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Slashdot Asks: What's Your Preferred Music Streaming Service?
Spotify announced on Monday that it has hit 100 million users on its music streaming service, with over 30 million paid subscribers. The Swedish music company's service rivals with Apple Music, Pandora, and Google's Play Music. Apple's streaming service, which was launched last year, has over 15 million paid customers as of earlier this month. Amazon also reportedly plans to launch its music streaming service later this year. YouTube is also a stop for many music listeners, and so is radio.
How do you get your music? Do you still purchase CDs and DVDs? Anyone with a turntable in the audience?
How do you get your music? Do you still purchase CDs and DVDs? Anyone with a turntable in the audience?
Buy a guitar and learn to play it.
Spotify seems to work best for me. Have tried Apple Music - didn't like it at all.
I went with Google Play Music for the family plan. Maybe when Spotify brings family plans to Canada I might switch if there is enough price difference. I've used both and have not found a decisive factor for me to choose between the two other than potential price difference. They both have all the music I have wanted, offer offline listening and have good reliable service. Google offers a family plan in Canada, that's the only edge for me.
My preferred instrument is the mouse organ. Here's a performance by an early pioneering mouse organist:
https://entertainment.slashdot...
I got in on Google's at the very beginning of it's service, so I have the legacy price. I've yet to be able to stump it in terms of not being able to access my choice of music but that doesn't mean it has everything.
As for purchasing...those have always been few and far between for me. I've done more KS albums for smaller bands in the past few years (shout out to the DoubleClicks!) than I've purchased from any storefront.
Pandora (paid) for radio-type streaming and Amazon Prime Music for purchased music and playlist type stuff. I would get rid of Pandora but it's the only streaming service out there that still plays Tool.
I stream my own music via excellent Subsonic.org app running on a raspberrypi at home.
Subsonic server running on an old desktop serves up more than enough tunes to me and a few of my friends. We use iSub for iphone/ipad or the equivalent app for android phones. My music collection (ripped cds and downloaded discographies) plus the collections of those same few friends thrown in.... and we have over 100K songs (in nice full albums).
It's great... we add new music at will, stream at as high of bitrate as we want, and zero monthly fees!
Sure, turn of the century it got a lot easier to find music I like. Previously I had to go down to the music store, hunt down a CD in the genre I wanted, and gamble that I liked any of the songs on it.
But that was before Napster, before the lawsuits, before the DMCA ruined everything. I have a collection of ripped CDs from the late 90s and that's it for the foreseeable future.
Radio.
No static at all.
Music streaming = FM radio. I like the concept of files. They are in my device. That's it. Not complicated at all.
I buy a lot of CDs are bars when I see bands. I rip them to FLACs and sync them to my phone/work.
I also use Bandcamp because they only take 10~15%.
If a band I like has no other options and they're not playing in my city any time soon, I might use Amazon MP3 or CDBaby, but I don't like it.
I haven't bought off Apple/google ever. They use to take ~30%, but I think some of that may have change. It's till too much. They have the volume that they could easily take 5%, still turn a massive profit and give more to the artists.
I don't use Spotify and never want to. I prefer to own my music, not rent it.
Main stream artists I torrent if I want them. If you already have a million in sales, there are artists out there who tour out of vans with better music than your shit. Just because you got lucky with a label since your music is generic enough to reach a wide audience without offending anyone doesn't entitle you to as big a peace of the pie as you have. Things haven't really changed since Metallica and Napster. Also, all my Metalica CDs are pirated.
I wanted to vote for a change
Namaste
out of business? They are in serious trouble. They recently added full screen ads you can't close to their iOS app that makes it unusable. They're trying to shed load by breaking their app. That shows they don't even have enough money to support the users they have, and users cost them money instead of making them money so they hate us and want us to stop using them. LinkedIn did the same thing a few months ago in order to get rid of users.
I usually use a ripper to grab tracks from various free streams and store them as mp3s.
I buy my music on CD, rip it to FLAC, add it to my library (QuodLibet FTW), then transcode the best tracks to mp3 for on-the-go playing in my car or at the gym.
I listen to what I want, when I want, without worrying about bandwidth or ads or monthly fees or internet access.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
My plain ol' server sitting in my closet. Buy a CD. Rip it. Sync to devices.
I don't respond to AC's.
Slacker has a solid catalogue and has local caching for multiple channels, both curated and self-created playlists/custom channels, for offline listening.
Outside of Slacker, Amazon Music allows me to listen to my own catalogue from basically anywhere on basically any device, which is very useful and less of a hassle than having to transfer files manually, and since you can stream it you don't need to take up storage space in these newfangled devices without expandable storage. Their selection of streamable music isn't nearly as robust as other services, but I don't pay anything extra for it, so I'm okay with that.
Home Plexmedia server, serves my needs.
Still buy CDs for better quality. After working my way up to some 1990's Klipsch Heritage series speakers and a backing power amp for transients, it's clear as a bell even at preferred low volumes, and the streaming compressed services just don't even compare. ouch.
I also like to own and not rent my collection.
