taravasya2 et al,
I tend to agree with you all of these services have problems. There is no perfect service. However, I think Spotify is egregious in not handling things well. They've got a very faithful community, of which I was once a part, and they've squandered that goodwill. If you look at their statements they are so weaselly they must have been written by a lawyer.
Hifi is still marked "under consideration"??? Even Spotify's premium's designation of "Very High" quality is noncommittal. They say that it's up to 320kbs. Ogg Vorbis his supposed to be a better codec than AAC. But when I did side-by-side comparisons of Apple Music or Amazon Music who used 256kbs AAC, "Very High" sounds duller, less dynamic and inferior. How excited I was to hear that they were going to bring it up a notch, because for me about everything else is top notch. So I'm not convinced that they were really giving us 320kbs. And their language allows them to weasel out of it because they haven't committed. Very frustrating. Everyone else spells out explicitly their download bitrate.
I've been hanging on paying all these months and not getting value for my money. I can pay $7.99 with Amazon and get Dolby Atmos Music and high res. I can pay $14.99 from Qobuz and actually use a service that is well focused on delivering music and curated information designed for serious listeners. And I've been stupidly hanging onto Spotify Music this year? I'd rather pay for both of these than hang onto Spotify's empty promises.
In my house I was actually considering replacing 9 speakers in my two 5.1 home theaters because I thought they weren't cutting the mustard. After trying Apple, Amazon, Deezer and Tital Hifi, I realized I needed to change my music service so that I can enjoy what I'm paying for.
I'll tell you something else surprisingly I think other services are small enough to care and be more responsive to their customer base. This will surprise you but I've been having a technical problem with Amazon music and for the better part of two months a technician called ME every Tuesday to try to work through my problem. Amazon's a big company but they actually are committed to trying to give good service. I'm staying with them because for $7.99 I know I can get high performance music and support.
Amazon's app on the phone is as good as most. The PC app they have is a little worse. But their tablet app for Android is a dumpster fire. But because they have the infrastructure and the deep pockets I think they're going to fix these other things. Even if they don't I can use a Chromecast receiver to push my music directly into my receiver from my phone or my tablet, so Spotify Connect is effectively nullified in my mind.
So I'm taking a break from Spotify. If they get their act together I might consider coming back. But I suspect by the time they do I will be fully ensconced in Amazon and Qobuz.
Staff / Moderator/ 3 years ago in Social & Random