John. I am very glad that you have come to this situation. I quit Spotify a few years ago when I got frustrated with the crap. I buy as much vinyl as I may afford and downloads. Preach.
About time JD! Now here’s a thing, when Spotify was originally launched my company leapt at the opportunity to stream music around the office. The keen eared amongst us started to notice that the music that claimed to be by established artists, clearly was not. It became quite obvious that they were playing very clever cover versions in place of the real stuff. We imagined at the time that they had not received the rights at that point. Allegedly. And it is for that reason that Spotify has never darkened my desktop/mobile device. Well done for ditching the service.
Absolutely rightly said and done, as musician, recording artist and an audiophile i couldn't agree more, i hope more and more people realise where this is going and changes made accordingly, thank you👍
I have never used Spotify. I use Apple Music and Tidal to discover music and if I like something, I buy the vinyl album. I think that's the best way to support artists, just buy their music!
I’m 15 and a hifi nerd. Me and my dad share this hobby. I resently bought the new WiiM ultra and with That upgrade se changed from spotify to tidal. I sat and listend for hours comparing the two and it is really really night and day to my ears at least and i could nerver go back.
Same for me, the recent purchase of a WiiM Ultra prompted me to subscribe to Tidal as I wasn’t satisfied with Spotify’s sound quality either of my home systems.
I am 73 years old I cannot hear the difference between 320 & higher, but the soundstage & imaging is still excellent on Spotify, I’ve been a serious listener since 1976.
Spotify 320 kbit/s is sufficient. I did a lot of blind tests and with anything above 128 kbit/s it was mostly guesswork for me to pick the compressed format. If you really want next level spatial audio (with dedicated speakers, no soundbar or headphone) is the way to go.
Hmm, for me (53 years old), the difference is obvious. Still, even if you can't hear the difference doesn't mean you couldn't choose something else.. Right?
Funny I tried to find one of the most popular songs of a Japanese artist (recently deceased) in Qobus yesterday & only found one cover version! Went to Spotify and there are multiple versions by her. Qobus generally satisfies my need to find new stuff. They have more stuff than I can ever listen to even I listen 24/7 for now on (57 years old) till I go back to dust. But I do look up east Asian music from yesteryears and most of the time can't find them in Qobus. Tidal fares better, Spotify even better. If you don't care the sound quality too much, I have been able to find just about any music I looked for in UA-cam (the video channel). I was ready to drop Qobus for Spotify when they alledged to start CD quality streaming. But I have since given up on Spotify. They just wouldn't give a freaking confirmation up front one way or other. Til this day, I don't subscribe to Spotify.
I've said it once and I'll say it again. I use Spotify like I used to use FM radio. I listen to Spotify in the background and to explore new music. If I happen to especially like what I hear, I will attempt to purchase the music on CD or LP. I have no interest in better streaming or high rez files. I can't hear the difference.
Of course you could also use any of the other streaming services for that as well 😀 And you can't hear the difference? That is your actual experience, or do you assume so? 😂
Very glad you make the point that there are no "good guys" when it comes to streaming. No streaming service is good for musicians or for music in the long term.
"If you're one of those ones who say I'm not an audiophile, I'm a music lover - YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE" Love it. I buy predominantly records, as often as possible through Bandcamp, I fully agree that artists I don't think are getting their fair share from most streaming services. I canceled Spotify during the Joe Rogan debacle and don't miss it. I don't agree with their ethos, they're money over artists / morality imho.
Excellent vid. I cancelled Spotify during the Neil Young / Joni Mitchell walkout (which proved temporary) but I've only grown happier to have quit over the past few years amid the AI fake artist scandal and the
A boring comment here just to say I agree with all your arguments for dropping Spotify. I had suspected the "ghost musician" issue based on personal experience with certain Spotify playlists, particularly ambient ones. I reckon it happens with other genres, but it seems most obvious to me there. Having that suspicion more or less confirmed feels like the straw breaking the camel's back for me. Another great video, as always, and I hope your shoulder feels better soon!
Nice to see Matthew Halsall in your tunes this time. I’m ending up in a very similar place to you John. I’m by no means an audiophile, largely because the top end of my hearing is wrecked and I have mild tinnitus from too many gigs, but I’ve ditched Spotify and gone with Tidal for streaming, then buy physical copies of the things I really like from Bandcamp, local record shops and record fairs. Spent Christmas dragging my 4000-ish CDs out of storage and ripping/cataloging them, so I’m currently going through a voyage of discovery with all the stuff I’d forgotten I even owned.
99% of consumers don't care about sound quality. They listen on cheap, subpar consumer hardware like cheap earbuds and headphones and everything is bluetooth. Most consumers don't even know what "bitrate" means let alone any of the other technical aspects of audio. Streaming is the bane of both audio and video quality. 4K UHD blu rays and HD audio physical media is far superior to video or audio streamed today. We will own nothing and we will hate it....