I use Slacker and Youtube. The former since I could cache stations for offline listening, although I believe others do that now, too. So perhaps just inertia. It was the first free streaming site I was introduced to and has the cheapest subscription. When I'm home and want a specific song I usually just use Youtube since I'd need the more expensive Slacker plan to pick any song at will. I still give and receive CDs and DVDs as gifts. They become MP3s/MP4s easily enough and feel more tangible than e-media gifts. I have given and received e-books since it is harder to digitize books oneself.
CBC Radio One
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
My challenge is finding new music. I'm not young anymore, approaching 40. My time is spent primarily with my wife and son and some co-workers. Music never comes up with us so discovering new music these days is harder for me. Spotify has opened me up to new stuff I wouldn't otherwise have known about. That's why I maintain a Spotify account.
I have a lot of music that I've collected over the years but frankly, I'm bored of it. It's also cheaper to just stream off Spotify than buy multiple CD's a month.
I download the occasional hit song from Amazon mostly, but for albums I usually buy CDs whilst still being able to download them from Amazon.
I don't listen to much new music, so I don't mind paying for something I like, plus I feel a little less guilty about "not paying for it."
I used to have no moral compunction against Napster, etc, and loathe the RIAA, but once you remove the profit motive completely from the equation, society starts to go down the wrong path, and the logical conclusion -- in my mind -- is something akin to anarchy.
I also like having a physical item that "I own" and no one can take away from me.
I prefer streaming my own pre-selected MP3s from the local storage to whatever physical or bluetooth playback device is connected.
I use Slacker, great catalog, curated genre stations, along with customized stations, pick individual songs or albums. After personally reviewing all of the services, I personally feel that Slacker is one of the best services out there.
I don't buy as much music as I did 20 years ago (in college), but I still prefer to purchase downloads from the artists I like, buying physical copies only when the packaging is impressive (e.g. Bowie's latest).
Streaming is the future, but I don't think downloads and hard copies will ever go away. When streaming, Pandora is my go to service because it allows me to build a playlist around pieces that I already know and like.
Rdio was my jam. I suffer with Spotify these days.
Music has become too social for me to go back to buying. Same reason Google Music is useless to me. I look at what my friends are listening to, frequently.
I've been a Rhapsody customer for quite a while now. I chose it because it has both a smartphone client and a desktop client. I thought both did a decent job of helping me find new stuff to listen to.
I recently started with Youtube Red. It's early for me to properly review but I do like the music-video angle of it. More importantly, no more ads on Youtube.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you're not paying for it, you're paying for it, in the form of being subjected to commercials.
I personally don't believe in 'streaming' services over the internet. I've tried them, and I don't like them one bit. If I want to listen to music for free and not have a choice in what I'm hearing, I'll turn on an FM radio, and mute it/turn down the volume/change the station when there's a commercial block. Otherwise I want to own copies of the music I want to listen to. Likewise I don't like or believe in 'The Cloud', since anything you're paying for that exists in 'The Cloud' isn't ever really yours, it's only available to you until someone else decides you're not entitled to it anymore. Nope, no thanks, I'll keep my own copies of media, or at least files, on a local piece of hardware that I own, that nobody else has the rights to examine, alter, or delete.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
...and I might use Spotify app on Android (still with a free account) if I'm feeling sadistic for a random playlist, although my lifestyle and current car stereo choices save me the necessity of buying premium - I don't need to listen much in streaming devices that do not support Spotify's free music selection on the web player. And I use a USB drive on my car. But if I did have to pay for a service to let me select any song from a catalog, you know, for instant, non-random play, I'd probably go with Google Music, because besides that ability, I also get to store and stream all my FLAC stuff in the cloud. At least I know those tracks will never be removed due to licensing issues (Google doesn't care if you upload stuff you don't own or they don't have on the catalog - they pay record labels for that liability). And I hear you can pretty much "share" Google Music accounts. Oh and did I mention you also get to listen to Youtube songs on Android WITH THE SCREEN OFF if you have a Music subscription? Yeap! Google had the nerve to only let you do that for them premium users of their services.
Works everywhere I go. Every car I'm in has it, no subscription needed. If I don't like it, I just turn it off.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
No commercials, service fees. Does not use data plan. ALAC lossless files so good sound quality. Works everywhere
Maybe I'm too old. At 39, I don't like the concept of streaming music. Seems quite stupid to me. Before moving overseas 6 years ago, I ripped my entire collection of around 200 CDs to FLAC. At home I listen to everything on the PC in my living room. Anything I want to listen to on the go I compress with Vorbis (q6) for playback on my Android phone, which currently stands holds 155 albums plus a collection of singles with 16 gigs still free to add more. Where I live, CDs are hard to come by, so any album I want I pirate via BitTorrent, again in FLAC format. I suppose the only time I would use YouTube might be to preview a new song, but I can't recall ever doing that.
By far the best option in Canada. Most music, best mobile and webapp layouts, AND you get 10% off the Play store.
I can't resist the throbbing pulse of the music up my bum while giving Google all my personal information.
The only streaming site I subscribe to is di.fm. I prefer CDs for certain artists. When I buy digital, I prefer sites that offer DRM free FLAC options. When that is not an available option, I will go to DRM free MP3s on Amazon.
I do not pay for streaming, I will not pay for XM, and I will not pay for digital files.
