Spotify Hi-Fi

jflail2

theverge.com/2017/3/1/14776780/spotify-hi-fi-preparing-launch-lossless-audio-tier

Headsup for my fellow Spotify users.

Willow

Interesting for sure.

adb3da

Yesssss!

I subscribe to both Spotify and Tidal. Spotify has the much better interface. Will be dumping Tidal for this ASAP.

rooftop59

as someone who switched to tidal awhile back and really enjoys the sound quality, I do agree that I really miss some of spotify's features, like spotify connect and the weekly personalized playlist. So I will definitely be getting a trial of this when it drops! Might also push tidal to integrate some features they have been dragging their feet on, like a connect feature and an app for the amazon fire tv...

voltz

I also prefer Spotify for easy of use and features. plus a nice feature is sending friends a playlist as me & Scott @msg have been doing this for awhile.

We find something new or maybe something old we have always like and we share it.

txcoastal1

Love competition, not for price but for features. Plus if one fails there's always that other guy
TFS

voltz

But my Auralic Mini Dac has Tidal built into the App. Unless they add spotify I will be using Tidal for awhile.

Nightfall

voltz wrote: »

But my Auralic Mini Dac has Tidal built into the App. Unless they add spotify I will be using Tidal for awhile.

I was wondering after seeing this what good the Mini would be if Tidal went under. They need to add Spotify support if they add a lossless option.

voltz

That would be a Plus as is Tidal. but for me it is a keeper because i put a 1 TB SSD drive inside with over 500 gig of mostly 16 bit FLAC files, but have a dozen or so 24 bit 24/96 or better files plus a dozen DSD files on the drive.

So I'm not really streaming much as if it is on my SSD drive then I play it directly

Mainly using the Tidal to try new stuff or a few I don't have or want to buy in 24 bit

Now it is hooked to my main system and I use it a lot now when I'm lazy, no PC needed anymore. but a IPAD to control it is still needed.

mrbiron

For me, the Discover section is the best part of Spotify. Every monday, I get 30 random songs/artists to take for a test drive.

Willow

Speaking of Spotify, yesterday I was perusing their content and came across songs to test your headphones, tried it out, my HP didn't suffer or lack, then I typed in test for speakers and a playlist came up. I'll be giving it a try one day at home to see how my system will take it.

vcwatkins

Should compete well with Tidal since Tidal's app is so bad IMO, especially the mobile.

If you use Tidal now, you should try it with Roon. Best player-streamer combo IMO.

Tidal should be okay financially with partners Sprint and Roon (even though the nature of the Tidal-Roon relationship is unclear). Don't see the free lower res streamers going anywhere. There will always be huge demand. Even if it means incremental commercial creep. Don't see how Microsoft is relevant at all.

tonyb

I thought the Aries mini was only Apple supported ? They do pack a lot into a small form though, but imho, they need to be more than just an apple related product.

jflail2

mrbiron wrote: »

For me, the Discover section is the best part of Spotify. Every monday, I get 30 random songs/artists to take for a test drive.

Yea, this is huge for me as well. I've found countless new artists thanks to those weekly Discovery playlists. I'm honestly so married to Spotify at this point, they'd have to go out of business to lose me as a customer. Easily the best $10 a month I spend, considering I have access to literally any band I want (save for Tool) both on my work PC and in my car while driving. Being able to save over 3K songs for offline play is also a rather nifty feature for Spotify Premium.

I'll still break out CDs for some critical listening on rare occasion, but the convenience of Spotify is hard to ignore. That and I have at least 50 playlists saved off on there encompassing just about every band or genre I'm in to. Bring on the lossless tracks! I'd happily pay another 5-8 bucks a month for that, and still feel like I'm coming out ahead.

adb3da

DSkip wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

I thought the Aries mini was only Apple supported ? They do pack a lot into a small form though, but imho, they need to be more than just an apple related product.

No issue here. With what you save on the Tidal subscription, go snag a used iPad for pennies on the dollar and still come out ahead.

Seriously, you're getting a DSD/Tidal/MQA capable streamer for $260 (minus Tidal cost).... Throw in the fact that you can add an SSD into the unit and it becomes even more versatile.