Congrats sir! I remember my daughter telling me that her high school friends were making fun of her because she didn’t have a Spotify account. We have a family Tidal account instead. I remember showing her the graph of how much the artists got paid. It was different back then because I don’t remember Qobuz even being mentioned. I’ll have to check them out. My music tastes are probably more mainstream than yours. 😅
I never subscribed to Spotify as the sound quality (or lack thereof) always hampered my listening. While Qobuz is the most inconvenient to use I have found that it sounds the best, at least to my ears, with Apple music a close second. Also happy (and not surprised) to see that they pay the most out to musicians.
I've had a Spotify account since 2012. I barely used it within the last decade. Aside from my indifference to streaming audio, another reason is a lot of my collection has rare and out of print music. Most of which cannot he found on Spotify - or any other streaming service, for that matter.
Interestingly, one of Lou Reed's first jobs was recording anonymous muzak to go on compilations for Pickwick Records. Kind of the 1960's version of Spotify's ghost music.
It's interesting because the majority of people don't even use any of the streaming services. By farand away, the service most used to listen to music is UA-cam. They even have tons of exclusives when it comes to live covers.
I moved away from Spotify to use Apple Music exclusively, for 2 or 3 of the reasons you mentioned (quality, AppleTV integration and app clutter). But I was drawn back in. Why? I find Apple Music makes it hard to discover new music. I find the app interface worse than Spotify's, I don't like that it pushes top 40 music on me, regardless of the types of music I listen to. I despise that playlist creation is so much more complex than Spotify. The only bright spot for me was AppleTV integration. The rest has me wanting way more. If it could be 25% of what the Podcast app is, I'd be so much happier.
Sorry to hear about your neck John. Not fun. Spotify also seems to be filling their playlists with AI generated Muzak, especially jazz. That’s even worse than real musicians playing bland crap. I’m amazed that so many musicians push them so much.
About a year and a half ago i switched to Tidal after being a life long Spotify user. my family still streams on Spotify and we have a Spotify family supscription so i still have it aswell. Recently i tried Spotify again on my pc after using Tidal for over a year, and oh my god. What have they done to the layout and design of the app?? ITS HORRENDOUS! Atleast my parents are paying the subscription because i would NOT pay for Spotify. Not when compared to Tidal.
Wow 😮 this doesn’t surprise me one bit, 100% agree. The interface is far too fussy, res is the worst out there, and to be fair now doesn’t offer any value for money compared to the rest
Amazon has deep pockets. They should create an Amazon Music Connect app. You'd have thought Apple would have done the same years ago. They probably would have if Steve Jobs were still alive.
I gave up on Tidal and Spotify both last year. I'm sticking with Apple and Amazon. I still prefer my actual physical media like LPs, cassettes and CDs.
I've not used Spotify in years. I do have Tidal for Roon. I'd actually like to know what the artist gets from sites like HDTracks as I get music from there and also CD/vinyl. Tidal for me, as part of Roon radio introduces me to new artists that I've gone and bought the CD (and rip to my NAS to be used with Roon) That is one of the best features of Roon for me
Enjoy your channel, but I'd be stunned if you can tell the difference between the lossless vs the Ogg Vorbis in a blind test. So far as I've seen, Spotify has the best discovery options, continually introducing me to new music I wouldn't have otherwise encountered. I listen on Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4s and have no complaints about sound quality.
Streaming music will always suck for creators and consumers alike. These companies are parasites, every bit as predatory and exploitative as anything in the traditional music industry.
I have Qobuz and Spotify, I had Tidal as well but dropped that as it had too many gaps vs Qobuz. I keep Spotify purely to share music I’m listening to in Qobuz with people, and it has one song I sleep to that’s not on Qobuz. I could rip that song and put it on my phone, but that seems like a lot of work when you don’t have the setup for it. All in all, I could and should drop Spotify, if I ever get that song on my phone, it’ll go. Either that, or one more price increase for mp3 quality will push me over the edge.
I cancelled last yet after they lied to me along under the rouse of lossless music..."coming soon". Such BS. Sound quality of Spotify has always been sh*t. I had no idea they were creating Muzak.
Soundquality is fine. Babbling about high bitrates audio is BS. I have a Genelec studio monitor setup and Spotify sounds just as good as Apple music. That's just reality.
@@syntheee no, reality is that some people simply cant tell the difference, same way there are some people who cant see higher than 60hz on a monitor, my phone has a 120hz screen and she cant tell the difference between it and a 60hz screen, my dad is iffy on whether or not he can actually see 240hz on my monitor also same way some people cant tell the difference in taste of different whiskies, they just taste the malty-ness and the burn there is also the whole thing where some people are color blind hearing is even more delicate, but there are still a ton of people who cant really appreciate the tiny things, some people cant tell the difference between different amps, some cant really tell the difference between headphones (simply just that they do some a little different), some people are tone deaf, some think sound bars are perfectly fine when compared to a proper speaker setup
Once Tidal went to high rez for just $11 a month…I said adios to Spotify. Once I listened to Low Roar on the Death Stranding soundtrack in 24 bit…I’ll never go back.
