Streaming - again - and finding a service

[Dave2002]

I finally decided to save money and give up Spotify - though it seemt that all that happens is that one gets moved back to a free subscription. I had two reasons in particular.

1. Whatever technical support etc. say, Spotify on my Macbook causes problems. It sets the thing into a mode where it starts to get hot very quickly. Also, it ignores instructions not to turn itself on at startup. Time to junk it.

2. Like some other music streaming services, the interface has deteriorated a lot. It's not great in the Mac OS version, but in the iOS version it has become truly dreadful.

iTunes is not too much better now, either, though I did enjoy the iTunes music for a while - but that free trial has now finished.

Napster used to be a bit clunky, but had some good music and relatively rare performances. Now it seems to be too clunky, with an awkward interface, and I can't seem to find the good stuff any more, so Im now considering whether it's even worth the five or so pounds per month to continue. That may also be for the chop now.

I thought I'd switch to Qobuz, but I don't really need an expensive subscription. It's not the end of the world if I have another free trial followed by continuing at £9.99 per month, but a month or more back I'm sure there was an MP3 subscription which was about half of that. Since I only really want to use the service to check out recordings it would probably be adequate. Now I can't find that deal.

Has Qobuz abandoned the cheap low end Basic deal?

[teamsaint]

naxos library, free with your local library card.
Its a great free option,IMO.

it does have some brand new stuff, although I'm not sure which labels, apart from naxos obviously.

The recent Ticciati Haydn is already on there, which is on Linn IIRC.

[Cockney Sparrow]

I use a PC. I subscribe to Google Play Music All Access. It has a lot of the performances that get mentioned on here (historic as well as more current). Stated to stream at 320kbs (I think if your equipment will take it - so presumably it monitors the ease of data being downloaded. £10 per month and the invoice goes to my Google email account (the only thing I use it for). Quality is fine, but as in Spotify better success can be had by searching in various search terms if the initial searches produces a blank. And also like most, I don't find everything I'm looking for.

I supplement that with the Naxos via my library (where the quality seems suspiciously high for 64kbs, or even 128kbs if the Barbican Lib pays for that). Most times, between these two, I get to listen to what I am looking for. And its good for "try before buy" - I can establish whether it really is as important for me to add to the physical or download collection.

And Naxos has a new entrant in the market - Classics Online HD

http://www.naxos.com/news/default.asp?op=1154&displaymenu=Naxos_News&type=2

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/naxos-launches-new-high-definition-music-streaming-and-download-service

Yet to look into it (or even the Qobuz services). The Naxos service may be one for those who can hear the Hi Res differences - up to 24 bit 192 Khz (although Qobuz sublime is also in that area).

Its getting to be a crowded market (like energy tariffs and mobile phone packages - Joy.....)

[kea]

NML has the widest selection (especially now that they've added Decca and Deutsche Grammophon) if you just want it for sampling. For actual listening, be aware that the sound quality is 64kbps AAC.

[antongould]

As a non-techie I have stuck with Apple Music and unlike, I suspect, Beefy, Rumpole et al, I have paid my first £9.99. I find the catalogue vast, far too vast for my needs and the ability to download anything I fancy at anytime quite wonderful .... I am compiling a Christmas playlist - how sad is that ??

[Stunsworth]

I thought I'd switch to Qobuz, but I don't really need an expensive subscription. It's not the end of the world if I have another free trial followed by continuing at £9.99 per month, but a month or more back I'm sure there was an MP3 subscription which was about half of that. Since I only really want to use the service to check out recordings it would probably be adequate. Now I can't find that deal.

Has Qobuz abandoned the cheap low end Basic deal?

Go to this page and then click on the arrow on the left hand side of the screen a couple of times to show the other subscriptions that are available...

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription

The 320k MP3 desktop only scheme - which is what I think you were thinking of - is £4.99 a month.

[ostuni]

The one aspect of Qobuz that I really like is the ability to read (many, but not all) album booklets while you listen/browse.

[Dave2002]

Go to this page and then click on the arrow on the left hand side of the screen a couple of times to show the other subscriptions that are available...

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription

The 320k MP3 desktop only scheme - which is what I think you were thinking of - is £4.99 a month.

Thanks. Just got onto it.

I know it's "only" 320kbps, but so far, based on a very small sample, the sound quality is quite poor. I have some 320 kbps downloads which are realy rather good, and have made my own, which generally at 320kbps were not hugely different from CD quality. I can easily hear problems at 96kbps or 128 kbps encoding levels. I am also (sadly) quite well attuned to the types of artefacts that mp3 gives at low bit rates. By 224 kbps I can barely hear them in a decent encoding, so 320 kbps ought to be satisfactory. However, I always made my own mp3s using the highest quality encoding level - which is not directly related to bit rate.

This quality level from playings from Qobuz so far is not as good as the Apple Music service, and I've even heard better from Napster - though that has been variable. The now defunct Sony system (is that now Google Play?) used to have quite good SQ too.

Slightly disappointed, though gives me a chance to explore, and maybe explore the cataloge and the interface(s). I'm not immediately enticed to up the level of my subscription. Maybe I've just hit on some bad transfers. If anyone knows of music which sounds really good (or even passable ...) via Qobuz Basic I'd happily try it.

FWIW the sound quality of both the recent BPO/Gilbert and BBC SO/Belohlavek recordings of Mendelssohn's Scottish from iPlayer was/is in a different league and the performances are really good too. Is this perhaps the new role for the BBC - to act as an online music source for music lovers - though the only limitation is the time limit on performances being available?