If I am looking for a one-off song listen, I go to YouTube, or SoundCloud. If I want to listen to a random playlist that I like, I go to my local Alternative Rock FM radio station. They also stream. They also break in for local weather and local emergencies. If I get tired of my local Alt station, then I can also stream KRBZ out of Kansas City, or KNDD from Seattle.... all for free. (Yes, Advertising supported)
If I am going to PAY for music, then it will be a LIVE show, or on physical media - preferably vinyl LP records, but I do collect CDs as well.
If I am not around an area with a good radio station, then I use Folder Player on my phone to play my own collection that I have recorded from my vinyl & CDs.
Still got a lot of LPs from the 70 and 80s. All the newer music on CD, and much of the music I own on LP on CD as well - for convenience. Buying a CD is still the most hassle-free way of paying the artist. Listen to a lot of music on Youtube, and if I like it, I get the CD.
I also listen to the radio a lot. You can discover a lot of new music that way, if you know which stations to listen to, especially for classical music. If I like something, I order the CD.
Guess this makes me really old-fashioned.
I want full albums. I want to listen when I have no internet connectivity, like in a tunnel or when travelling. I want to have files I could pass down to someone, so that relatively obscure music isn't lost. Aside from mining recommendation lists on Pandora, there's nothing about streaming music services that provides any value to me whatsoever.
I still buy CDs of music/bands I really like and want to support, I also still buy DVDs/BluRays for movies or shows under similar circumstances.
Occasionally I will also buy vinyl, but mostly used, as I do have a decent turntable.
All that being said, I use my Google Music/YouTube Red subscription to listen to certain things I don't care enough to own, or if I want to discover new music or have some background sound. Otherwise, I do listen to a fair bit of terrestrial radio and some internet radio stations (like WFMU or Radio Paradise usually).
Presently here, but not there.
I use Spotify for streaming. The curated playlists are good, and the native chrome cast support is super helpful. As others pointed out, it is renting your music, but there is a lot more music that I want to listen to than I want to own. When I need to own a physical copy of the music, I go for the vinyl. Most new vinyl releases include a download code for digital files, which gets the best of both worlds.
I buy CDs mostly and rip them out to MP3 format for listening in the car or at work (where I spend the most time listening). I use Pandora (free) on my iPhone with a Bluetooth speaker to stream music while showering.
Seems like the new owners of Slashdot have no idea what that "digital" logo is from, or for.
Nothing else pays the artists more and the RIAA less.
When I was looking for a streaming service there was Spotify and Wimp. Spotify required facebook login at the time, so Wimp it was. I later found that Wimp had much more Danish music than Spotify. Then JayZ bought Wimp and called it TIDAL, so now I'm on TIDAL. Here in Denamrk only old ladies buy CD's.
-- Make America hate again!
I have a pretty good MP3 collection and I have bought maybe 5 albums over the past 10 years. I have rediscovered some older music/artists that I have really enjoyed lately. Radio is awful. Burn MP3s to CDs and listen to them in the car during drive time. Since there are many styles of music, I am mainly talking about hard rock stuff - Clutch, Monster Magnet, The Sword, Orange Goblin. I have some friends in bands, and they turn me onto some local/indie bands that can produce really good stuff (Resident Kings).
Honestly, I've tried last.fm and spotify... I just haven't been able to latch onto services. I want what I am in the mood for... some days it's old Sabbath, some days Queen, other days old Metallica (pre-Black) or The Black Crowes. A service can't tell my listening mood.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Pandora via the pianobar client at https://github.com/thedmd/pian.... Simple, works, doesn't use a lot of resources.
I "stream" by reading files over NFS.
Most music is acquired by CDs in the snailmail, though some are bought as files.
mpd
A huge stash of FLACs & MP3s and Twonky works well at home. Add in a VPN when I'm out and have WiFi, and a 32GB microSD card when there's no WiFi. Renting music and paying by the MB for cellular data to hear it is for the deluded and credulous.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Apple radio used to be great, and they effed it up last year in august when they started requiring to be enrolled into Apple music to use it. Since then I stream my own music from iCloud with iTunes match.
Intelligent, independent free-form radio never died. If anything, it just became easier to distribute.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
CD's I own ripped into iTunes or, very occasionally, old CD player and youtube. Turntable has expired. May get another or finish winnowing my vinyl. Don't like the rest of the services except my experiences with friends satellite radio accounts.
I only use Spotify because the rest of my band uses it to share playlists of songs we might cover. Otherwise, it's my music collection. I still buy CDs.
I keep in the back. When I want to hear a cool song, I go wake them up and they play it for me. Sometimes one of them dies and I have to find a Chinese copycat. I highly suggest it. You just cant have my bands here.
Amazon Prime Music was included in my Prime subscription. Not only can I listen to "Stations", I can pick from thousands of songs and albums to listen to whenever I want.
The only drawback is the algorithm they use to recommend new music sucks. It's constantly recommending songs I hate. With that regard, Pandora is the king.
However, there are a lot of other things I don't like about Pandora. One of which is that the app's permissions are ridiculous. It doesn't need to access everything on my phone. I suppose Amazon already knows everything about me, but I don't need another company doing that too.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
It's still around but has way less stations then it used to, it was where I found the only decent industrial music station online and listened to for many years before they died off. Bought a lot of music because of that station. I still prefer good ol' WinAmp for listening to music on my computers as well.