Well, inertia, the app was so much better than the concurrence for so much time.. that most people don't want to change it now, even for a better service
To be honest I think most people don’t know the majority of points that Darko makes in this. Especially things like the ghosts in the machine. Artists making $0.003 per stream etc. Like Darko says, people use it because it’s cheap and convenient which are most people’s priorities
Bravo. Musicians need more advocates like you and Ben. With the virus that is AI music and bot ‘bands’, the writing is on the wall as far as the intention of Shopify and many of its competitors to pay real musicians next to nothing. They play the short game, the bully, as they take in the cash, and the actual producers of content who get the short end / next to nothing for a life’s work. Consumers are conditioned to expect everything for nothing, and it’s not sustainable. Thanks John, for taking a stand, and echoing this message to your viewers.
The main thing that’s holding me to Spotify is the playlist suggestions for new artists when I’m playing an artist I already know. Is Apple Music or any other service comparable to that?
My friend, not all countries have the same salaries as in Germany! Some people live for $500 or less per month, while most countries have an average income of $300 per person. What $50 a month are you talking about?
I had subscribed to Tidal just last week as I'm nearing the end of another 12-month subscription with Spotify. Mainly because I got tired of waiting for Spotify HiFi and Tidal having restructured their pricing plans last year made it cheaper and still stream lossless. On top of now using Tidal, I still buy physical albums from the artists (especially the small independent artists) I really like to support them directly and also keeping my local record stores in business.
I usually use Apple Music but thought I would try Spotify again just last night. Was going to listen to the first Boston album. It wanted to play me something else from that era and now way around it. Boston would have eventually played but I switched back to Apple first.
John I have been blessed by your advice since before the internet was a thing. I read every article I could get my hands on you published. You are the only person who I have ever taken 100% of advice from Thank you so much for the wonderful education I have received from you regarding listening to music. PS YOU are the ONLY person on the entire net who Fully Understands the issue with Apple Music/Airplay/streaming/ regards to the difficulties to stream to multiple locations to your home LOSSLESSLY You Brother Thomas are literally the only ones that broach this subject The one and only video you produced is the holy grail. I hope you will publish another more in depth one with specifics on hardware devices of those of us who are hamstring by Airplay sending everything out via ethernet or wireless lossy codec
I recently had the occasion by chance to compare the sound of my Spotify library to Apple Music, which we had canceled, on my new B&W pi8s'. The Apple Music was clearly superior (not as apparent on AirPods Pro). But my family is addicted to Spotify so I doubt they will let me, the only audiophile in the house, add it back. Shame. The hardware can do so much more even on Bluetooth. Night and day, like lifting a veil and much more volume headroom. I have to push the volume very high on Spotify and halfway is fine on Apple and this is on my iPhone! I'm so frustrated, C'mon Spotify, do what you said you would.
I strongly agree. Aborted my Premium plan a year ago or so because of their greedy attitude towards musicians , and recently I deleted my very Spotify account. As for you, the ghost musicians were the final nails in the coffin, but every reason you mentioned contributed to my decision. Then there were even more reasons, namely Spotify's unwillingnesss to keep the platform clean from hateful and misleading content. As a Swede, I'm certainly not proud of Spotify.
I forgot to mention.. Previously I've downloaded playlists for offline listening. The songs are renamed with silly thing like 2dffb6ff5g33tt6h7fr5, but using a player app like Poweramp, they can be listened to. And here's the thing. The 320 kbps files sound MUCH better this way than they do in Spotify's app. Why in the f¤x&(ing world do they deliberately destroy the sound quality in their app??
Spotify back in 2016-19 was fantastic, discovered so many great songs but when the algorithm changed and new UI with stories and ai dj, I immediately went back to Apple Music
Bravo! I support buying more music, whether it's digital or physical. A $500/month budget would be too much music for me to know what to do with, personally. But 100% of my CD purchases are second hand, so that $500 budget would net me 80-100 albums, haha. I really appreciate the sentiment that there should be concern with how commercial entities handle our culture, ESPECIALLY in the present when the internet homogenizes our global perspectives and interests.
I used to have Spotify and Apple Music and used Spotify way more, but once Apple announced Hi-Res audio and Dolby Atmos streaming I quit Spotify in 2020 and never looked back.
I was at the gym today, and get a real taste there every week of how music is perceived by probably a large number of people; a tapestry of indiscriminate sound to drown out your idle thoughts. Its repulsive but very real. Perhaps Spotify will turn into a muzak machine fed by the most well known artists and lots of surrogates in between. Pulp, junk food, trash movies its nothing new.
