How Do Streaming Service Libraries Compare For Users?

[Splicer]

My wife and I subscribe to Spotify and we've been generally quite happy with the service and the variety. As a Prog fan, I can often find quite a bit more than half of new releases of our kind of obscure music plus a good number of back catalog items. However, I don't like that two podcasters whose politics I disagree with are getting that much money, so I'm looking to switch.

In your experiences, are other major services (i.e. Apple, Amazon) comparable in catalog or are there subtle differences.

[headcrash]

I've been using Apple Music for a few months. The library seems at least as complete as the other majors including most of the progressive music I prefer. Apple offers Lossless (up to 24/48), Hi-Res Lossless (up to 24/192), Dolby Atmos, and their "Spatialized Stereo" when using Air Pods Pro, which I thought was just a gimmick at first but actually sounds pretty good to my ears. They also allow you to create a playlist containing as many songs as you wish.

[Splicer]

I'll look into Apple Music. Thanks for the review.

[Burley Wright]

I usually avoid discussions about streaming services because of the criticisms subscribers receive regarding how little payment artists receive etc. Nevertheless in the interest of answering your question I'll confess that I subscribe to Amazon and Spotify and one thing you should know that's a big difference to me is that Spotify has gapless playback and Amazon does not. I've subscribed to Amazon for year or so and only recently did a Spotify trial and when I saw they had gapless playback I dropped Amazon effective next March when my year runs out. Amazon countered with free HD/Spatial which I'm checking out but gapless wins the day, haven't seen that much difference in music selection.

Anyway, didn't want you to assume Amazon has gapless.

Edit: Also I like the "follow an artist" feature that Spotify has and Amazon doesn't

[yesman1955]

Amazon Music recently started streaming some music in what they refer to as Ultra HD quality. So far, the only Prog I have listened to that offers this level is the recent Transatlantic releases. They are streaming at 24 bit/48khz FLAC. Some other artists are streaming at CD quality: 16 bit/44.1 khz. I am glad to know that they are not streaming from MP3s. Honestly, using my computer speakers it is hard to tell a big difference.

[flatliner]

I also have Amazon Unlimited subscription. They switched to flac format this year at no extra charge. I love it! But usually use it for car or informal listening in the house. When I want to hear the best sound quality at home, on my 5.1 system, I still use CD, bluray, or vinyl. I treat Amazon as my own private radio station. But I must confess: what is gapless playback? That’s a term I must’ve missed…..

[fiberman]

I also have Amazon Unlimited subscription. They switched to flac format this year at no extra charge. I love it! But usually use it for car or informal listening in the house. When I want to hear the best sound quality at home, on my 5.1 system, I still use CD, bluray, or vinyl. I treat Amazon as my own private radio station. But I must confess: what is gapless playback? That’s a term I must’ve missed…..

Yes gapless has always been a mystery to me too.

[headcrash]

Yes gapless has always been a mystery to me too.

No break or "gap" between tracks, so that multipart pieces of music that are broken into separate tracks on an album, like so many prog epics are (Flower Kings & Transatlantic are two that come immediately to mind), play back smoothly one into another as intended without a distracting interruption.

[EdWiser]

I have been using Apple Music since it was introduced. As I music lover it is wonderful. At any time I have all the music in the world at my fingertips. With don’t atmos and losses hires the sound quality is the best. When someone post’s an album on the forum here. I just type it in the search and listen to it. It is just a feast of music that is so cheap. Love it.

[Victorian Squid]

I avoid supporting big tech whenever possible. There's too many quality services that fairly compensate the artists (looking at you Spotify) available I'd rather support.

I never considered streaming at all until my divorce, and until I reclaim my LP/CD collection and needed tunes after my second move finally got into streaming. I have to say it is much cooler than I thought it would be, and just a bit geeky. I'm strictly a 2-channel guy when it comes to music. I subscribe to Tidal on my Aurender (up to 96 kHz/24 bit) using their conductor software. It's rare there's something I can't find in the Tidal library, including some pretty obscure/old stuff. While I never thought I'd want to give up the LP ritual or sticking a silver disc in a tray, I have to admit having everything at my fingertips is pretty intoxicating. I'll definitely be ripping my discs to the hard drive at some point. I have quite a few in FLAC already, but almost never access the HD since it's already on Tidal.

I did have Amazon's prime streaming trial for a bit to compare when I first started, and couldn't find any advantage. I did notice with Amazon sometimes a random album wouldn't be available from a group one week, and it would be back the next. It also seemed that Amazon would tend to throttle back to lower res at times. Don't know if that's Amazon's fault or my broadband, or even my pref. settings allowing it to do so since I was still new to the game. Just an observation. Currently, Roon seems to be the most popular of the services in the audiophile community. A lot of that revolves around their software and value-added content. Loads of "Roon v. Tidal" and "Roon v. Spotify" videos on youtube.