I found out how to access NML - Naxos Music Library - via my local library - but the interface does seem rather slow and clunky. At least Spotify used to be very fast, though the Spotify interface gradually beceme more and more unusable. I think Napster is also now beginning to be unusable too, and doesn't seem to have much of the interesting material which it had shortly after it combined with Rhapsody.

[richardfinegold]

I have used Spotify now for a year, and the only negative--apart from knowing the Artists are getting a bad deal--is the frustrating interface. I have to make multiple attempts to pull up a given recording. Their selection is quite broad and the SQ is pretty decent

[Dave2002]

I have used Spotify now for a year, and the only negative--apart from knowing the Artists are getting a bad deal--is the frustrating interface. I have to make multiple attempts to pull up a given recording. Their selection is quite broad and the SQ is pretty decent

I've had Spotify for years and used to think it was good, and paid for the Premium service which I have now cancelled. The interface has got worse, IMO, and the Spotify program on my Macbook Pro is not well behaved. It causes my machine to run hot, though Spotify tech support deny this and say it shouldn't. It also starts itself up on reboot, even though I turned off the setting to do that. I liked the speed of operation, and I mostly thought the sound quality was reasonable - perhaps even good. Just a shame about the problems which emerged over the last year.

Although NML via the library is free, I feel that the interface is clunky. Possibly subscribers would be able to use a somewhat snappier interface, but I don't think that's possible for the free access via the county library services. I agree it's potentially useful for occasional exploration of unusual works, but the speed issues might deter me indefinitely. I'll probably use it again, though unless I can get a more slick operation, perhaps not frequently. The sound quality seemed acceptsble, though probably not up to the level of Apple Music. The paid for version may be better.

The Qobuz basic service seems to have quite a good selection - roughly comparable to what Napster had a while back. However Napster seems to have shrunk a lot. I recall finding unusual performances of Bruckner - perhaps including Barbirolli conducting Bruckner 8, or something similar, but it's either not there now, or almost impossible to find. Qobuz does have some of the interesting older material - such as performances by Celibidache. I don't think the Basic sound quality is as good as it could be, though whether that's because of low bit rate compression, or poor transfers I can't say. Perhaps if I subscribed or trialled the FLAC streams things would improve, though if the problem is in the mastering for the online services, then all that I'd hear would be even more faithfully reproduced artefacts and unwanted noise and distortion.

I don't really use Amazon as a streaming service, but occasionally I buy downloads, or CDs with autorip.
The Amazon player can be quite handy at times, for listening to music which Amazon has filed away for me if I happen to be in mobile mode, and using a mobile device which doen't have the files downloaded to it.

Re the artists getting a bad deal this is a major problem. i don't really have. an answer for that. Similar issues also apply to other forms of media content - see the thread on the law being an ass and copyright. One concern about trying to amend copyright and other rules in different jurisdictions is that possibly the original artists will still not benefit, but funds will simply be transferred into the coffers of large multinational companies, and hardly anything will trickle down to the real creators.

[BBMmk2]

I have gone to Spotify. Although this particular streaming service, does not have some of the recordings, I have, for the most part, found it quite helpful. It too has a vast library, but I am always interested in hearing about other products out there.

[Dave2002]

I have gone to Spotify. Although this particular streaming service, does not have some of the recordings, I have, for the most part, found it quite helpful. It too has a vast library, but I am always interested in hearing about other products out there.

I think you'll discover that you can find many recordings, but the search feature isn't always as good as could be hoped for. If at first you don't succeed, try putting in artists' names instead of the composer, or piece name. Sometimes I've done a search on Amazon, then note that the "album" has a name or an artist which is fairly unique (ff will complain about my English. ...!!) and identifiable and use that as a search term, which then locates the item.

I'd have stuck with Spotify if it hadn't been for the heat problems, which I hope you won't have. ITunes and Qobuz seem relatively well behaved in comparison.

[richardfinegold]

Dave, regarding the heat problem, have you talked with Mac support? They can do a scan of your computer remotely.
Also--does it happen on any other device, such as the phone, that has the Spotify app?
It is possible that you were in "Spotify connect" mode. The Spotify program may have have been looking for a machine to
Connect to, and generating heat because it can't find one.

[Dave2002]

Dave, regarding the heat problem, have you talked with Mac support? They can do a scan of your computer remotely.
Also--does it happen on any other device, such as the phone, that has the Spotify app?
It is possible that you were in "Spotify connect" mode. The Spotify program may have have been looking for a machine to
Connect to, and generating heat because it can't find one.

Thanks for that. Interesting comments. However, I don't normally let any outside party have any access to my machine - I'd be very reluctant to do that. If I decide to go back to Spotify I may follow this up. In the meantime I do still have the free service I think, and I can run it on my desktop machines if I want to.

I'm gradually figuring out how to use Qobuz - and some of it is good - so currently listening to the Belcea Quartet in Beethoven Op 18 No 6. The René Jacobs version of Idomeneo sounds good too. My earlier comments about SQ probably refer to some older recordings, though I really don't think they should sound as poor as they do - which I think is probably due to poor remastering.

[Bryn]

As mentioned earlier, somewhere on this Forum, I found that the QOBUZ mp3 streams for at least 2 of the Ives Ensemble Feldman SQ2 files are seriously compromised. I would guess ripping rather than encoding errors. I also found considerable dynamic limiting with their FLAC streams during my 'free' one month access to that. I doubt I will renew my subscription next May, when the current period runs its course.