Qobuz used to be the one major streaming service with noticeable catalogue gaps - has that been resolved now? If so I might give it a try.
I only really use streaming when I’m travelling, at home I’m physical formats all the way.
When I do use it I am very happy with AppleMusic. Library is comprehensive, interface is clear and easy to use and the sound quality is better than Spotify.
Apple Music. Spent ages uploading loads of things that aren’t on streaming using their iTunes Match service so now I can now never change to anything else. Locked in for life.
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It’s a lot better than it used to be. There’s still a few acts missing but it’s worth the month free trial to see what you think.
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As I’ve bored on about at length, I quit Spotify earlier in the year cos it wouldn’t play more than about 50 seconds of each track without crashing, and they don’t actually offer tech support, just pointless time wasting tasks.
I went to tidal cos the way it uses playlists and folders means it’s closer to how I used Spotify than Apple felt (which I also tried for a bit), and also it offers native last fm scrobbling. It’s fine but buggy. My favourite current one is that playlists default to shuffle even when I push the regular play button. Very good.
added a poll to the OP if you’re into that sort of thing
Tidal is the least worst one, sorry eric.
RIP Google Music can’t believe ur gone etc
Apple’s mostly good and it’s refreshing to have a library closer to how I organised it in the iPod days but it’s prone to some weird behaviour, especially with tags in the library and syncing between phone and laptop. and it’s silly an apple service works so slowly and chugs out on their own computers.
I’ve paid for the year so might see other options after but honestly cba probably
generally pretty happy with Tidal tbh but there’s just some erm quirks which really need sorting. they’ve fixed the worst one was that it was impossible to go into offline mode when you’re in low/no signal which is a massive relief.
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Playlist folders would be a must for me f I’m to move away from Spotify. Does Apple Music not have them?
But that defaulting to shuffle is something Spotify has done to me in the past and is maddening. Don’t see myself moving to a platform with this as a known issue.
have found the last.fm app on my phone is better at scrobbling from Apple/Bandcamp etc that it used to be, though it does miss the odd song that I have to replay
used to use PanoScrobbler instead on my old phone and it was fairly flawless but once i got a new phone recently it started missing loads of songs so i gave the last.fm app another go and it seems to have improved a lot in the last few years since i last used it
i did like that Pano would scrobble tracks under 30 seconds long though
Apple Music does have folders, and you can make smart playlists that collect tracks automatically (like say all songs from 2024 or with the word ‘tractor’ in the title etc), though you can’t include smart playlists in folders iirc
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I keep reading this thread title and thinking that the final word is ‘stiffy’
Anyway, enjoy your music.
Thanks, that’s helpful. I do enjoy those smart playlists in “iTunes” with my mp3s. But I can put them in folders there iirc.
I’m about to switch from Tidal to YouTube, mainly because I want ad-free YouTube videos, but also because my kids are constantly bitching about the crappy Tidal UI.
I was a little concerned about the streaming quality (YouTube is limited to 256kbps) but since I stream everything over Bluetooth from my Apple phone, I believe this concern is largely irrelevant and all the fuss over certain platforms and lossless streaming is basically marketing bollocks apart from maybe 0.1% of the population with audiophile equipment.
Oh I had that the other day
Couldn’t tell tidal to go to my offline downloads, because I wasn’t online
i’ve been using deezer since I got a free year with a sonos speaker I bought 10 years ago. it’s fine I guess. but I have been mocked on 3 separate occasions for it, like if I’ve logged in at work or whatever.
I don’t really understand why.
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haha deezer!
there is something a bit ummm… linux… about it isnt there