... Radionomy via Xiph (using streamtuner2 + audacious) has satisfied my music streaming needs for a while.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Harmon-Kardon turntable running through H-K amp and Advent speakers. I do copy the vinyl albums to cassette tape for when I just want music playing in the background. Playing the vinyl is for when I just want to sit in a chair and listen to the music. Some of it is ripped to MP3 for portability, but I am not the kind of person who goes around outdoors with headphones on. I want to hear the birds and the oncoming train.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Music is all or nothing for me, I don't care to listen to it as background music. If I want to put everything else down and listen, these days it will be off an iPad/iPad or the laptop, lossless audio files.
I sold the turntable and associated playback equipment a couple years back; the speakers needed $$$ rework and I didn't want to put the money into it.
I am a Sirius XM subscriber, and listen to certain channels, where I know what is playing at any time, thanks to the name of both song & artist on the display. After the trip, when I get home, I look for the same thing on YouTube and use something like Hyper to download those music videos. I've gathered quite a collection that way
The other service I have considered using is Vevo. It's cross platform - there on iOS, Android and Windows 10. Only that the above solution has so far never failed me, so I've had no reason to go Vevo. But I would, if those dried up or if there came a moral obligation to BUY the music in question. I have bought certain songs & videos from the Apple Store, but plan Vevo going forward.
As an aside, why is DEC's old logo showing up for this story?
The first rule of <ANCIENT_PROTOCOL> is that you do not mention <ANCIENT_PROTOCOL>.
The second rule of <ANCIENT_PROTOCOL> is that you DO NOT mention <ANCIENT_PROTOCOL>.
Radio / cassette / few CDs become mod(and s3m, xm, ..) become mp3 become digitally imported become last.fm become YouTube.
I've done a huge down-grade in variety from the Internet radio or even last.fm suggestions but it's a legal way to get the track I want to listen to (but sadly misses out on a lot of other things.)
ItÂs worse but legal :/, stupid surveillance.
I use 8-track tapes in my AMC Gremlin.
LinkedIn had to get rid of almost 20% of their users to keep the lights on. That's why they made their app unusable.
Discover Weekly is awesome. They are in my head, reading my thoughts. They know me better than I know myself.
They must be part of the NSA, but that's okay, because of Discover Weekly.
Amazon, PLEX and google.
'nuff said.
I liked Pandora while I could get it, but it's been US-only for too long now. Nowadays I use Amazon with my Prime subscription instead.
ruined everything.
Downloading music has never been easier than it is right now. You can find FLAC and MP3 versions of almost any release available on both torrents and filelockers using nothing more than a normal search engine.
RuTracker going public has been an especially big windfall.
When the RIAA started their jihad against technology and user rights, I said I would stop funding the industry until it settled. It settled, users lost, and I choose not to fund an industry that actively attacks my rights. I have enough CDs and if I buy any more, usually local or indy artists, I make sure they are not part of the MAFIAA. If they are, they don't get my money and I don't get their music but I also don't fund the evil ones.
So far it hasn't killed me, you can choose not to consume the shit that hurts you.
Got all the music I'll ever need already...
Have compared a few so far -- Rhapsody, Pandora, & Amazon Music all seem OK if you're primarily interested in mainstream pop music from the US.
Last.fm was much better for international music (the user-defined tags made things much easier to find).
Now that they're gone, Google Play seems to have the widest catalog worldwide that I've found so far. (What's not available via Google Play can usually be played through the YouTube Music app, which comes free with the subscription).
When I want to stream music, I use Tunein.
But I rarely stream music anymore. If I want to listen to something, I buy it as an MP3. I avoid the Apple Music Store and look for alternative places that sell unlocked MP3s and don't require me to use iTunes to buy it.
Most of the time, I don't listen to music but instead to audiobooks or audio plays. This makes my drive to/from work go a lot faster. I got addicted to audiobooks when I had a regular three hour drive (I worked that far away from home) and just kept at them. If you like audiobooks and you like Doctor Who, I highly recommend Big Finish Productions which has the license for Doctor Who (new and classic series), Blake's 7, Survivors, Torchwood, and a bunch of other great stuff, including spinoffs (Dalek Empire, UNIT, Counter-Measures, Jago and Litefoot, etc). Even better, they do their audio plays with the original cast!
For local-copy music, I don't have a favorite but my top 3 are digital downloads, MP3s ripped from other media, or CDs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Check out a server app named SubSonic, It installs a simple web server and you point it at your local library of music files for instant streaming of your music. Setup Dynamic DNS and a port forward and your all set. Its open source too! great app for a build your own cloud type folks.
After all "radio me" plays all the songs I love and doesn't require me to continually pay to ensure I maintain access to them.
If you want a pleasant background noise, the aural equivalent of a Glade Plugin, and you never actually pay attention to it, then the streaming services should do the trick. But if you like music, then in my experience, you have to do something else. I think that the services push garbage. If I make a station on one of them, any of them, it starts out playing the music I want to hear (if they have it, which is often not the case). But it rapidly drifts into canned garbage. No matter the genre or style or whatever, they suck. So I download music illegally, or buy it sometimes, or get tapes from my friend who makes tapes. I don't have a record player at the moment, but they work good too. Honestly the illegal services are the fastest and best way to find most stuff.
