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Slashdot Asks: What's Your Preferred Music Streaming Service?

Posted by msmash on from the affinity-for-music dept.

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?

35 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. MP3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative


     

    1. Re:MP3 by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For me as well. I actually buy music. I'm not interested in streaming services at all.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:MP3 by hambone142 · · Score: 2

      When I buy music, I do it via Amazon (if you by the disc, they give you the MP3). I like the .mp3 format. I won't buy music via iTunes because of the proprietary format that won't play via USB stick in to my car stereo.

      For streaming, it's Pandora and TuneInRadio (I stream a station I like located far away.... radio is crappy in my locality).

    3. Re:MP3 by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For me as well. I actually buy music. I'm not interested in streaming services at all.

      Yup. I rip my CD's to FLAC and play them off a computer. Occasionally I'll just play a CD. I have no interest in streaming. (Unless you count the canned music channels that come with our cable subscription as 'streaming' - we use those as background music sometimes). I DO listen to a lot of stuff on YouTube, and I've found quite a bit of new music there that I like. I'll download it from YouTube, then if I find I listen to it more than a few times, I'll buy the CD.

      When I want stuff that I can't find on CD, I have no qualms about using youtube-dl or BitTorrent. I'm happy to pay for music, (if it's in a lossless format), but if the music company sees fit not to make it available in some permanent, non-DRM'd format, then too bad, so sad, oh well - I can usually get what I'm looking for in some other way.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    4. Re:MP3 by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think people get confused by the name, but the AAC format is not a proprietary Apple format, nor was it even developed by Apple. If you have older hardware it might only support MP3 (which AAC was designed to replace) but almost any newer "MP3" player will support AAC. Apple originally sold their music with a closed DRM wrapper called FairPlay, but they (along with everyone else in the business) stopped selling DRM-encumbered music years ago.

      For what it's worth if you're going to buy music online you should probably get it in a lossless format (FLAC) so that if you format-shift it won't result in additional degradation beyond what the lossy codec would normally involve. In practical terms it doesn't matter that much since audio codecs aren't changing terribly often and almost everything is backwards compatible with the older formats, but if you re-encoded your lossy files enough they would eventually sound like garbage.

    5. Re:MP3 by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have actually started to purchase more music.

      Spotify is best for music that it's impossible to buy. I find out-of-print music on Spotify all the time.

      The real value of a service like Spotify is its back catalog.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re:MP3 by mlts · · Score: 2

      I've not bought a CD from a big label in years, unless you consider Cold Spring Records [1], Nuclear Blast Records, or Cleopatra Records big. Otherwise, I do buy the albums.

      [1]: R. I. P. Cold Meat Industries.

    7. Re:MP3 by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

      This - this, right here.

      It goes doubly so for artists that are on indie labels (or their own labels), as well as long-forgotten one-hit-wonders that are on no RIAA catalog (anymore, anyway).

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    8. Re:MP3 by macs4all · · Score: 2

      As someone who purchases music in 96/24 (or better) DVD-A format whenever possible (and has a DVD-A player), if you think you can hear ANYTHING above 128 kbps AAC (or probably even MP3) in a CAR, you're DELUSIONAL.

      Untrue. Granted, I had a significantly upgraded system compared to what was available as a stock system, but I was easily able to tell when a song was at 128kbps or below. Oddly enough, I didn't read what you were replying to until now, but I was about to say that the cutoff in my car was 192kbps. That and above was next to impossible for me to hear a difference, but 128kbps was easy to spot.

      That being said, none of this matters to me these days. I'm driving a 95 Vovlo station wagon now and the cassette player in my car isn't terribly friendly with these MP3 and AAC things.

      I would challenge you to an A/B/X test in your car. I don't care how advanced your car system is, road noise, vibration causing intermodulation distortion products right in the air of the cabin, and other factors conspire to hide anything but the crappiest CODECs at above 128 kbps in AAC. Did I mention AAC as part of my "conditions"?

      Having said that, when I conducted my own (unscientific) tests before committing all my CDs to iTunes, I found that 160 kbps AAC was where I stopped being able to tell in a NON-mobile environment; so I encoded everything at 192. I would have done it at 256k if I'd been thinking straight, just because.

      The built-in radio/cassette player in my 1990 Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon (GOD I loved that car!) actually sounded REALLY good with the stock speakers/amps. They obviously tuned the system to work together, like Bose does with their stuff (not that I'm a Bose fan; I'm not).

      If the FM section still works in your Volvo radio (mine didn't), I would suggest an FM modulator to pump tunes from your phone/PMP to your Volvo's car stereo; or if your FM is kaput (because of a protection diode in the antenna input that gets fried from static in the air), then you can get one of those cassette-adapter thingys to do the same thing. That's what I did, and it sounded damned good, actually. You just have to be careful not to turn up the volume of your phone/PMP too high, or you will start saturating the magnetic core of the tape-head that they have in the "cassette" adapter, and it will start mudding-out and distorting. Turn your phone DOWN to about halfway, then turn the car stereo UP to get the volume you desire. THEN play around till you get a good balance between "I can go as loud as I want" and "Ick, that's horrible!"

      Or, if you are handy, you can find cable assemblies online that will let you use the outboard Power Amps in your Volvo, and pump the audio straight from your phone/Player right into the business-end of your Volvo's car stereo.

  2. Google by H3lldr0p · · Score: 2

    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.

