music -- which is while they're doing something else (at the gym, making dinner, chatting with friends and family, as background at a party, in the car, while they're working), so not with their full attention; and if not via earbuds than off axis on some convenience speaker setup. With that kind of listening, the differences between 320 Ogg Vorbis and 16/44.1 or higher res FLAC are pretty much meaningless. And the kind of stuff we audiophiles care about -- a sense of the recorded space and moment; low level inner detail; soundstage presentation and imaging, etc -- goes totally out the window with that kind of listening too.

 

Ultimately, for me 320 Ogg Vorbis sounds pretty good. For my systems, totally enjoyable and while yes nothing can beat lossless as lossless does, really I find it perfectly fine and really the data compression isn't substantial enough at that point with that bitrate and encoding process to really take me out of my immersive music experience

Overly compressed and/or badly EQ'd masterings effect my listening experience much more all in all.


Honestly all in all when comparing the same album - I would much rather have a well mastered 320kps Ogg Vorbis file over a not-so-well-mastered lossless file

 

Con: As great as it is to have a vast library of songs/albums/playlists available at your every whim, there’s a major element missing from the streaming listening experience and that is a human voice talking about the music, artist and albums you’re listening to.

 

Not sure what radio stations you are listening to. Beyond saying the track and artists' name in the UK you can barely more than that.

 

There are plenty of music podcasts available on Spotify or Apple Music, if hearing people talking about music is your bag. Streaming isn't missing that element. For me, that's rarely an element of my listening. Sure, there are some radio shows I listen to in order to hear the host talk about the music or interview musicians -- like Phil Schaap's Bird Flight on WKCR or Robert Aubry Davis' Baroque and Beyond on SiriusXM's Symphony Hall -- but I can count those things on one hand. But if you're looking to hear people play music and talk about it, you can find that on streaming platforms.

 

Shipping cost and the hassles of shipping CD's is at least part of the cost. While CD's (or DVD's) are made of pretty tough plastic (polycarbonate, I think) the cases are made of polystyrene which breaks easier than an eggshell.

I buy the slim line jewel cases in 50 packs from WalMart for about $15. They are packed in a poster board type package and then shrink wrapped. I've learned to count on 40 to 45 as being usable - the rest all have cracks, broken corners, etc.

The regular size jewel cases won't meet the 1st class mail standards in the US, (and unless you've got a "helpful" postal clerk, the slim lines typically won't either) so you end up shipping either as parcel post (a lot higher) or else sending them via media rate (less but still much more than 1st class postage.)

If you do ship them, you've got to bubble wrap, box, etc. and then cross your fingers that they arrive intact. Again, the CD is fine, but the case is shattered.

Because I sell some CD's via mail, I've researched this a lot. I finally decide to go the NetFlix route and ship the CD by itself in a poster board sleeve - less than a dollar shipping cost via 1st class mail. I've NEVER had one arrive broken!

In a lot of cases, the CD case is superfluous - people load the CD's into their home or vehicle changer and the case becomes just clutter.

For people that want a case and the album insert, I have the inserts on the website as PDF's they can download, print, and then stick into a locally purchased slim line case.

Doing things this way, I can build in the cost of shipping into the CD price - hence "free shipping."

If someone wants me to send the CD in an album case, I can do it, but the shipping is now $5 and I'm not making a penny on it. It all goes for protective packaging and higher postage.

One last thing - the problem I have with streaming services is that the sound quality just isn't comparable to a CD. If you are streaming to a phone or something, it doesn't matter I guess. But if I really want to listen to a song, somehow I've got to get the streaming version over to the "big sound system" and then the difference is very noticeable.

Reeves

 

Something else to consider in CD costs is the location where you are purchasing them. Since I live in the US, I can license cover songs through the Harry Fox Agency for a royalty of 9.2 cents per song. Once I pay the fees, I'm legal in the US. But as soon as I sell one to a Canadian address, (for example,) now I've got to get a license for Canada. Sell in the UK, same thing, etc. Every time you cross a border, you are faced with new licensing and a new set of rules. For example, a classical piece might be the public domain in the US, but not somewhere else.

If a country has a "clearinghouse" agency of some sort, that at least makes it a doable prospect. If they don't, then you've got to track down the rights owner and individually negotiate with them adding cost and hassles.

