From Music Server to Spotify

audiocr381ve

I have a premium Spotify account and just love the access I have to music and the ability to have them across all of my devices (which in my case is a Macbook Pro, iMac, and iPhone). With the premium account you can enable "HD Streaming" which is really just high quality MP3's (320kbps). I can almost hear some of you scoffing at "high quality MP3's." Honestly, it's just fine for me and I've decided it's the direction I want to go and here are a few reasons why:

1. I don't have to store music anymore! The stress of backing up my precious music, organizing it, updating it, traveling with it, etc., is no more. It's all "in the cloud" as they say.
2. If I have my iPhone, iMac, or Macbook Pro, I have ALL of my music ANYWHERE I go. No longer does it live where my main rig lives with the music server. It's with me on the road, at work, & of course at home. This is worth it to me because I basically live at an airport these days. If I make a playlist on one device, it's on ALL my devices.
3. I can make my playlists "Available Off-Line" meaning I can pull them out of the cloud if I want to...meaning I don't have to be connected to the internet to enjoy the tunes. Love this.
4. The obvious. Spotify gives me access to the music. All the big music labels are on board so that means when a new album is released from one of my favorite artists, it becomes available to me. I have access to everything from the old to the new. It's amazing. I can create radio stations from my favorite artists or simply pull up one of my favorite albums.


Cons:

1. No lossless playback. This will be a deal breaker for most of you. But let me tell you, with the HD Streaming enabled, I haven't once felt like I needed "more." It sounds great to my audiophile ears. Could it sound better? Of course. Does it please a very picky & hard-to-please audiophile? YES.

I realize Spotify has been around for almost 6 years, but I finally jumped on board and a few buddies are on board to. If you haven't looked into, please do! If you decide to stick with your music server, that's totally fine. The convenience factor is huge to me so that's why I've switched.

Anyway, just thought I'd share. If you're up for trying it, they have a 30 day free trial for the premium account.

aboroth00

Good write up bud! I have a Spotify account and have been using the premium stuff for a couple months! It may or may not have the best recordings at times but for the amount of access you have to a huge music library, it's great. The lack of lossless playback irks me a little bit. Only if my OPPO supported spotify, it would be perfect...

You still around the SD area? Last time I saw was that you moved out of that condo of yours in east SD

agco

I agree. Not that much difference. Cd quality from tablet. Im currently useing rhapsody thinking of changing to spotify because they allow one device. Great write up

Mikey081057

I use Spotify Premiun. Decent sound quality, it lets you try out a tons of music. i can easily access my playlists at my desk on my phone/tablet my 2 channel rig or my ht online or offline.

For the $10/ mo. i get my money's worth.

heiney9

320 kbps files really stink compared to the real thing. It's fine if it works for you, or if you are trying to find new music to listen to. It would never cut it in my rig as it just comes up so short quality wise.

H9

EndersShadow

I find I use MOG for the same thing. Wont get into the differences between the two because, well its water under the bridge.

I find its good for me, especially paired w/ my Squeezebox downstairs, my computer and my phone as well.

Like you I enjoy having all my selections right at hand. That said if I "really" enjoy a specific artist or CD I seek out a copy of it to add to my library, normally I look for used copies so I am not paying a premium for em. But for the stuff that will NEVER sound good in FLAC because its just recorded too hot or whatever it works great. Its also really good for finding new music.

tonyb

Exactly Dan....great for casual listening, finding music you like, even different radio stations. You can always buy the music once you found what you like on another format to your liking.

Lets face it, we do way more casual listening than we do critical anyway. Is there a happy medium in between ? The convenience and the SQ....for not a lot of coin for that muffler ? Not yet as far as I can tell. I do see a lot of trade-offs going on however. Sacrifice a wee bit here to gain some there. Gain a tad bit more there and lose something elsewhere. Never seems to be a significant jump forward.

hochpt21

tonyb wrote: »

Lets face it, we do way more casual listening than we do critical anyway.

Great point, Tony. At this point in my family life, I find this to be the case.

I use MOG at $5/mo for work listening and home listening while the family is home. Like others said if there is a title I really like I pick it up, usually on vinyl.

When I have time to do critical listening, I'll throw on a SACD or an LP.

If all I used MOG for was at work it would by far be worth it, because I am always in different moods for music

EndersShadow

tonyb wrote: »

Lets face it, we do way more casual listening than we do critical anyway.

Unless your hardcore like H9, F1Nut or DarqueKnight :biggrin: :razz:

AsSiMiLaTeD

I use MOG and I like it very much, but it is used to supplement a music collection not to replace one. It has it's place, but it'll never replace my music collection, for several reasons:

1 - The sound quality is simply not good enough. I don't listen critically as much these days, but 320kbps gets in the way even when I just wanna sit back and relax to some Patricia Barber on the Maggies. Part of the enjoyment of music for me is how good it sounds, 320 just doesn't cut it. If you're satisfied with 320kbps then I'd say you're not as much of an audiophile as you say you are. That's a GOOD thing by the way, not meant as an insult.

2 - You don't OWN anything. I like to own my music, not rent it. I never want to sit down to listen to a particular artist only to discover that they have been removed from the service. It probably doesn't happen much, but it does happen.

3 - If you're like me and like to travel with LOTS of music it's actually not as great an option as you'd think. I carry an iPod around with 240GB of space on it. That means I can carry around 750 albums or so in lossless format, probably twice that in 320 mp3. With Spotify or MOG I can download items to my phone, but I'm limited by the space on my phone. I can also obviously stream but I need an internet connection to do that, I have cellular service but don't want to kill my bandwidth. I suppose if you're aways somewhere with a wifi connection it works well, but most people spend a good part of their day somewhere without a wifi they can use to stream music.

4 - I like to more directly support the artists that I really like. I know those guys get paid royalties and all that from the online services but I honestly don't know how all that trickles down to the artist and I feel like buying their music directly is the strongest show of support so that's what I do.

In terms of the 'stress' of managing a music library, I have ~4500 albums that I've ripped and organized and have never really had any associated stress.

As for the conveniences of a cloud service, iTunes Match does basically the same thing with your own music and it's only $24 a year, I use it and it works great. It also allows you to sync your playlists across devices and allows you to download the tracks as well. The only difference between streaming services like MOG and iTunes Match is the music they have access to, MOG and Spotify have access to all the music on their services while iTunes Match has access to the music you own (either purchased via iTunes or ripped from CD).

Don't get me wrong, I think services like Spotify and MOG (I do prefer MOG by the way) are great, and I use those actively to find new music, they're much better suited for that than Pandora IMO. They're just never going to replace my music collection. My music listening is about 90% my music and 10% a combination of MOG, iTunes Match and iTunes Radio.