Tidal Hifi for most streaming needs, when I find that I listen a lot to an album I usually buy the vinyl (which these days gets you the flac or mp3 files as well).
Because Tidal is great in may ways but its offline mode SUCKS (it needs at least a slow data connection for DRM verification at all times even if you downloaded the data in advance, and therefore fails on planes and in areas w/o coverage) I also use the free Google Music to sync my mp3 files for emergencies.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
they're honest about their goals and struggles, the numbers, the artists, and they're not trying to break the competition other than by being as good as they can. More than you can say about their competitors. Excellent quality, great and stylish client, everything just works, and if I don't want to pay then I can still listen at a lower but acceptable quality, FOR FREE.
I've been using Rhapsody for nearly a decade, and I have a whole bunch of stuff bookmarked.
I've found some music I really like by browsing the Rhapsody link structure. For example, look up a band I like and then click on some of the "related" links, or look up a category I like and then click on some of the "most popular" links. It's how I found Zero 7, for example.
I tried using Spotify and I didn't see any real advantage to Spotify over Rhapsody, so I stayed with my bookmarks.
But I have an Android Auto car stereo unit now, and Google Play Music works seamlessly with that. I really wish Rhapsody would update their Android client to work with Android Auto so I could use that when driving around.
P.S. I guess Rhapsody is changing its name to Napster, but their web site still says Rhapsody on it.
http://www.rhapsody.com/
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I mostly buy CDs and DVDs from the artist at performances at music festivals, where they get 50 percent of the cost.
The rest I listen to on podcasts. If I like them, I buy their music when they're in town at their performance.
Forget the middleman
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Personally, I'm one of those people who still buy a CD and rip it to mp3s. Why, I've lost many an mp3 to a corrupted drive. Plus, I can listen to my music wherever I am, whether there is internet access or not and my listening habits aren't being sold for others to profit from at the expense of my personal privacy.
This is a successor to the ill-fated Turntable.fm. It allows you to queue and intermix youtube and Soundcloud playlists and listen to others play their playlists. The communities that have formed are really good at music selection, from 80s and 90s to chillout to progressive trance.
Also, the frontend is open source and they actively are looking for participation: https://github.com/dubtrack/www-dubtrack-fm
Why is this article tagged with the logo for Digital Equipment Corporation? Using this logo for completely unrelated stories seems to be a trend lately on Slashdot.
Editors, PLEASE note that the "digital" logo applies to a specific company, and many of your readers have been around long enough to know that. Using the logo incorrectly suggests that the editors are not in touch with the topics we're interested in reading about.
turntable, reel tape, cassette, CD, iThingies. used to listen to radio before it became all-airheads with all-asshats in studio.
I do NOT stream. I pay for my content, so I know the artist is supposed to get their share.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I pay for music and receive either non-DRM digital downloads or CDs that I rip myself. I play music on a non-networked pure music player with its own long-lasting battery (not a phone or iPod touch). I don't pay for a streaming music service, but will use a free one every so often.
While it worked...
I'm not really a streamer. I buy CDs, or from the iTunes Music Store. I also listen to a bit of radio in the morning. Sometimes I buy downloadable files from an artist's website.
----- Pukku
I mean why is this topic in 'Digital' with DEC's logo? Seriously
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Was getting ready to post something similar to the parent AC's comments myself. The logo is for DEC (bought by Compaq/HP), not "digital" in the broader sense like digital music. By this standard, stories about solar power will soon be tagged with the Sun MicroSystems logo. Makes me wonder what they will do with the old Wang logo.
I went with a Sonos system a couple of years ago, and we use Pandora (paid) and more recently Spotify (also paid) even more than our library of CDs I so painstakingly ripped to FLAC and then to mp3s. I may ditch the paid Pandora at some point. If I'm buying mp3s I usually use Amazon, though often I can get a CD for less than the download so I'll just rip the CD myself.
Despite (or maybe because of) having a universe of music available at the click of a button, my teenager just got me to dig out a turntable; my rants about what a PITA vinyl is had no effect. Kids today!
For all the trolls and ranters here, no one's picked up on the fact that this has absolutely nothing to do with the long-lost Digital/DEC? Alas, I am showing my age. As for the question at hand: CDs ripped to mp3/AAC/... Lost enough of my mp3 collection in the Napster days to hard drive failures to not rely on a solely digital collection. I also like to know what it is I have and know that if I stick it on random I will pretty much get a song that I like. And I don't have time to be tracking down new artists/albums to be seeding streaming services (nor to be constantly picking a song/album when I want to listen to something if it's not autoprogrammed.)
Bought a inexpensive 2016 version of a turntable for digitizing my collection of hissy, scratchy, 60's & 70's albums. Teeny Bopper daughters wore out our Sears portable record player & half wore out my Rock'n'Roll and Folk albums 5 decades ago. All those LPs on something smaller than a finger. Computers that looked so futuristic on StarTrek (TOS) now look hopelessly quaint. Our imaginations just couldn't outguess Moore's Law.