I only Apple & Tidal as well for releases in Atmos unavailable in Blu-ray and Hi-Res releases unavailable anywhere else. Dropped Spotify around the beginning of the pandemic (why would you listen to 320 kbps files at home in this day and age? Lol). I’m in the process of buying a lot of CDs, digital downloads and vinyl to rebuild my library too.
I stream Qobuz through Wiim to my stereo and it sounds great. I stream Amazon music through Alexa for the convenience of voice control. I subscribe to UA-cam Music for its extensive library (and no ads on UA-cam videos).
Where I struggle with physical media being the answer is the environment impact. Realistically on a long enough timeline all of that will end up in the garbage one day whether we like it or not. The vinyl I collect is nearly all used rather than new and the artists don't see anything from that. I wish that streaming could be streamlined for more of my monthly payment to go directly to the artists that I listen to. I would have no qualms about paying double per month what I do today. Hopefully one day that will be an option.
I use roon w tidal. Also Apple Music separately. And I have been collecting Sooloos used music servers for years in order to buy large libraries of FLAC audio files. The whole mqa debacle is a bummer, but my meridian gear upsamples beautifully, and listening continues to be a delight. There are worse habits!
Love your Channel and opinions. I just do not believe in punishing the customer with higher rates vs. reevaluating the Spotify business model and raise a brow that the CEO makes $345 million on the artist's backs since 2023
It's Bandcamp for me, in terms of most music $$ spent on a monthly basis. But unfortunately Spotify hunting/prowling for new content is still too convenient to abandon completely.
I don't like that Spotify is so antagonistic to music makers and listeners, and yet its apps are among the most stable. Tidal is purer, yet it has atrophied to the point that you have to accept poorer interactions with its apps to practice a fractionally more ethical listening regimen. Apple Music is not without its technical snafus either, but the company prides itself on its refusal to play nice with many component makers beyond airplay support that it can and does alter arbitrarily to serve its own accessories' interests. Buying digital records from independent vendors unfortunately runs counter to the resurgence of the track as driver of listener interest. People do make albums but people don't live by the making of those albums. Tracks and their metrics are all that matter in this era. And it is likely a fools' errand to expect the masses to subscribe to a service for the firehose and for them to then pursue favored artist support in the form of physical and digital media purchases. Some will, but there's a reason why merch is a supplemental vector artists avidly pursue. Fans like to fan out, and that's harder to do with a file on an SSD.
Qobuz is the new King. Long live the King!
I said goodbye to Spotify mainly because I felt the sound quality of Qobuz was better.
John. I am very glad that you have come to this situation. I quit Spotify a few years ago when I got frustrated with the crap. I buy as much vinyl as I may afford and downloads. Preach.
About time JD! Now here’s a thing, when Spotify was originally launched my company leapt at the opportunity to stream music around the office. The keen eared amongst us started to notice that the music that claimed to be by established artists, clearly was not. It became quite obvious that they were playing very clever cover versions in place of the real stuff. We imagined at the time that they had not received the rights at that point. Allegedly. And it is for that reason that Spotify has never darkened my desktop/mobile device. Well done for ditching the service.
Absolutely rightly said and done, as musician, recording artist and an audiophile i couldn't agree more, i hope more and more people realise where this is going and changes made accordingly, thank you👍
I think this is your best video yet. Single-handedly convinced me to drop Spotify and buy more albums.
It’s quite easy, best sound Qobuz, best everything else Apple Music.
I have never used Spotify. I use Apple Music and Tidal to discover music and if I like something, I buy the vinyl album. I think that's the best way to support artists, just buy their music!
I’m 15 and a hifi nerd. Me and my dad share this hobby. I resently bought the new WiiM ultra and with That upgrade se changed from spotify to tidal. I sat and listend for hours comparing the two and it is really really night and day to my ears at least and i could nerver go back.
Same for me, the recent purchase of a WiiM Ultra prompted me to subscribe to Tidal as I wasn’t satisfied with Spotify’s sound quality either of my home systems.
Thank you for this video. I hope this message is a drum you keep beating as time moves forward.
I am 73 years old I cannot hear the difference between 320 & higher, but the soundstage & imaging is still excellent on Spotify, I’ve been a serious listener since 1976.
Spotify 320 kbit/s is sufficient. I did a lot of blind tests and with anything above 128 kbit/s it was mostly guesswork for me to pick the compressed format. If you really want next level spatial audio (with dedicated speakers, no soundbar or headphone) is the way to go.
I'm 75. You are Spot........ify on!!!