  3. Pandora and Amazon for me by mamono · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Pandora and Amazon for me by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Back when I finally started rethinking my resistance to the idea of paying for streaming music, I kept reading about how Pandora had "only" a million songs, while Spotify and Apple Music had somewhere around 30 million. But when I was listening to Apple Music in the genres I often like to play in the background (jazz, swing, blues), I was hearing a lot of repeats - so I did some testing.

      This is obviously subjective, but - I felt like I heard fewer repeats on Pandora than on either Spotify or Apple Music. And Apple Music was by far the worst when it came to playing the same songs, over and over. And Pandora certainly trains well. So... I'm now a Pandora customer, and paying 1/2 of what Apple or Spotify charge.

      I'm sure there are cases where those huge Spotify/Apple catalogs actually matter... but it doesn't seem to be the case with the music I stream.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:Pandora and Amazon for me by cloud.pt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The reason those big catalogs don't matter is exactly why you get so much repeats: most labels only allow Spotify/Apple use their artists if they agree to constantly bomb you with their hidden "sponsored" content - artists and songs they'd prefer you to hear. Why do you think Spotify is a "curated playlist"-service, and they bury Discover in the browse section and only update it weekly. Pandora basically only has Discover, and it never is a static, weekly list. It not only trains to offer you music you WANT to listen due to your "likes", instead of forcing you to just listen to the most popular thing of any genre/artist you happened to give a like last YEAR, but it will also train by song structure in order to keep providing you stuff outside your common genres/artists. That is one of the main reasons why Pandora is reported to pay less per song/artist than other services: they just don't repeat that much. of course they also don't force you to subscribe for anything other than clearing up the commercials, unlike Spotify does, for instance. This is also one of the reasons I feel sad every time I remember my current workplace doesn't allow me to use VPNs and listen to Pandora - I live in Europe, and we don't have "legal" Pandora here.

    3. Re:Pandora and Amazon for me by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is obviously subjective, but - I felt like I heard fewer repeats on Pandora than on either Spotify or Apple Music.

      I can speak to the Spotify part of this. Their algorithm for shuffle and radio are just awful. If you've got a 10,000 song playlist and put it on shuffle, you're going to hear the same 50 songs over and over. There has been a complaint thread in the Spotify support forums about this since at least 2012.

      If you like jazz, swing and blues, the nice thing about Spotify is that you can find records that are out-of-print and impossible to buy anywhere. But you have to be prepared to do a lot of fiddling with your playlists to hear the songs you want.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Pandora and Amazon for me by mamono · · Score: 2

      I agree, after being a Pandora listener for about eight years now my stations are very well trained and I get the variety of music I like to listen to. I always used to listen to the plain old radio because if I only listened to my own music collection it was harder to get introduced to new stuff. With Pandora I get the best of both worlds. I can cull out music I don't like, seed in what I do, and still get cool stuff I've never heard of before. I listen to everything from hard rock and gangsta rap to showtunes and Celtic. The single genre stations that come with satellite radio just don't cut it and I find myself constantly switching between stations to find something. As much as I don't really want to pay for it, I really do like Pandora.

  4. Subsonic.org by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I stream my own music via excellent Subsonic.org app running on a raspberrypi at home.

  5. I listen to a free service... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Radio.

  6. Re: Family Plans by lucm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pandora > Google play music (songza) > Spotify > A tape mix done by my gf in 5th grade > Apple Music.

    But no Pandora in Canada I think.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  7. Still CDs. by SumDog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. Ol' fuddy-duddy here by Qzukk · · Score: 2

    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.
  9. I'm more into streaming talk.... by the_other_one · · Score: 3, Insightful

    CBC Radio One

    --
    134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
  10. My challenge by geek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:My challenge by Nunya666 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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 have a similar issue, and I'm 50. I like Pandora for similar reasons. I like the multiple "stations" feature that Pandora has. It makes it easy to find both older music that I had forgotten about, and newer music that I've never heard of. For example, listening to the Bon Jovi station also played Aerosmith. And listening to Elle King (I really like her hit single "Ex's & Oh's") also played Gin Wigmore.

    2. Re:My challenge by hambone142 · · Score: 2

      I'm in the same demographic. I listen to "adult rock" kozt.com They have a person there who actually scouts out new music and does a reasonable job at it. When I hear something I like, I write it down and buy it online. It's not a "classic oldies" station FWIW. It works for me.

  11. 'Streaming' is just another form of 'rental' by kheldan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!
    1. Re:'Streaming' is just another form of 'rental' by swillden · · Score: 2

      Otherwise I want to own copies of the music I want to listen to.

      That's what I always thought, until I tried a "rental" service (I have a Google Music subscription), but the freedom of being able to listen to whatever I want without having to think about price is so great I can't imagine going back. I probably spend about the same on music as I did before, but now I listen to a lot more -- and a much wider variety -- of music than would have been possible by buying music.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  12. Google Play Music by wardrich86 · · Score: 2

    By far the best option in Canada. Most music, best mobile and webapp layouts, AND you get 10% off the Play store.

  13. Spotify for streaming, vinyl for owning by mouse_8b · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  14. mpd by the_pouar · · Score: 2

    mpd

  15. WFMU.org and KEXP.org by Anonymous+Meoward · · Score: 2

    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.
  16. Amazon by Thelasko · · Score: 3, Informative

    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".
  17. Harmon-Kardon Turntable by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 2

    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.
  18. MOD PARENT UP! by HighOrbit · · Score: 2

    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.

  19. Other peoples' music playlists by rwa2 · · Score: 2

    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.

  20. Google Music is highly underrated by rayjaymor85 · · Score: 2

    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.