I didn't desert Windows; Windows deserted me: BSOD
Live365 was far and away my favorite service. Eclectic stations programmed by individuals. Alas, the massive increase in licensing feeds killed it back in January.
I use the Radium app for iOS to listen to real radio stations from around the world for free. My current favorite is "SuomiPop", a Finnish Pop and Rock station that plays what sounds like some pretty generic pop, but in Finnish!
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
I'm surprised NOBODY has mentioned Aha radio. It is coming with the new HK radios (mostly Japanese models). Oodles of "stations" to choose from. I'm not sure if it a pay service for non-HK radio owners, but the app didn't ask when I downloaded to my phone. Note, the radio has it on there stock (Android OS radio).
I use my turntable a couple times a week. It's mostly because I want an excuse to get up from the computer to walk around while I flip the record, and because I like the artwork. New vinyl costs about $30 an album, so I only buy it when I really want it. Vinyl's really a crapshoot for audio quality, though. The modern digital remasters of anything printed before 2000-ish sound better than the original vinyl. A shibata stylus will reproduce the full human frequency range of hearing, although with more surface noise. (Humans can hear up to 28khz, but streaming services will limit it between 15-20khz.)
For streaming, I use either Amazon Prime or Youtube. I still like having my collection of music; but I know its days are numbered.
One thing that I'd like is an audiophile grade streaming service. There's evidence that humans can hear up to 28khz; although lossless 24/96 is overkill.
No, I will not work for your startup
Pandora and other streamers just didn't have enough vintage and foreign music for us, and we've been working on digitizing our hundreds (and hundreds) of vinyl records gradually, and merging them into our digitized CD collection. Working out genres has been a rough process though...
Love the full rich sound that digital doesn't provide.
if I need to take Music on the road with me I either record to mp3 or I still have a tape deck
Streaming sounds like garbage and ruins the experience
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
files saved on my nas, reachable via wired and wifi at home, played by via rasp pi players (recent i2s sound cards are pretty good).
one thing that I am glad I did; there was a short time I was listening to streaming music that I discovered via the old logitech slimserver stuff. I found some nice background music that was low key and worth having for various reasons.
I found a ripper - 'streamrip' - and it would sit there on a network stream (of the right type) and pretty well id the songs and name them as separate .mp3 files in a folder you pointed it to. let it run for days or weeks and come back to scoop up all the files. you then find so many dupes, too! but that's also kind of funny - you see what they 'played' lots of.
the best part of the CSB is: since I saved them, I have them. weeks worth. I would not notice if such a long playlist repeated a song. and you guessed it, the 'station' went off the air and now its gone, gone for good, most likely.
I have thousands of songs from that 'station' and its great bg 'working' music. if I had simply trusted the cloud, I'd have nothing now. instead, I grabbed mirror copies and I'm in good shape.
its also why I run youtube-dl to view YT videos. if its worth watching, I will save a local copy and watch from that.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I have my own ~60GB library that I listen to. In addition I pay for Pandora, because it is excellent for finding new bands. I'll put on an obscure metal band I like, like Insomnium, Pandora creates a station with similar artists, and throughout the next 8 hours (work day) it's almost guaranteed that it plays me a song by an artist that I've never heard of but love. Then I go look them up, buy their stuff, and repeat. Pandora is a great library expander. I guess in the long run I would exhaust all possible bands I like but I still learn about bands on at least a weekly basis from Pandora.
I listen to streaming radio, plus one non-broadcast source. These are mostly classical streams; but I also listen to Greek, big-band, Irish, and news streams. A list of streams is near the bottom of my Web page at http://www.rossde.com/music.ht....
I listen to streams without capturing them. Depending on the characteristics of the stream, I use RealPlayer, VideoLAN, or Winamp. To me, Windows Media Player® is an abomination; I do not use it. On vary rare occasions, I go to YouTube; sometimes I capture a YouTube stream and save it on my PC.
I have a large collection of vinyl, cassettes, and CDs. Sometimes, I play the CDs on my PC. The others I can only play when my wife is not watching TV since the cassette deck and vinyl turntable share speakers with the TV. I also listen to a classical radio station (KUSC) or a news radio station (KNX) in my car, but hills surrounding my house make radio reception inside my house problematical.
As for those who claim to be old (e.g., in their 40s), I will be 75 in less than two months.
Heh Heh, i first saw the article label & was wondering when DEC got into streaming audio. Please mod parent up. Then stop being lazy & create a new icon for digital stuff. that shouldn't apply to any more than 60% of the articles. or better yet create a streaming logo, or something equally quaint.
However I stopped paying for Spotify because of Youtube red includes free google play subscription.
If so, I am in! The different copyright holders squabbling over who gets how big a slice have prevented re-issuing of this song/album for too long.
I could never get into Pandora, but probably because my musical tastes are strange. I mostly listen to parodies, so when I insert stuff like Weird Al or Monty Python Sings or Capitol Steps or even King Missile, they really confuse the genre classification engine.
These days I mostly listen to curated streams, because I can't be bothered to come up with my own playlists. So usually SomaFM.com (Groove Salad, Lush, and sometimes Secret Agent or Defcon). I also like to hit http://sleepbot.com/ambience/b... on occasion , it can be really weird sometimes.