I thought the Aries Mini was about $500?

adb3da

DSkip wrote: »

adb3da wrote: »

DSkip wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

I thought the Aries mini was only Apple supported ? They do pack a lot into a small form though, but imho, they need to be more than just an apple related product.

No issue here. With what you save on the Tidal subscription, go snag a used iPad for pennies on the dollar and still come out ahead.

Seriously, you're getting a DSD/Tidal/MQA capable streamer for $260 (minus Tidal cost).... Throw in the fact that you can add an SSD into the unit and it becomes even more versatile.

I thought the Aries Mini was about $500?

It is, but it includes the 1 year subscription to Tidal. That is a $240 value. Once you have Tidal, its hard to go back to traditional listening. There is just so much available there now that its hard to ignore.

I'd love to see more competition with Tidal and I'm happy to see this for all the reasons Ron mentioned. It can only make the product better for the end-user, regardless of which one 'wins'.

I see...sorry that fact went right over my head. Is that offer for new Tidal users only or can anyone redeem the free year?

gudnoyez

I wonder if they will offer a $11.99 priced veterans discount like Tidal does?

erniejade

My Lumin has both spotify and tidal ( shows masters) on the app. This will be interesting to check out.

msg

Alright, I'm ready for Spotify Hi-Fi to be available.

I'm getting annoyed with Tidal's in-my-face "Featured" and "Tidal Rising" sections full of music and videos that I don't really care about in the least. And it's a lot of this stuff. Try scrolling and see how much you recognize.

Seems like it would make more sense for their software to pay attention to what I like, and offer up stuff similar to what's in my playlists?

Aside from that, I enjoy the service, and even like their little player, even though I wish I could turn off the spinny disc thing, but one of 'em's gotta go. I think it'll be Tidal, and I'll just wait for Spotify Hi-Fi to roll out.

rooftop59

Scott have you tried roon at home? It's not cheap, but man its cool and it will give you suggestions and has a radio feature built in (which I agree tidal should REALLY have). And tidal fully integrates with your library. If I play one of my own albums on the bryston that @BlueFox so generously karmaed, then at the end of the album the pandora like radio feature kicks in, and it will play songs from albums my hard drive, songs from albums I have saved from tidal, and I *think* it even plays things I haven't saved, but I need to double check. its darn cool, but it is yet another expense...

msg

Hey Paul, no, I haven't tried Roon yet, but am looking at it now, though.
Even works with Squeezeboxii apparently; that's good, but no Spotify integration, only Tidal?

That "radio" feature you describe seems like a good way to get more out of Tidal. But, yeah man, another subscription? I'm gettin' nickeled and dimed to death these days, it seems

I just dumped Pandora a couple of weeks ago and am not missing it in the least. It seemed to be getting lazy. I read up a bit on how to try to keep Pandora fresh, but didn't seem to matter whether I interacted more or less with the station. It seemed like they had my account on a short variety loop, and I noticed they were starting to try suggesting the same tracks in rotation on my other stations. Was getting pretty stale. I dumped it after I receive the message from their president or CEO about upgrading to whatever their next tier service was, which didn't really address the issues I had with it. I wrote back to "him", but of course no answer. If you're going to send a message purporting to be from the CEO of a company asking for my business, it's kind of a good idea to have someone monitoring that address and acknoledging correspondence. All too cliche marketing gimmick now, right? Anyway, I already had the former premium service or whatever it was, and it was failing, so no thanks to paying more for still not offering anything I'm interested in.

I might just take a break from streaming services for a while. It's kind of overload - cable company channels package model, only, having to go with different companies entirely for the desired features or variety. I've just been listening to SOMA FM a lot lately - buncha different real-deejay operated stations. Media quality isn't hi-res, but you know how sometimes you just get sick of listening to the same stuff all the time, and just want some variety background tunes. It's nice to have a good radio resource to freshen things up.

Apologies for a bit of a peripheral derail-y rant here, but associated.

gudnoyez

I have canceled my Tidal and Spotify subscriptions, of the two I preferred using Spotify but preferred the sound of Tidal. I have more music than I can even listen to now as it is that when it comes time for the critical listening I might as well listen to something out of my collection.

However with that being said should I ever decide to go back to streaming on occasion and Spotify does come out with a HI-FI tier I would consider Spotify over Tidal, as they had more of the obscure stuff that I would own if it was easily available on a physical or download format.