Hmm, for me (53 years old), the difference is obvious. Still, even if you can't hear the difference doesn't mean you couldn't choose something else.. Right?
i agree,if you want better quality buy digital musics or˛cd's,end of the story
Funny I tried to find one of the most popular songs of a Japanese artist (recently deceased) in Qobus yesterday & only found one cover version! Went to Spotify and there are multiple versions by her. Qobus generally satisfies my need to find new stuff. They have more stuff than I can ever listen to even I listen 24/7 for now on (57 years old) till I go back to dust. But I do look up east Asian music from yesteryears and most of the time can't find them in Qobus. Tidal fares better, Spotify even better. If you don't care the sound quality too much, I have been able to find just about any music I looked for in UA-cam (the video channel). I was ready to drop Qobus for Spotify when they alledged to start CD quality streaming. But I have since given up on Spotify. They just wouldn't give a freaking confirmation up front one way or other. Til this day, I don't subscribe to Spotify.
I ditched Spotify in 2021 when Apple Music started offering Hi-Res at the same price
I ditched when Apple paid artists more per stream.
Same here
Great Video as always, Thanks for linking the article, that was a good read. And I wish you a speedy recovery with the shoulder.
Gone down the Qobuz route. Enjoying it so far.
Wait, so Qobuz pay out to artists, 5x what Spotify does, with HQ music, and for the same price…
Qobuz gang rise up!!!!
Apple Music on Apple TV works really well IMHO.
Streaming is basically the transfer of wealth from artists to investors. Bandcamp Friday's FTW!
I've said it once and I'll say it again. I use Spotify like I used to use FM radio. I listen to Spotify in the background and to explore new music. If I happen to especially like what I hear, I will attempt to purchase the music on CD or LP. I have no interest in better streaming or high rez files. I can't hear the difference.
Of course you could also use any of the other streaming services for that as well 😀 And you can't hear the difference? That is your actual experience, or do you assume so? 😂
Very glad you make the point that there are no "good guys" when it comes to streaming. No streaming service is good for musicians or for music in the long term.
Cobuzz Hi-Res Sound for The same Price....✨👍🏻
Love your content john. Best audio/music channel about.
"If you're one of those ones who say I'm not an audiophile, I'm a music lover - YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE" Love it.
I buy predominantly records, as often as possible through Bandcamp, I fully agree that artists I don't think are getting their fair share from most streaming services. I canceled Spotify during the Joe Rogan debacle and don't miss it. I don't agree with their ethos, they're money over artists / morality imho.
I'm an "old man" so I only use CD's & SACD's, streaming, especially in MP3 quality, has never been anything for me.
Now connect this to the fact that the entire streaming and distribution industry has been quietly excluding Bandcamp from all mention.
He’s so close to getting it
BAND-CAMP! BAND-CAMP BAND-CAMP! ✊🎆
Bandcamp!! Support the artist. Subscribe to the artist (or label). Buy the files, or vinyl or cd!!!
Excellent vid. I cancelled Spotify during the Neil Young / Joni Mitchell walkout (which proved temporary) but I've only grown happier to have quit over the past few years amid the AI fake artist scandal and the
A boring comment here just to say I agree with all your arguments for dropping Spotify. I had suspected the "ghost musician" issue based on personal experience with certain Spotify playlists, particularly ambient ones. I reckon it happens with other genres, but it seems most obvious to me there. Having that suspicion more or less confirmed feels like the straw breaking the camel's back for me. Another great video, as always, and I hope your shoulder feels better soon!
Nice to see Matthew Halsall in your tunes this time. I’m ending up in a very similar place to you John. I’m by no means an audiophile, largely because the top end of my hearing is wrecked and I have mild tinnitus from too many gigs, but I’ve ditched Spotify and gone with Tidal for streaming, then buy physical copies of the things I really like from Bandcamp, local record shops and record fairs. Spent Christmas dragging my 4000-ish CDs out of storage and ripping/cataloging them, so I’m currently going through a voyage of discovery with all the stuff I’d forgotten I even owned.
99% of consumers don't care about sound quality. They listen on cheap, subpar consumer hardware like cheap earbuds and headphones and everything is bluetooth. Most consumers don't even know what "bitrate" means let alone any of the other technical aspects of audio. Streaming is the bane of both audio and video quality. 4K UHD blu rays and HD audio physical media is far superior to video or audio streamed today. We will own nothing and we will hate it....
Congrats sir! I remember my daughter telling me that her high school friends were making fun of her because she didn’t have a Spotify account. We have a family Tidal account instead. I remember showing her the graph of how much the artists got paid. It was different back then because I don’t remember Qobuz even being mentioned. I’ll have to check them out. My music tastes are probably more mainstream than yours. 😅
I never subscribed to Spotify as the sound quality (or lack thereof) always hampered my listening. While Qobuz is the most inconvenient to use I have found that it sounds the best, at least to my ears, with Apple music a close second. Also happy (and not surprised) to see that they pay the most out to musicians.
I've had a Spotify account since 2012. I barely used it within the last decade. Aside from my indifference to streaming audio, another reason is a lot of my collection has rare and out of print music. Most of which cannot he found on Spotify - or any other streaming service, for that matter.
