Spotify subscriber numbers hit 50 million

Thor187 said:
How does this compare to Deezer?
Click to expand...

Spotify is way better than Deezer. The only service worse than Deezer is Simfy.

mmmig said:
when will they come to SA?
Click to expand...

I tweeted at them a while ago and they said they had no immediate plans for SA. This is despite articles like the following that hit a while ago:

https://www.techcentral.co.za/spotify-set-for-sa-debut/48424/

DA-LION-619 said:
This. If I could pay for it I would.
Logging in every 30 days through a US IP address is getting tiring.
Click to expand...

I did the same until I gave Apple Music a second try. It's come a huge way since its terrible debut. I now rank it on par with Spotify or maybe a little behind. Ahead of Play Music, which itself is ahead of Deezer and Simfy.

- Apple Music has the largest upload allowance for your personal music
- Has loads of curated playlists and radio mixes now
- Has the largest selection of music I've come across
- Has exclusive agreements with some artists and early album releases
- Lets you download anything, not just playlists
- Has folders for playlists (not a new feature for iTunes, but really awesome)
- Has 5 stars for detailed ratings of your music
- Only Play Music & Apple Music perfectly merge purchases, personal music & streaming content
- Only Apple Music & Deezer offer family plans in SA (R90pm for whole family is awesome)
- iTunes is way less crap than when I last used it
- Apple Music auto radio is usually pretty good

I used to use Spotify for the curated content, but Apple Music has made such strides in that area that I don't find it necessary to keep Spotify installed anymore.
 
How do you find the music quality on the different services? I know they all say they stream up to 320kbps, but Deezer sounds worse than Play Music to me, for example. Tidal is noticeably better, but expensive. What is Apple Music like?
 
veethree said:
How do you find the music quality on the different services? I know they all say they stream up to 320kbps, but Deezer sounds worse than Play Music to me, for example. Tidal is noticeably better, but expensive. What is Apple Music like?
Click to expand...

Apple Music is 256Kbps, but I've found the quality to be excellent. Whatever compression Apple uses, it's really good. The file sizes are very large.

My impressions of the quality of other services:
- Deezer: not as good as Apple Music
- Play Music: equalised, some genres sound like crap to me
- Simfy: the worst by miles
- Spotify: really good, probably the best
 
Bryn said:
Apple Music is 256Kbps, but I've found the quality to be excellent. Whatever compression Apple uses, it's really good. The file sizes are very large.

My impressions of the quality of other services:
- Deezer: not as good as Apple Music
- Play Music: equalised, some genres sound like crap to me
- Simfy: the worst by miles
- Spotify: really good, probably the best
Click to expand...

Will probably give Apple Music a try.
Is Spotify's quality on the free plan better than Apple Music? Not that I care I'm not an audiophile.

Also does Apple Music cater for sharing playlists?
Like I have this Supernatural playlist someone created on Spotify which has all the rock songs from the series.
 
DA-LION-619 said:
Will probably give Apple Music a try.
Is Spotify's quality on the free plan better than Apple Music? Not that I care I'm not an audiophile.

Also does Apple Music cater for sharing playlists?
Like I have this Supernatural playlist someone created on Spotify which has all the rock songs from the series.
Click to expand...

Spotify free sucks. Quality is 160Kbps on desktop and 96Kbps on mobile. Spotify Premium is the only way to use the service. Also, Spotify free injects ads into your listening.

One of Spotify's best features are the sharing options. Subscribing to other people's playlists, collaborating on playlists and easily sharing playlists. I don't think any of the competing services offer that. The curated content is also a notch above everything else.

That said, I'd probably still stick to Apple Music if Spotify launched in SA for R60pm. Keeping my personal music, streaming stuff and store purchases seamlessly merged together and available in the cloud is the best thing since sliced bread. Only Play Music also offers that, but the upload allowance is significantly lower and they don't offer a family plan for R90pm. Even if Play Music introduced it, I doubt I'd switch. I've grown very attached to the 5 star rating system in iTunes, which lets me very accurately record how I feel about each track I listen to and makes returning to music such a joy. And as I mentioned above, I strongly feel like Play Music equalises music to cater for pop and rock, to the extreme detriment of classical music and quiet acoustic stuff. During my Play Music trial I picked up major discrepancies between the same tracks on Apple Music, Simfy and Play Music, with Play Music being the unpleasant outlier.
 
veethree said:
Tidal is noticeably better, but expensive
Click to expand...

How much is Spotify?

Tidal has a $4.99 option in 320kbps or the more expensive FLAC $9.99 option. On the second option they're releasing MQA (24 bit up to 192khz) audio as a no cost bonus. Problem with this it probably isn't quite what you want (though, they do have Eagles / Fleetwood Mac / Coldplay / Alter Bridge / Bruno Mars / Blur / David Bowie etc). But I do like the feeling of getting studio quality master files.

Basically, if you're into quality I'd go the $9.99 Tidal.
 
Dolby said:
How much is Spotify?

Tidal has a $4.99 option in 320kbps or the more expensive FLAC $9.99 option. On the second option they're releasing MQA (24 bit up to 192khz) audio as a no cost bonus. Problem with this it probably isn't quite what you want (though, they do have Eagles / Fleetwood Mac / Coldplay / Alter Bridge / Bruno Mars / Blur / David Bowie etc). But I do like the feeling of getting studio quality master files.

Basically, if you're into quality I'd go the $9.99 Tidal.
Click to expand...

Spotify just announced that they're introducing lossless quality. So wait for that and use them rather. Tidal is the jankiest of all the streaming services. Crazy people running it, hectic technical issues and loads of missing music.

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

It'll cost either $5 or $10 more.
 
Until Spotify arrives here with local pricing, though, that's going to makeit +/- R130 per month for the standard version and at least R195 for lossless. Too rich for my blood.
 
Yea I'll look at it when they do lossless ... But for now Tidal offers what I need. And it'll be cheaper than Spotify lossless?

But I'll definitely take a look

Edit : It seems though that Tidal is going to be one up on quality again with MQA.
 
Last edited:
Deezer works for me. If Spotify is available on our shores I shall look into it.
 
veethree said:
How do you find the music quality on the different services? I know they all say they stream up to 320kbps, but Deezer sounds worse than Play Music to me, for example. Tidal is noticeably better, but expensive. What is Apple Music like?
Click to expand...

Don't forget you can enable high quality streaming in Deezer settings.
 
Bryn said:
Apple Music is 256Kbps, but I've found the quality to be excellent. Whatever compression Apple uses, it's really good. The file sizes are very large.

My impressions of the quality of other services:
- Deezer: not as good as Apple Music
- Play Music: equalised, some genres sound like crap to me
- Simfy: the worst by miles
- Spotify: really good, probably the best
Click to expand...

Clearly I am stuck with my head in the sand. I've been using Simfy some time now. Will look at what the other options offer that Simfy doesn't.
 
I moved from iTunes to soundcloud. Then friend recommended Spotify and now only use Spotify. Playlists and seeing other people's music and lists is awesome. Discovered a lot of new music I enjoy. I have premium so no hassles with vpns or streaming whilst I drive.

Had Apple Music for that free 3 months and it was horrible. But I'll give it another try soon to test it out.
 
HApyM3al said:
I moved from iTunes to soundcloud. Then friend recommended Spotify and now only use Spotify. Playlists and seeing other people's music and lists is awesome. Discovered a lot of new music I enjoy. I have premium so no hassles with vpns or streaming whilst I drive.

Had Apple Music for that free 3 months and it was horrible. But I'll give it another try soon to test it out.
Click to expand...

How did you get premium?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X