If you are a huge music company, you are used to dealing with the "over the border" hassles, but you deal with those problems by paying the salaries of a staff to do it. Every time you add most admins, attorneys, accountants, etc., the final price of a CD is inching up.

One last issue is import duties. Some countries have horrendous fees to import CD's legally. I've got some friends in Canada that come to Austin, Texas, every year for the South by Southwest Festival. The buy CD's, etc. here (including mine) and then return to Canada. I've never dared ask (and don't want to know) if they are required to pay any duties when they cross back over the border.

Reeves

 

Been on a Jazz kick lately, Spotify has tons of Jazz to explore. We're 5 persons using a "family" account, cost 15€/month. Divided per user 3€/month.

I won't defend if it's envirnmentally sustainable to have a Spotify premium account using power from servers heating up or atmosphere or CD buyers being resposible for polluting the world with microplastics. (please consider this last sentence a joke as it hs nothing to do with the post but just had to throw it here in the midst of all hype)

 

Spotify sounds poor compared to Apple Music.
Apple Music is easily the best sounding I've heard of the non high resolution streaming services.
Google Play, YouTube Music, Spotify and I believe even Amazon Premium sound less crisp than Apple Music.
Plus Apple Music streams your unique cd versions that you imported to iTunes.
It used to not do so but now it does.
I've listened to my Beatles Mono Box and Capitol Albums vol I and II through my Apple Music without having to pay separately for iTunes Match.

 

I like streaming but the fact remains that the vast majority of my favourite masterings are on other formats.

 

Not sure microplastics are anything to laugh about! The result of them getting into the water and food chain can’t be beneficial.

 

Having tried many of the streaming services i.e. Spotify, Deezer, Idagio, Primephonic etc...my money goes to Tidal...with which i am pretty satisfied with.
I still have a large collection of cds thanks to working 30 plus years in radio..most cds either promo copies or bought at a substantial discount.
The pros of subscribing to a streaming service is the ease of access..if i read about a recording or artist that may be of interest to me..for the most part i can easily audition the artist or music instantly on the streaming service...i have discovered a lot of music that way...whereas in the past it meant a trip to the record store which brings me to the cons of streaming..the demise of most record stores...yes the vinyl revival has kept some stores afloat..but sadly, we lost too many.
Streaming is not the main reason these shops are gone..but it contributed.
Music is a big part of my life..an addiction sort of..and i always manage to get my fix whether it be from my collection of cds, lps,, 78rpms and my streaming service.

 

Informative post.

 

Been a convert to streaming for about a year now. Qobuz and Tidal integrated with Roon is really an embarrassment of riches. Qobuz even gives liner notes for many recordings. My listening routines have been completely overhauled - discovery is easier than ever, old chestnuts are bookmarked and perpetually queued up. I may have ‘lost’ something but I haven’t noticed. If I am really craving an analog experience, I’ll flip a switch and throw on an LP. And even though I’m subscribed to multiple services at their top tier, I am still spending less on music and getting more out of it. Win-win.

 

The Spotify thread had me looking up David Lowery as I know he was a critic of streaming for a long time now (happened to see him some years back as well - probably when The Palace Guards came out).

He had settled out of court with Spotify in 2017, first off.

Earlier this year he released the first of a series of autobiographic CD's and purposely limited its CD run. And no digital distribution at all. So basically if you didn't attend a show or snatch up one of the few copies left on his web store, you were SOOL.

Now understood that his feeling on this is that "if we sell a thousand directly to our fans at shows, the net revenue to us is the same as what we would earn from 71 billion YouTube views". But I'm not sure if this is the way to gain new fans versus just tailoring your current and future music endeavors to the current dedicated fan base that's already in place.

Unless he really does do more of a "theater" model, as stated in the article. That remains to be seen.

 

One can say a lot about streaming, but there is no denying that it is a very accurate measurement of popularity of each and every song. Way more than traditional charts or playlisting on radio has ever been. We all have (at least I have) lots of albums where half of the songs get few or no listens at all after the first playthrough. With streaming this becomes extremely visible - the weaker tracks are brutally exposed.

If would go so far as saying that if you have a few thousand plays on streaming (which now (Apple+Spotify+Others) have some 3-400 million potential listeners - all of them just a couple of clicks away from listening to any of your songs), then you probably aren't very popular at all. And I'd say that instead of pulling your stuff from streaming services because those few thousand plays is 'stealing money' from you, you have everything to gain by making your music available in hope of increasing the public knowledge of your band.