I'm a Plexamp user, but I used UA-cam Music for music discovery. I will never used Spotify every again.
Using Qobuz since 2011, CD quality minimum, all good for me
Interestingly, one of Lou Reed's first jobs was recording anonymous muzak to go on compilations for Pickwick Records. Kind of the 1960's version of Spotify's ghost music.
It's interesting because the majority of people don't even use any of the streaming services. By farand away, the service most used to listen to music is UA-cam. They even have tons of exclusives when it comes to live covers.
I moved away from Spotify to use Apple Music exclusively, for 2 or 3 of the reasons you mentioned (quality, AppleTV integration and app clutter). But I was drawn back in. Why? I find Apple Music makes it hard to discover new music. I find the app interface worse than Spotify's, I don't like that it pushes top 40 music on me, regardless of the types of music I listen to. I despise that playlist creation is so much more complex than Spotify. The only bright spot for me was AppleTV integration. The rest has me wanting way more. If it could be 25% of what the Podcast app is, I'd be so much happier.
Sorry to hear about your neck John. Not fun. Spotify also seems to be filling their playlists with AI generated Muzak, especially jazz. That’s even worse than real musicians playing bland crap. I’m amazed that so many musicians push them so much.
About a year and a half ago i switched to Tidal after being a life long Spotify user. my family still streams on Spotify and we have a Spotify family supscription so i still have it aswell. Recently i tried Spotify again on my pc after using Tidal for over a year, and oh my god. What have they done to the layout and design of the app?? ITS HORRENDOUS! Atleast my parents are paying the subscription because i would NOT pay for Spotify. Not when compared to Tidal.
Wow 😮 this doesn’t surprise me one bit, 100% agree. The interface is far too fussy, res is the worst out there, and to be fair now doesn’t offer any value for money compared to the rest
I've been waiting for hi res spotify for years,got fed up and have gone to Amazon music .
I use AmazonHD
Amazon has deep pockets. They should create an Amazon Music Connect app. You'd have thought Apple would have done the same years ago. They probably would have if Steve Jobs were still alive.
I just quit Spotify exactly for this; I've been waiting too long for lossless files to emerge.
I gave up on Tidal and Spotify both last year. I'm sticking with Apple and Amazon.
I still prefer my actual physical media like LPs, cassettes and CDs.
I've not used Spotify in years. I do have Tidal for Roon. I'd actually like to know what the artist gets from sites like HDTracks as I get music from there and also CD/vinyl.
Tidal for me, as part of Roon radio introduces me to new artists that I've gone and bought the CD (and rip to my NAS to be used with Roon) That is one of the best features of Roon for me
Qobuz pays 13 times more than Spotify to creators. Tidal pays 4 times more. Spotify is a shame.
Well cancelling Spotify was my new year’s resolution too.
Enjoy your channel, but I'd be stunned if you can tell the difference between the lossless vs the Ogg Vorbis in a blind test. So far as I've seen, Spotify has the best discovery options, continually introducing me to new music I wouldn't have otherwise encountered. I listen on Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4s and have no complaints about sound quality.
I don't watch the same movie over and over, but I do it with music, so makes sense that music won't be removed from streaming services.
I'm onboard on quitting Spotify. Have been thinking about for awhile now.
Making monthly payments forever for something you'll never own . Oh wait a minute I already own my favorite music on CD...
And buy more when you find something you like.Better supporting the artist.
Streaming music will always suck for creators and consumers alike. These companies are parasites, every bit as predatory and exploitative as anything in the traditional music industry.
I have Qobuz and Spotify, I had Tidal as well but dropped that as it had too many gaps vs Qobuz. I keep Spotify purely to share music I’m listening to in Qobuz with people, and it has one song I sleep to that’s not on Qobuz. I could rip that song and put it on my phone, but that seems like a lot of work when you don’t have the setup for it. All in all, I could and should drop Spotify, if I ever get that song on my phone, it’ll go. Either that, or one more price increase for mp3 quality will push me over the edge.
Agree with apple user experience. Easy, smooth, looks nice.
Hope your shoulder gets better soon, a good excuse to relax and listen to some great music.
I cancelled last yet after they lied to me along under the rouse of lossless music..."coming soon". Such BS.
Sound quality of Spotify has always been sh*t.
I had no idea they were creating Muzak.
Soundquality is fine. Babbling about high bitrates audio is BS. I have a Genelec studio monitor setup and Spotify sounds just as good as Apple music. That's just reality.