Yes gapless has always been a mystery to me too.

For some reason, when MP3 came about, they inserted a 2 second gap between every $%^&! index/song. I think the idea was to help indexing like everybody is a DJ or something. That absolutely drives me nuts, and one reason I hate that format. Luckily most streaming services and even hardware players remove it these days.

[Aquatarkus]

I'm a longtime user of Apple Music (2015-Present) owing to my older iTunes account where I had 50K of my own rips uploaded to the cloud. Apple Music has a pretty good streaming library but I mostly use it because I can also stream music I own and have uploaded. Spotify, YTM and Deezer, Amazon don't offer the ability to upload your own tunes/rips. Google Play Music did for many years but then Google (as with so many of their services) eventually killed it in favor of YTM.

So with Apple Music you can, if you choose, stream only the music you have purchased and uploaded yourself. Excellent way to support the artists involved.

[yesman1955]

As I mentioned earlier, I have been listening to the new Transatlantic (both versions) and my experience listening to them on Amazon Ultra HD has been "gapless". YMMV

[PixelDelirium]

I'd also recommend Amazon Music. The lossless and HD streaming is what made me even give it a try. I've never listened to streaming music much at all until it came along (ironically I work for a major streaming audio company) and it's very nice to be able to listened to an album I may not have otherwise given a chance. I still buy a ton of lossless downloads and CDs but it's definitely a good compliment.

[Victorian Squid]

As I mentioned earlier, I have been listening to the new Transatlantic (both versions) and my experience listening to them on Amazon Ultra HD has been "gapless". YMMV

Unless you're specifically listening to an MP3 recording on an old rip or device, everything should be gapless. If anybody gets gaps on a streaming service (even at low res), find a new one!

[pb2015]

Unless you're specifically listening to an MP3 recording on an old rip or device, everything should be gapless. If anybody gets gaps on a streaming service (even at low res), find a new one!

I have Spotify. Sometimes albums get on there with dodgy rips leading to noticeable gaps, but usually it plays gapless. For instance, I was listening to Godbluff by VdGG on there and for some reason there was a gap between the songs on side one that I could notice, but I listened to the first Hatfield and the North album there once and it had no gaps.

[noisynoise]

I'm a longtime user of Apple Music (2015-Present) owing to my older iTunes account where I had 50K of my own rips uploaded to the cloud. Apple Music has a pretty good streaming library but I mostly use it because I can also stream music I own and have uploaded. Spotify, YTM and Deezer, Amazon don't offer the ability to upload your own tunes/rips. Google Play Music did for many years but then Google (as with so many of their services) eventually killed it in favor of YTM.

So with Apple Music you can, if you choose, stream only the music you have purchased and uploaded yourself. Excellent way to support the artists involved.

I'm interested in this use model. I tried setting up my own streaming server at home using Plex, but had mixed results. Is it easy to update your library with new purchases/rips?

[Scott Bails]

I'm interested in this use model. I tried setting up my own streaming server at home using Plex, but had mixed results. Is it easy to update your library with new purchases/rips?

Plex is the best, IMO. I'm far from an expert, but I'm happy to help, if I can.

[aith01]

I'm interested in this use model. I tried setting up my own streaming server at home using Plex, but had mixed results. Is it easy to update your library with new purchases/rips?

What kind of problems did you encounter with Plex? I've been using it for my home library for a couple years and it's been a reliable way to stream music to my phone and entertainment center. Maybe we could help?

[noisynoise]

Thanks, guys!

I was using a Raspberry Pi as the server with an external drive also set up as my iTunes folder. The thought was that I could maintain playlists and syncing with my phone, but also stream my whole library through Plex. There was a percentage of songs (15%?) that wouldn't play through Plex, but I couldn't determine why they wouldn't play. All my rips are either high-quality MP3 or Apple Lossless.

I also wasn't able to find any way to shuffle by album, which is my preferred listening method. If there is a solution to this, I'd be willing to invest in better hardware if needed to give Plex another go.

[Scott Bails]

Hmm....I use a PC as my Plex server, with a few external drives. And all of my music is 320 mp3, though Plex does allow for FLAC, I believe. I don't know if Plex allows for Apple lossless. But I'm able to create playlists, shuffle them, shuffle by artist, by album, etc. And for music, their PlexAmp app is even better than the regular Plex app, which can also be used for video, etc.

[noisynoise]

It seemed to play some Apple Lossless files and not others ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe I'll try again with a better computer, any issues adding new content?