Also I'm a bit surprised to find I have a soft spot for "female vocal dubstep" on youtube, but maybe that has something to do with the wallpaper pr0n.
Anyways, I used to use streamtuner + streamripper to, uh, "timeshift" a few hours' worth of streaming radio feeds so I could listen to them in the subway. These days, I usually just find the things I really like on youtube and download them with Tubemate, and then buy albums on Google Play if I really really like certain artists. But the only reason I spend money on Google Play is because I don't want to install any other music store app, and I can't fully remove Google Play.
Can't stand the Google Play auto streams that they throw at me, though.
storage. Streaming robs me of rights and (future) options about what I can do with my music, because it never becomes my music.
So far 225 comments and no mention of Jango.
I listen to Jango because it doesn't require a subscription, and the API is easy to use if you want to build your own frontend for fun.
I use Google Play Music because it offers pretty much everything: Unlimited streaming, MP3 store, ability to upload your own MP3s (for your own personal use; much better than "music match" feature!), web-based player, mobile app. (I think Microsoft's service might offer the same stuff too.) Also, you get YouTube Red with it, which is nice. My only gripe is that there is no official desktop app for Windows or OSX. I also buy vinyls. I started because I was told they have the best audio quality, but I think I like it because it encourages me to just sit down and listen to the music, rather than essentially using it as background noise while doing something else. Also, if an album has great cover art, it's pretty awesome having it full size, instead of tiny like with a CD. Not sure I would actually recommend vinyls, though; it's a pretty expensive venture. I also buy the occasional CD, partially because I like having a hard copy of stuff (still a little afraid of my digital libraries suddenly vanishing) and partially because my car only takes CDs and mini-discs.
Plug one end of the audio cable into your DSi's headphone jack and the other into what? A lot of especially older car stereos have no aux in. Some have no tape deck, or they have one like my aunt used to own that ejects tape adapters. So you're stuck with an FM transmitter, if your country's radio regulator even allows them. (The US does.)
Until recently I have been very happy with Deezer elite on my Sonos. It sounds great. Lately though, more and more content is not available on Deezer so I use Spotify. I tried Apple Music in the beginning, and found it wasn't curated as well as Deezer and Spotify. I like both services for discovering new music.
How about DC++, for rare and less known music?
Yeah it was a mistake, right before Apple Music I should have included the "Attention K-Mart Shoppers" mp3s from archive.org that were discussed on Slashdot a while ago. See, those tapes were shipped to a store in Illinois instead the 80s and 90s, yet they have survived to this day, while it's a known fact that many people lose their music when they subscribe to Apple Music.
K-mart 1, Apple 0.
lucm, indeed.
Google music for its painless syncing of offline content, family plan and the included youtube red is a nice bonus.
My favorite music service was MOG, this was before Beats bought it and turned it into Beats Music and Apple then bought Beats and turned Beats Music into Apple Music. Along the way they really neutered the service into a pile of crap. I'm currently an Apple Music subscriber, but I don't enjoy the service as much as I did its predecessor MOG.
I'm not kidding. I don't use anything else to stream music.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I really love listening to and making music.I find a lot of new music I like by listening to radio, streaming radio stations online (e.g di.fm, radiotunes.com, Ministry of Sound Radio, and even local radio stations that stream online like abc.net.au and novanation). The Apple Music Trial was a good way to also find songs but after the free trial was ended I decided to save my money and not keep going and find new music by streaming from free sites online.
As for buying music I buy most of mine from iTunes as I was an early adopter. I've bought a few tracks from Google Play because it's cheaper. I have a large collection of CD's which I've imported into iTunes. I sync my itunes library to an ipod and listen to this and a few radio stations in the car. I also have a few friends that buy me CD's for birthday's and Christmas which I listen to in the car. The CD's in the car sound way better as I only have an FM transmitter in my car. At home I listen to streamed music on my Apple TV or streaming radio stations.
I don't subscribe to any music service. All I listen to is Internet radio.
You have a desktop Linux, right? Start by going to vTuner station line up, and search for the stations/genre/language that you want. Click on the "Play" link, and save to a file. In that file, there will be the stream to that station. You can then take that and stick it in your music player. I use Clementine.
No desktop Linux? Okay, you must have a Raspberry Pi then. Just install Kodi:
sudo aptitude install kodi
Then configure the Radio addon, and you will find more or less the same channel line up as in vTuner.
Then add this to your crontab:
/usr/lib/kodi/kodi.bin --standalone -fs &
@reboot sleep 45;
But, there is OpenELEC you say. But, Kodi runs on Windows you say. Yes, of course, but this is Slashdot ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Pandora pissed me off with the ads and skip limits (even if you pay), and it was terrible at matching music for my taste (pretty much just matched mainstream genres, from what I could tell). Tried Rhapsody, crappy catalog. Amazon Prime music also had a crappy catalog last time I checked. Admittedly, I haven't tried Spotify, and well... fuck Apple. I was impressed with Google Play music when I found it to be the best at associating artists I like with artists I haven't heard of. But I'm a musician and am generally looking for progressive jazz or world music, so I realize my criteria may not be the norm. I gladly pay 9.99/mo. to listen to anything I want whenever I want and easily (and gladly) buy a song or album when I find something I want to own. The only limitation I've come across so far is Prince's music, but I know he kept his stuff locked down and I respect that. I wish Google pushed their streaming service more, cause I think it kicks the crap out of the others. All I seem to hear about is Pandora, Spotify, and crApple.