@@syntheee no, reality is that some people simply cant tell the difference, same way there are some people who cant see higher than 60hz on a monitor, my phone has a 120hz screen and she cant tell the difference between it and a 60hz screen, my dad is iffy on whether or not he can actually see 240hz on my monitor
also same way some people cant tell the difference in taste of different whiskies, they just taste the malty-ness and the burn
there is also the whole thing where some people are color blind
hearing is even more delicate, but there are still a ton of people who cant really appreciate the tiny things, some people cant tell the difference between different amps, some cant really tell the difference between headphones (simply just that they do some a little different), some people are tone deaf, some think sound bars are perfectly fine when compared to a proper speaker setup
Entropy. The right word. I’ve never used Spotify. It has always sounded sh it to me. Qobuz and Bandcamp are my money pit.
Love that you also watch Benn Jordan. He's so talented.
Once Tidal went to high rez for just $11 a month…I said adios to Spotify. Once I listened to Low Roar on the Death Stranding soundtrack in 24 bit…I’ll never go back.
I don’t understand why anyone would pick Spotify. Poor sound quality, poor ethics, poor behaviour.
Well, inertia, the app was so much better than the concurrence for so much time.. that most people don't want to change it now, even for a better service
It’s the community, so many of my German friends are die hard Spotify
To be honest I think most people don’t know the majority of points that Darko makes in this. Especially things like the ghosts in the machine. Artists making $0.003 per stream etc.
Like Darko says, people use it because it’s cheap and convenient which are most people’s priorities
Because you've also just described a lot of the people in the World 🤷♂
Because we’re ruled by enough American big tech already.
It truly is insane that musicians make little to no money through streaming platforms. I’ve never understood how this is even legal?
Bravo. Musicians need more advocates like you and Ben. With the virus that is AI music and bot ‘bands’, the writing is on the wall as far as the intention of Shopify and many of its competitors to pay real musicians next to nothing. They play the short game, the bully, as they take in the cash, and the actual producers of content who get the short end / next to nothing for a life’s work. Consumers are conditioned to expect everything for nothing, and it’s not sustainable. Thanks John, for taking a stand, and echoing this message to your viewers.
The main thing that’s holding me to Spotify is the playlist suggestions for new artists when I’m playing an artist I already know. Is Apple Music or any other service comparable to that?
My friend, not all countries have the same salaries as in Germany! Some people live for $500 or less per month, while most countries have an average income of $300 per person. What $50 a month are you talking about?
I had subscribed to Tidal just last week as I'm nearing the end of another 12-month subscription with Spotify. Mainly because I got tired of waiting for Spotify HiFi and Tidal having restructured their pricing plans last year made it cheaper and still stream lossless.
On top of now using Tidal, I still buy physical albums from the artists (especially the small independent artists) I really like to support them directly and also keeping my local record stores in business.
I usually use Apple Music but thought I would try Spotify again just last night. Was going to listen to the first Boston album. It wanted to play me something else from that era and now way around it. Boston would have eventually played but I switched back to Apple first.
John I have been blessed by your advice since before the internet was a thing. I read every article I could get my hands on you published. You are the only person who I have ever taken 100% of advice from Thank you so much for the wonderful education I have received from you regarding listening to music. PS YOU are the ONLY person on the entire net who Fully Understands the issue with Apple Music/Airplay/streaming/ regards to the difficulties to stream to multiple locations to your home LOSSLESSLY You Brother Thomas are literally the only ones that broach this subject The one and only video you produced is the holy grail. I hope you will publish another more in depth one with specifics on hardware devices of those of us who are hamstring by Airplay sending everything out via ethernet or wireless lossy codec
Dude! Feel better soon!
I recently had the occasion by chance to compare the sound of my Spotify library to Apple Music, which we had canceled, on my new B&W pi8s'. The Apple Music was clearly superior (not as apparent on AirPods Pro). But my family is addicted to Spotify so I doubt they will let me, the only audiophile in the house, add it back. Shame. The hardware can do so much more even on Bluetooth. Night and day, like lifting a veil and much more volume headroom. I have to push the volume very high on Spotify and halfway is fine on Apple and this is on my iPhone! I'm so frustrated, C'mon Spotify, do what you said you would.
I believe AirPods Pro cannot receive lossless. I went down the same path and settled with apple.
I strongly agree. Aborted my Premium plan a year ago or so because of their greedy attitude towards musicians , and recently I deleted my very Spotify account. As for you, the ghost musicians were the final nails in the coffin, but every reason you mentioned contributed to my decision. Then there were even more reasons, namely Spotify's unwillingnesss to keep the platform clean from hateful and misleading content. As a Swede, I'm certainly not proud of Spotify.
I forgot to mention.. Previously I've downloaded playlists for offline listening. The songs are renamed with silly thing like 2dffb6ff5g33tt6h7fr5, but using a player app like Poweramp, they can be listened to. And here's the thing. The 320 kbps files sound MUCH better this way than they do in Spotify's app. Why in the f¤x&(ing world do they deliberately destroy the sound quality in their app??
Family runs Spotify family and I have a single account for Tidal. Only chance of me going back is lossless audio.
