What’s the best music service you have used for premium in car speakers? Spotify was crappy. Just signed up for free Amazon music what have you all tried?
Trying Apple music next. I have almost a year hacked for free between these two
1 Like
Tidal, Apple Music, and Spotify Premium are the top 3 IMO in that order.
1 Like
Subjective, but for sound quality, tie between Tidal and Qobuz, but I’ll give the edge in quality sound to Qobuz. Qobuz is stripped and more like being in an old record store, where you listen to artists and albums, instead of playlisting everything. These services use tons of data pumping flacs, so don’t be too shocked when a tunnel or poor coverage causes dropouts.
I have YouTube Premium and it’s totally worth it. Ad free and can download and play music offline.
Plug into CarPlay and run my playlists in any vehicle.
2 Likes
Have you tried Apple Music since they added lossless? I have used quoboz and tidal and canceled my tidal sub when apple added lossless for free. It sounds amazing.
2 Likes
I use Apple Music & Sirius XM for the vehicles.
I’ve been using Amazon music for a couple years. Mainly because its free with my Prime membership. It’s not bad overall.
Lots of available music as part of the free service.
ability to download music to your device for offline use
Titles will disappear from the free service and either leave Prime altogether or show up on the unlimited service which is a premium subscription.
I am currently trying the 4 months free from Amazon HD music. It’s really good actually. Better than my xm . But xm is free so there’s that. Apple music next.
If anyone cares Amazon is amazon.com/Neilyoung Apple music is go to best buy search for apple music after logging in and buy the free 6 month code. It’s emailed to you.
The best value seems to be YouTube Premium but the last time I used it(summer), there was no volume normalization. The volume difference between tracks was too annoying for me. I will probably try it again eventually. Currently, I float between services taking advantage of promo pricing.
I have been enjoying Apple Music recently since Tidal is so glitchy with CarPlay. And Tidal seems to focus on rap/hip hop/hits while Apple Music is much more broad with their curated playlist. Also a notable mention is Qobuz since they tend to high higher bitrate tracks than anyone else.
I’ve never entered the Apple garden for any product or service, but have heard positive things from audiophiles about Apple lossless, but they still trend towards the two services I mentioned due to high resolution files. In the end, I appreciated Tidal’s overall development and performance, but I’m constantly reminded I’m the wrong demo for their ‘bent’, since I have zero interest in urban/pop/hiphop. That seems to be their main push, and you can only ignore it so much before it becomes annoying enough to look elsewhere. Thankfully there’s Qobuz…it’s like I built it for myself, although a feature I miss is a seed song for an auto-playlist…something I miss from Google music. SO Qobuz could use a few more features for more casual listening.
I can’t be bothered with running any streaming music via my cell phone. I know XM, as far as sound quality/compression, is so-so. But you can’t beat the reliability basically anywhere in the US. And the ease of use when your vehicle comes equipped.
Agree. And you can get annual subscription for about $76 all-in.
I had google music which is now YouTube premium. Grandfathered at. $7.99/month.
Only reason I keep it (kids have Spotify family plan) is I can upload music from my collection.
Very important to have 500 dead shows on tap!
2 Likes
Your music taste and mine are radically different.
Actually you can do this on Spotify too, it just requires some technical know how. I have some unreleased Nillow, Big Wild, and LBCK, stored in Spotify’s cloud.
You have to upload them into Spotify, share via local network, then download on your phone.
I use youtube premium 1) for the random mixtape songs that aren’t listed on other services 2) makes my actual youtube experience about 100 times better. . Plus I pay $2.54/month for a family plan so I’ll never change.
1 Like
But you can’t stream it? Then why upload it? I’m confused!
1 Like
When Google play transfered me to YouTube music, there wasn’t support in the sonos app which I have for speakers all over the house. I could stream from the YouTube app but I couldn’t access using the Sonos app. Not sure if that’s still a thing. One of the main reasons I cancelled.
So you are not going to Knotfest Roadshow with me? I got VIP tickets for the two of us. Next time Tiesto is back in town, we can go.
You don’t have to steam it because it is downloaded as a file on your phone. It just plays like a normal mp3.
Those with collections should look into Plex. Add the PlexAmp app, and you have likely the best streamer possible, hyper configurable. If I’m not on Qobuz, I’m on my Plex server mixing my own.
Come back, I’ll take you to see Nick Cave in DC lol