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Welcome to our consultant for the most productive music streaming services. 20 years ago, when CDs were the number one medium and musicians could still make a living promoting their records, the concept of having almost every single song recorded at their fingertips on your phone or with your high-end headphones seemed like science fiction.
Even when Spotify launched in 2008, few people predicted the sea change in music consumption that would follow. However, today’s best music streaming facilities make the idea of creating an MP3 collection definitely seem like it’s from the Stone Age.
Each platform provides users with keys to a library of one million on-demand music, available for streaming on CD. And all of this can be accessed through mobile devices, tablets, computers, internet players, or an increasing number of internet devices. connected devices.
But with such a giant catalog of pleasures to pay attention to, the selection can be overwhelming, and we’re not just talking about which song to pay attention to next (see our list of the most productive audiophile albums here). Which streaming service is right for you? We’ve implemented the rule for six of the most productive music streams to see how they compare. Read on to find out which one tops the charts.
Apple Music (sign up now) stands out for its library, seamless integration with Apple devices, curated playlists, and exclusive releases.
Spotify (sign up now) stands out for its personalized playlists, discovery algorithms, cross-platform compatibility, collaborative features, and an ad-supported free tier.
Tidal (register now) stands out for its high-fidelity sound quality, exclusive content, music library, artist-owned platform, and detailed editorial content for audiophiles and music enthusiasts.
Qobuz (sign up now) stands out for its high-resolution audio quality, extensive music library, detailed editorial content, offline listening, and audiophile-grade equipment.
YouTube Music Premium (sign up now) shines with its ad-free experience, offline listening, seamless integration with YouTube music videos, and exclusive remixes, covers, and more.
Amazon Music Unlimited (sign up now) impresses with its audio, Alexa integration, personalized recommendations, and exclusive content.
Deezer (sign up now) offers an extensive library of music, audio, personalized recommendations, an exclusive Flow feature, and free, easy listening.
Apple Music was introduced in 2015 and has temporarily become one of the pioneers of the streaming wars. For a base of £4. 99, subscribers can access over a hundred million songs, over 30,000 playlists, and a host of original and on-demand radio shows. Little else, Apple also offers spatial audio listening and offline access to your library.
Currently, subscribers can enjoy Apple Music for free for a month and can also get 6 months of Apple Music for free with audio devices.
There’s no loose tier here: Apple Music costs £5. 99 for students, £10. 99 for a full individual profile, and £16. 99 for families.
Like its competitors, Apple Music offers a wide variety of playlists organized according to a specific mood, genre, or other unifying theme, as well as playlists generated through algorithms designed specifically for the user. These don’t reach the heights of Spotify’s discovery algorithm, yet Apple offers thousands of rarer tracks that simply can’t be discovered on Spotify and the like.
Spatial audio provides a more visible position for other compositional elements, but whether it’s worth it depends largely on how much you care about immersive audio. The sound also rarely differs much from the tracks combined in Sony’s Atmos rival, 360 Reality Audio. , available on Deezer and Tidal, so it’s not strictly exclusive to Apple Music.
If Spotify HiFi ends up costing more (if it ever does), we think many will flock to Apple Music without being too unhappy about it. For those making the switch, Apple has built a very solid house for you to play with, especially if you have an existing iTunes library to integrate.
Spotify, the leading free music streaming service, continues to be the preferred choice for millions of listeners. In terms of pricing, it offers an ad-supported free tier (with some of the most annoying classified ads you can find). I’ve listened to it once), which limits track skipping and doesn’t allow offline listening. However, podcasts and audiobooks are still available.
The Premium edition removes ads, increases streaming quality to 320kbps, allows downloads for offline playback, and delivers superior quality to what you hear. It costs £11. 99 per month for an individual subscription, £5. 99 for students, £16. 99 for a Duo subscription (two accounts), and £19. 99 for a six-account family plan.
It’s easy to see why Spotify is so popular. The desktop app, mobile apps, and internet player are cleverly designed and easy to use. There is an extensive library of around 80 million songs and 4. 7 million podcasts (some estimates imply that more than 100,000 are uploaded every day on Spotify and other DSPs). In addition, the service’s recommendations and music discovery features are unbeatable.