[Aquatarkus]

I'm interested in this use model. I tried setting up my own streaming server at home using Plex, but had mixed results. Is it easy to update your library with new purchases/rips?

Yes, definitely. I don't have any experience with Plex but in Apple Music you add your own rips in the Apple Music app on MacOS or the iTunes app on Windows. Those files live side by side with any albums you have added to your library that you stream from that service. So for example you could have side by side copies of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. One could be your vinyl rip of a particular LP and the other could be Apple Music's copy. You can also search the libary either by what you have added via Apple Music/iTunes or for your own library copies of rips you have personally uploaded.

A good example of why I like this service is that I bought and ripped the Immersion box sets of Pink Floyd's Dark Side and Wish You Were Here when they were released. They are now out of print and not available to stream. So in my Apple Music library I have my Immersion set of Dark Side that I uploaded and also the latest high resolution copy that is avaialble from Apple Music/iTunes.


As far as versions go: Apple Music recently started streaming lossless files, which is great as they usually give you a decent amount of information regarding the file. In the olden days, the music I uploaded was either matched in the cloud or uploaded if iTunes didn't have the equivalent. So for a long time even if I had uploaded a copy of my rip in Apple Lossless file format, usually it stored in the cloud as 256 AAC. In the past few months everything I've uploaded to Apple Music that are my rips in Apple Lossless are also stored in lossless in the cloud, at least for 24-96 high resolution files. I'm not sure if this applies to 24 bit 24-192 files yet. Hope this information is helpful!

[noisynoise]

Yes, definitely. I don't have any experience with Plex but in Apple Music you add your own rips in the Apple Music app on MacOS or the iTunes app on Windows. Those files live side by side with any albums you have added to your library that you stream from that service. So for example you could have side by side copies of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. One could be your vinyl rip of a particular LP and the other could be Apple Music's copy. You can also search the libary either by what you have added via Apple Music/iTunes or for your own library copies of rips you have personally uploaded.

A good example of why I like this service is that I bought and ripped the Immersion box sets of Pink Floyd's Dark Side and Wish You Were Here when they were released. They are now out of print and not available to stream. So in my Apple Music library I have my Immersion set of Dark Side that I uploaded and also the latest high resolution copy that is avaialble from Apple Music/iTunes.


As far as versions go: Apple Music recently started streaming lossless files, which is great as they usually give you a decent amount of information regarding the file. In the olden days, the music I uploaded was either matched in the cloud or uploaded if iTunes didn't have the equivalent. So for a long time even if I had uploaded a copy of my rip in Apple Lossless file format, usually it stored in the cloud as 256 AAC. In the past few months everything I've uploaded to Apple Music that are my rips in Apple Lossless are also stored in lossless in the cloud, at least for 24-96 high resolution files. I'm not sure if this applies to 24 bit 24-192 files yet. Hope this information is helpful!

Very helpful, thanks Aquatarkus! Apple Music has a free 3-month trial, I'll probably give it a try!

[Jerjo]

We have Amazon Music, which I either stream over the Echo device while working in the kitchen or in my office to preview a new album. Other than that, I play my own music. If I'm in the living room, where the main stereo rig is, I'll play CDs. In my office/man cave, I've got about 18000 songs ripped to FLAC files on my computer's hard drive. That's where I hear more of my music. I run the audio from the PC into a DAC and then into a small but potent system. I've got a lot of supposedly HD files collected over the years and countless bootlegs. For a long time, the only way for me to hear those in the living room was to burn a CD and play that. But I just bought another DAC and set up my trusty laptop with the bulk of those files. Now I can hear that music the way it should be heard, at least until my wife says "what the hell is that teenage noise you're playing?"

[weresloth]

We have Amazon Music, which I either stream over the Echo device while working in the kitchen or in my office to preview a new album. Other than that, I play my own music. If I'm in the living room, where the main stereo rig is, I'll play CDs. In my office/man cave, I've got about 18000 songs ripped to FLAC files on my computer's hard drive. That's where I hear more of my music. I run the audio from the PC into a DAC and then into a small but potent system. I've got a lot of supposedly HD files collected over the years and countless bootlegs. For a long time, the only way for me to hear those in the living room was to burn a CD and play that. But I just bought another DAC and set up my trusty laptop with the bulk of those files. Now I can hear that music the way it should be heard, at least until my wife says "what the hell is that teenage noise you're playing?"

You should consider investing in a NAS and a wifi set up to get the data to the DAC - have the files centralized and deliver them anywhere in a network in your home. I have a set up like this with Logitech Media Server (was Squeezebox Server). Similar amount of files, able to listen to them on multiple wired and wireless devices throughout my whole house.