Spotify back in 2016-19 was fantastic, discovered so many great songs but when the algorithm changed and new UI with stories and ai dj, I immediately went back to Apple Music
Bravo! I support buying more music, whether it's digital or physical. A $500/month budget would be too much music for me to know what to do with, personally. But 100% of my CD purchases are second hand, so that $500 budget would net me 80-100 albums, haha.
I really appreciate the sentiment that there should be concern with how commercial entities handle our culture, ESPECIALLY in the present when the internet homogenizes our global perspectives and interests.
Hope your pain gets better
soon!
You're 100% right, very nice video. What about making a video on why does Apple does not improve Airplay ?
Great content, so who do we change to !!! and are we able to keep our playlists ?
Hope your feeling better soon! 😃👍
I used to have Spotify and Apple Music and used Spotify way more, but once Apple announced Hi-Res audio and Dolby Atmos streaming I quit Spotify in 2020 and never looked back.
So we are back to 1990....
I was at the gym today, and get a real taste there every week of how music is perceived by probably a large number of people; a tapestry of indiscriminate sound to drown out your idle thoughts. Its repulsive but very real. Perhaps Spotify will turn into a muzak machine fed by the most well known artists and lots of surrogates in between. Pulp, junk food, trash movies its nothing new.
My $.02: I was an OG Spotify sub. Since I have slowly gone over to the Apple Ecosystem I have moved over to Apple Music. Very satisfied.
Welcome to the club
Qobuz and CDs on Roon for me and Apple Music for the Family. Happy Family...
Love the Orboretum album. One of my Top 20 for 2024. The vinyl version is really nifty.
I only Apple & Tidal as well for releases in Atmos unavailable in Blu-ray and Hi-Res releases unavailable anywhere else. Dropped Spotify around the beginning of the pandemic (why would you listen to 320 kbps files at home in this day and age? Lol). I’m in the process of buying a lot of CDs, digital downloads and vinyl to rebuild my library too.
Totally agree, Spotify is dead. Apple Music is the winner, lossless and Atmos.
as soon as they offer hi res you'll be back. they have the best interface
I stream Qobuz through Wiim to my stereo and it sounds great. I stream Amazon music through Alexa for the convenience of voice control. I subscribe to UA-cam Music for its extensive library (and no ads on UA-cam videos).
Where I struggle with physical media being the answer is the environment impact. Realistically on a long enough timeline all of that will end up in the garbage one day whether we like it or not. The vinyl I collect is nearly all used rather than new and the artists don't see anything from that.
I wish that streaming could be streamlined for more of my monthly payment to go directly to the artists that I listen to. I would have no qualms about paying double per month what I do today. Hopefully one day that will be an option.
I stopped paying for spotify a few months after I started listening to Tidal hifi. 1 year ago.
I use roon w tidal. Also Apple Music separately. And I have been collecting Sooloos used music servers for years in order to buy large libraries of FLAC audio files. The whole mqa debacle is a bummer, but my meridian gear upsamples beautifully, and listening continues to be a delight. There are worse habits!
I ve cancelled my Spotify too, main reason being it pays almost nothing to artists.
Love your Channel and opinions. I just do not believe in punishing the customer with higher rates vs. reevaluating the Spotify business model and raise a brow that the CEO makes $345 million on the artist's backs since 2023
"Cheap and convenient", will be our nemesis....
I’m surprised it has taken you so long to do this. I moved to Tidal a few years ago I was fed up of waiting for Spotify to move to lossless music.
It's Bandcamp for me, in terms of most music $$ spent on a monthly basis. But unfortunately Spotify hunting/prowling for new content is still too convenient to abandon completely.
I am not going back to Spotify before they fix shuffle mode.
I don't like that Spotify is so antagonistic to music makers and listeners, and yet its apps are among the most stable. Tidal is purer, yet it has atrophied to the point that you have to accept poorer interactions with its apps to practice a fractionally more ethical listening regimen. Apple Music is not without its technical snafus either, but the company prides itself on its refusal to play nice with many component makers beyond airplay support that it can and does alter arbitrarily to serve its own accessories' interests. Buying digital records from independent vendors unfortunately runs counter to the resurgence of the track as driver of listener interest. People do make albums but people don't live by the making of those albums. Tracks and their metrics are all that matter in this era. And it is likely a fools' errand to expect the masses to subscribe to a service for the firehose and for them to then pursue favored artist support in the form of physical and digital media purchases. Some will, but there's a reason why merch is a supplemental vector artists avidly pursue. Fans like to fan out, and that's harder to do with a file on an SSD.
Question, should we ask for cd to come back out. We pay for the service but we never own anything. So the musicians and subscribers get nothing.
Apple Music via Apple TV4k does seem to struggle with gapless playback. Very strange!
I use Spotify for Bluetooth to my speakers and car. Can u use higher res for Bluetooth?