The Discover Weekly personalized playlist turns out to have a supernatural sense of your tastes. Sure, it’s just a set of rules that build anything based on beyond eavesdropping, but it turns out to be more fine-tuned than its competitors, providing less obvious but more applicable suggestions. The huge variety of themed playlists is also great, while Friday’s Release Radar helps you stay up to date with the latest songs from your favorite artists.
It also seems to be at the forefront in terms of integration with the widest diversity of applications and services. It’s simple to share Spotify’s music social media percentage; you can use it on tons of third-party devices, adding Amazon’s Echo speakers; and you can keep track of what your Facebook friends are listening to.
Spotify’s lossless HiFi tier is rumoured to arrive at some point, but its main competition already offers high-resolution audio, the maximum at no extra cost. The festival has obviously stepped up and Spotify will want to continue to innovate if necessary. to extend the default music streaming service back to the maximum number of people.
A paid YouTube music service might seem redundant. After all, a few clicks on the site’s search bar will display just about any song you need to listen to, and you possibly won’t be charged a dime to play it. But it’s not a “proper” streaming service. Any long-listening query will be riddled with annoying ads, while background listening is rarely supported – once your phone’s screen is locked or switched to another app, the music stops.
YouTube Music is the answer. Available on iOS, Android, or through the internet player, Google’s only music streaming service offers more than 80 million songs. However, there is an explanation for this: it includes “official” recordings and anything that has already been uploaded to YouTube that can be classified as a song. So you’ll find tracks that aren’t on any other platform, but also a lot of junk that muddies the musical waters.
Since Google probably knows your taste in music, we expected YouTube Music recommendations to be more relevant. Instead, it works much like other platforms, asking you to choose a variety of favorite artists when you sign up and base your initial variety on those. . Wait for tips while streaming.
After a one-month free trial, YouTube Music Premium costs £9. 99 per month. A family plan (£14. 99 per month) that gives you up to five family accounts, while the student plan costs £4. 99 per month and requires annual verification that you’re actually enrolled in an educational institution. There’s also a flexible tier (YouTube Music), but it doesn’t play in the background, provides common ads, and limits streaming quality to 128kbps.
There is no higher bitrate option here. YouTube Music’s maximum performance is an AAC of 256 kbps, making it the worst in terms of streaming quality. Even Spotify’s non-HiFi tier wins with 320kbps. So we can’t see the golden-eared ones. Audiophiles turn to Google’s platform instead of Apple Music or Tidal. That’s not to say it sounds bad, though – most people can’t possibly tell the difference between 256 kbps and 320 kbps, especially when beats are played through small, old headphones. .
One thing we can say about YouTube Music Premium is that, with its vast library and proliferation of videos, it looks genuinely different from what’s presented here, although it’s not necessarily better.
Amazon has been offering a virtual music service since 2007, but it still happens to be a newcomer. As I am not an Amazon Music Prime member, Amazon Music Unlimited (US registration) is not a member of Amazon Music Prime. The U. S. or U. K. is the company’s current rival to Spotify. It has a library of over 90 million ad-free titles and has created titles with higher bitrates (which it calls “HD” and “Ultra HD”) available to all subscribers at no additional cost. He also dedicated himself to the game of spatial audio.
Music Unlimited costs £10. 99 per month, putting it on par with Spotify’s offering. For this, you also get the HD tier of Amazon Music at no extra cost.
You can listen to Amazon Music Unlimited through an internet player, iOS and Android mobile apps, or the desktop app, as well as request tracks, albums, and artists from Alexa through Echo speakers. It’s also available via Fire tablets and Fire TV. Sonos wireless multi-room speakers, Bluesound devices, and NAD BluOS.
To locate new tracks, the “My Discovery Mix” feature is updated in your library every Monday (a concept obviously borrowed from Spotify). The tips are pretty good, but they seem boring and uninteresting. A lot of algorithm-derived magic is obtained with Spotify’s advice, and not much in terms of editorial curation.
However, with its maximum audio quality, giant library, and moderate price tag, Music Unlimited is a very credible alternative, especially if you’re already a Prime member.
Tidal was presented with exceptional audio quality as a USP. While it’s no longer the only streaming service that offers lossless, high-resolution music, it’s the only one that offers MQA-encoded master files.