The following statement is true: The previous statement is false.
Slashdot was looking for poll ideas. This question seem perfect as a poll!
Everything else is just a recording.
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Their subscription service is awesome, you can upload your own MP3s, and if you have a terrible mobile plan like me you can actually download music to your phone to listen offline.
I buy and stream music, I stream music that is not on Bandcamp and I stream music for finding new artists that are similar to the ones I like.
Dual & AR turntables; Denon & Mitsubishi cassette decks; Akai reel-reel tape deck; EPI & Altec speakers; Yamaha tuner; Sony DVD player standing in for a CD Player that needs repair; Denon & Topping amps; small mixer for production work. LPs, CDs, DVDs, cassette & reel tapes, MP3s, FLACs, WAVs, Pipedreams, AudiophileStream (320K), BBC3, RTE Lyric, KFAT, ... and a Windows 7 computer because Windows 10 on it had too much latency - broke up the sound - and had to be reverted. Would like an Internet Radio tuner, but they're hard to find - though I could always use the spare laptop that has VLC on it, or a tiny (size of a router) HP thing I saw the other day. I AM NOT AN AUDIOPHILE - all of this is decent mid-fi and mostly older equipment but sounds good to my well-used ears.
AFAIAC streaming is like a radio broadcast - here today, gone in a millisecond. In general, not worth paying for, though XM/Sirius for the car has its attractions. Nice background music, and close to (320K stream slightly better than) good FM radio quality, but if I really want to LISTEN to something I drag out the LP or tape or CD. Though WHY are so many streams so heavily compressed? Over-the-air that makes some sense due to the relatively high noise floor, but really isn't needed with digital. With some "HD Radio" streams, I can even hear the compressor pumping - the conventional FM (if available in my area) sounds better.
Works well enough, never switched to Spotify like so many others have.
Still got lots of CDs kicking around, but don't by them anymore. They're all relics from back when the economy was good. In today's bad economy, I don't buy any music. The spare money just isn't there to be throwing around on things I don't need.
I use Spotify all the time! In my car I have an ipod touch that syncs with my wifi when the car is in the garage. It's set to play music offline, so I can add music to my library from any Spotify client, and voila - it's in my car the next day. (my car is a bit older, w/o bluetooth, and I had to get an ipod dock installed so I can control from my steering wheel). In the house, I have an Amazon Echo in the living room and a Dot in the bedroom. Both will play with either voice control or you can remotely control Spotify from a tablet or other client. There's also a Spotify client on the PS4, so I can listen to music while playing Doom. The catalog is great as well; I can almost always find what interests me.
It's commercial free and listener supported. I donate $2.99 per month. I get Indie Pop, Alternative Rock, Country, Folk, 70's, 80's, and some electronic for whatever mood I'm in. Now if I hear a musician I like and they have an album/song on Bandcamp, then I support them a little more with a more direct purchase. I spend about $7 to $10 a month there. A month of music is around $10 to $13 a month for me. Back in the CD days, I'd spend twice that or more.
The size of the spotify catalog is great for discovery and filling friend's requests. It nicely synchronizes my music including my imported tracks to my devices makes it worth the premium.
When I want to hear something new, I listen to 8tracks, Soundcloud, and sometimes Bandcamp. For non-contemporary classical, I go with web radio - favorite is Hungarian site. When music is interrupted with news or talk or announcements, the language is so impenetrable to my ears that it's easy to "listen over". And sometimes archive dot org. (mostly for the grateful oldies.)
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I occasionally use iTunes "internet radio" and listen to channels like: "Astra (they have like 8) and "Proton Radio".
Why anyone is using an inter net streaming service is beyond me.
I friend I know is paying 10 to 20 Euros per month to "upgrade" their internet service to be able to listen to streaming services when she actually simply could buy the music at iTunes (or where ever).
On very rare occasions, when I remember a name of a band, I check youtube ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
My personal favorite is Google Play Music. I upload all my old songs, and subsequent new songs, using the gmusicapi Python module under the hood. I can then stream my music in my car while driving.
"Rental" services are convenient for some things, but not always practical, waste mobile data, etc, as you mentioned. That said, where I work, we can have no electronic devices of any kind (or thumb drives, or CDs, etc) but we are allowed to stream to our workstations. Thus, I am glad to have Google & Amazon services. Google holds a copy of my personal music library (free up to a paltry 50,000 tracks!), while I use Amazon's Prime Music (an incidental 'extra' with my Prime Shipping subscription) for new material...which I tend to buy if I enjoy. It integrates with my Echo, which I received as a gift. And the Echo went from a "why the heck would I ever use this?" device to something I love and use every day, especially in the kitchen.
By the way, I have a 200Gb microSD card in my smart phone. It quite easily makes my entire music collection utterly portable -- no internet required! -- and, as a bonus, is another copy of my library as part of my backup schema. What a far cry from playing short 8-bit sound files through the serial port speaker dongle on my first PC.
google play listen now, youtube, mp3 collection
never pay for music, especially if it is older than your grown children.