Which of the current music streaming services do you use/prefer and why?

Tidal would be ok if it wasn’t for it’s MQA garbage.

 

If I walk the scenic route back home from my local record store, I get to walk along a stream. That's my preferred streaming method for getting a new record, getting it home and listening to it my record player. I put my feet up and drink an actual real life Cup of tea. Not one of those drinks they try and sell in cyber cafes....strictly real bruv. Keep it real.....

 

How to share your Apple Music or Apple One family plan | AppleInsider

 

And yet it's the second most most popular on here......damn audiophiles.........

 

You shouldn’t quite take Tidal in the poll completely at face value as it was put in before Qobuz was available in the USA and not as well known like it is becoming also audiophiles at the time didn’t have much choice also audiophiles around the world that don’t have access to Qobuz as it’s not currently available in their region that may also have voted here. Plus even though I made the poll so you can change your vote who knows how many people know about that or have bothered to change their vote if they have left Tidal or any of the others at some point. Purest audiophiles probably wouldn’t stand for Tidal’s adulterated MQA files to begin with and would choose Qobuz, Amazon Music or Apple Music over it. Initially Amazon Music and Apple Music didn’t even offer CD quality and higher when the original poll was created. I only had a mod remove some choices that went out of business and add one or two new choices a few years ago. Tidal stayed from the original poll. Prices may factor as well. Some people may also have more than one service and others probably constantly bounce around. Too many variables but at the same time newer votes have gained for Qobuz, Apple Music and Amazon Music by more than it seems Tidal has gotten recently. Just more of a fun poll and to let others know there is more than just one or two services out there to try and they can make up their own mind which they prefer. They all suck in one way or another to me but they all (or most of them at least) have a few good features too. If I could take different features from each service to combine into a new service that would be the best one for me.

 

How big of an effect would Roon have on the poll selection? As far as I know it only integrates with Qobuz and Tidal and Canadian users can only choose Tidal. With Roon marketed to audiophiles, especially older ones who have accumulated their own digital files and decades old playlists, it influences the strong showing of both Qobuz and Tidal. I love Roon so I default to Tidal but I would probably choose another if I could.

 

Hard to say with Roon as not just audiophiles use it I would think as music lovers in general may be interested in roon for what it provides plus with Qobuz’s app currently missing some features other services have had for a while roon helps make Qobuz’s app more bearable to some people others wouldn’t pay the extra price for roon.

 

Streaming Music Subscriptions Grew 26% in 2021, With YouTube Music as Fastest Growing DSP in the West

 

So is it worthless when you go to a concert and listen? Because you can't keep that music.

 

Very interesting. For anyone not clicking through, here's the topline of the market report cited in the story: Huge growth occurring and still to come in global streaming in China and Russia away from the Western market leaders in streaming. Spotify market share shrinking slowly but surely globally, but no one, not even Apple, really getting close to the global dominant position Spotify occupies yet. Fast growth for YouTube in paid streaming, but marketshare remains tiny. And revenue growth not necessarily tracking subscriber growth (because of discount multisubscriber plans, and, not mentioned in the article, but when subscriber growth is coming in emerging markets often those subscriptions are at lower prices than subscription rates in developed markets). Of course, our preferred audiophile-friendly streaming service remain fleas on the back of the streaming market more broadly.

 

I rarely go to concerts.

 

Annual subscriptions now exist for YouTube Premium/Music, but they're tricky

 

Qobuz and Tidal still rounding errors.

 

It's OK with me if a small service provider like Qobuz can survive as an audiophile option. Audiophiles have always been a small share of the music market. Time will tell.

 

Spotify down 6%+, hits 52 week low on no news. Perhaps in response to yesterday's report that they are losing market share despite increasing subscribers?

 

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In terms of audio quality and UI i think Tidal (HIFI plan, not the lossy MQA) and Apple Music are the best.


My wife has Apple family plan, but I also get a discount with Tidal working for the company I do, so I also use Tidal HIFI @ $5 a month.

I've tried QoBuz and Deezer and did not like either UI. Felt like they didn't have a lot of the live albums I listen to and the app ran poorly.

 

Tidal uses MQA (lossy) in all of it’s plans. If you are using a title that is listed with the M icon.

 

Have I been deceived? I thought that with the HIFI plan you got CD quality, and even if there was an M icon on the song you still got CD quality. I was under the assumption that in order to play "Tidal Masters" you had to upgrade your plan.

 

In order to get the full MQA resolution(still lossy) you need to upgrade your plan. MQA is available in all of Tidal’s tiers but it will only play back at CD resolution (actually less than) at the lower priced tier and even lower resolution at the free tier. MQA is marked with the M icon. There are instances where a title may have both a regular version and an MQA version available and in that case if you chose to listen to the non MQA version you would be getting the CD resolution for that price plan. Unfortunately some titles are only available in MQA at Tidal so you would have no choice other than not listening to it to begin with. It also sucks that Tidal tends to default to show the MQA version when there is also a non MQA version that you might find with a manual search. Of course there are also some titles with no MQA version available either but Tidal has pretty much polluted quite a lot of it’s titles with MQA nonetheless. The main reason I wouldn’t recommend Tidal currently. Qobuz, Apple Music and Amazon Music all offer CD resolution and higher up to 192/24 natively with no MQA whatsoever to contend with. Deezer offers CD resolution with no MQA to deal with as well if you are looking for other choices. Spotify may get around to offering higher resolution at some point but they are being rather stupid about it right now and losing some customers after announcing it was coming then blowing it off.

 

Anyone using Spotify noticing this happening lately? https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/sbxt3f/a_bunch_songs_in_my_playlists_have_changed_from/

Not happy about it at all. Kind of like Amazon Music Frankensteining of albums.

 

If I ever find myself using streaming, it seems to be Tidal.

 

Switching back over to Tidal for its music Discovery. Found Apple Music to repetitive even when I was asking Apple to suggest less.

 

Amazon - probably because it was convenient to add their streaming service in a relatively inexpensive manner if you have Prime. I’m using an Audiolab 6000N Play for streaming.

 

Here's how to get your 2022 Apple Music Replay playlist today | AppleInsider