Tidal now has about 110 million shares. While not all of them are Master or CD quality, the base point is a very respectable 320kbps level, the same as Spotify’s highest settings. There are 3 tiers on Tidal. £10. 99 will give you access to over 110 million titles on FLAC without loss. HiRes and Dolby Atmos (no special high-resolution subscription). It costs £16. 99 for up to six members of the family circle and a student account costs just £4. 99. If you’re a DJ, you can get the DJ extension, which costs an extra £9 per month and provides access to the catalogue and power separation through some DJ partners.
Master tracks offer studio-quality recordings, but require you to have MQA-certified DAC hardware to enjoy them at the most productive 24-bit/192kHz level. Most users will only have access to the first “run” of the MQA process, which is still in the best solution (24-bit/96 kHz) and sounds wonderful, not so different from Amazon, Apple, and Deezer’s best-solution tracks.
The user experience with Tidal’s Internet apps and player is consistent and clear. Take a few weeks to listen and get subtle, personalized playlists. There are also editor-curated mixes, radio stations, dedicated sections for MQA tracks, and albums and podcasts. And that’s all before you dive into articles about old albums and the like.
With 90 million music tracks, 160,000 podcast tracks, and more than 32,000 radio stations, Deezer is divided into three main tiers. The ad-supported free tier includes six skips per hour of viewing on mobile and unlimited skips on desktop. The tracks have the highest consistency for all Deezer paid plans, which means files in 16-bit format and 1,411 kbps lossless.
For £11. 99 per month (£5. 99 for students, £17. 99 for a family plan), you get Deezer Premium. You can save 25% on the cost of Deezer Premium by ordering the annual plan instead of paying monthly.
Deezer’s desktop and mobile apps are transparent and functional. Open the iOS app and you’ll see a scrolling page packed with albums, playlists (pre-made and auto-generated varieties), genre shortcuts, and more. All this is very familiar and simple to understand.
Musical discovery is once again a main theme. When you first log in to your account, you’ll be asked to choose the artists you like so that the advice formula can get started right away; Over time, your listening activity will refine it even more. We found that the Flow playlist, an endless selection of new and old music that Deezer thinks you love, hits the spot most often.
Deezer is a very competent streaming service. That said, if you’re already Apple or Amazon, there’s little incentive to transfer to Deezer, while Deezer Premium offers little difference compared to Spotify Premium.
Like Tidal, Qobuz’s offering is aimed at high-quality streaming for audiophiles to enjoy: it’s the first music service to offer CD-quality streams, then high-resolution 24-bit files, and claims to have the “best” high-resolution quality. Catalogue res. de all existing services.
It offers two subscription tiers: Studio Premier (from £12. 99 per month or £10. 83 per month if you spend £129. 99 for a 12-month non-refundable subscription upfront) gives you access to the entire library of over 90 million titles. . , as well as original editorial content and offline listening. Studio Sublime (from £15 per month) gives you the same, but also discounts of up to 60% on purchases of high-resolution discs. Yes, it’s true: Qobuz needs allows you to reach into your pocket and buy music instead of just accessing it on demand. With the existing debate about artists’ earnings from streaming (or rather, the surprising lack of them), this may become a key promotional point for consumers looking for musicians.
As advertised, Qobuz offers a huge diversity of high-resolution music, and everything we’ve noticed here is at least CD-quality, so in terms of delivering a sound that’s pleasing to the ear, it does a job. You wonder where Spotify leaves when, at most, all of its competition can boast of streaming higher-quality streams. Still, a music service doesn’t deserve to be judged on its audio quality alone, and Qobuz isn’t so sure of itself when it comes to usability. The interface is rarely very intuitive and the search function in particular can use more filters (it has at least one high-resolution filter, so you can make sure you get the best-sounding parts first). It’s also less expensive than Tidal Hi-Fi, and it doesn’t require you to have MQA-compatible hardware to get the most out of its high-resolution library, which sounds great.
Like Tidal, Qobuz also offers its own “magazine” integrated with well-written editorial articles about the bands, their recent releases, and more. Even if no one subscribes to a music service based on their non-music content, it’s a welcome. cousin.
Tech journalism’s response to The Littlest Hobo: I’ve written for a multitude of titles and lived in three other countries during my 15-plus years as a freelancer. But I’ve come home to Stuff, where I specialize in writing about cameras. , streaming services, and my tragic addiction to Destiny.
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