Spotify Discussion Thread

[blybo]

On 23/02/2021 at 8:05 PM, metal beat said:

 

What does Roon do for the Spotify app that Spotify doesn't all ready do itself ?

Play natively in my Moon streaming amp! Moon have said they have no plans to include Spotify as a streaming option, hopefully this announcement changes their mind. It would certainly give them a bigger potential buyer audience

Edited February 25, 2021 by blybo

[eltech]

On 23/02/2021 at 9:02 PM, LHC said:

 

 

I believe the free Spotify certainly have some ads but allow unrestricted skipping on a desktop platform. However on a mobile platform like a phone restriction on skipping applies. 

Thank you 

I only tried the Mobile app.

On 23/02/2021 at 7:55 PM, hired goon said:

 

I am streaming a Shpongle album on Spotify on my PC now,  as a free user. Every 10 minutes or so there's some video ads, which can be skipped after 5 seconds. Annoying, but hey, it's free.

 

--Geoff

Thank you.

I only tried the Mobile app

[BrownMagic]

On 23/02/2021 at 5:13 PM, Tony B said:

No need to use the Spotify app if Roon could connect directly to their servers.

Why should someone who

only wants to stream music use Roon? Like I am paying for Roon only because almost all streamers come with crappy software. Once streamers have Spotify connect built in which most already do, Roon becomes redundant for people like me and I’m sure we contribute to a decent chunk of the roon’s subscriber base.

18 hours ago, Hydrology said:

I'm curious if Spotify Connect implementation on audio products (streamers/amplifiers etc) needs to be modified at a hardware level to accomodate the higher tier?

There doesn’t seem to be any word on that. But my guess Is that if Chromecast can support 24/192, Spotify Connect should also be able to do that without any additional hardware. 

Edited February 26, 2021 by BrownMagic

[davewantsmoore]

On 23/02/2021 at 9:27 AM, Luc said:

 Push that early morning plate of salami and bruschetta aside....

 

Priorities.

 

Meat before all else.

[RankStranger]

 

[Guest Eggcup the Dafter]

On 24/02/2021 at 8:30 PM, RankStranger said:

You can rest assured that part of the code that allows Tidal to run in Roon and other environments sends all the juicy data back to Tidal as sure as if you were running the app by itself. Aside from just being their business model about how they pay artists and such, it’s how they know what to recommend you listen to next (whether that’s successful or not). They wouldn’t cut themselves off from that just to keep and comparatively minuscule number of Roon users happy

I take your point, though I'm pretty sure a native app will send back more information in practice. The listen next information will necessarily be coming from app users, for the simple reason that the likes of Roon will not be reporting back when your next choice is from your own library and not from them (and of course as you say the number of Roon users is miniscule).

The other thing, which is related, is that the Spotify app will only show and make Spotify track suggestions. Neither it nor Tidal know what is on my NAS drives. So using the app keeps you engaged with them. WIth Roon, you're one step removed. (As an aside - if you use Roon, do you still get recommended tracks and albums from all those rappers using the same names as famous 1970s prog bands? That might push me in that direction)

I've always thought that things like MQA, high-res and device integration are ways of Tidal saying "we're higher quality" as their selling point. What happens to them if Apple Music finally releases their entire 96/24 library for public consumption as a response to this move from Spotify? Is Tidal's USP gone?

[Guest Eggcup the Dafter]

On 24/02/2021 at 9:40 PM, April Snow said:

For anyone interested, I discovered that you can stream Spotify directly to your TV via Chromecast too - it is pretty cool the artist details come up on the screen, playing next, history notes etc - looks cool. Ok I know it is not perfect CD quality but if you have your TV connected to your amp, it is kinda fun for casual listening - I cast Spotty from my Mac Book Pro to the Chromecast.

I have Tidal running into my system from the TV app, but the sound quality is pretty terrible for some reason - might be something to do with the conversion to 48/24 optical, but the YouTube app generally sounds better. Maybe it's time to plug a laptop into the TV as a second source.
 

So here I am, finally get to something approaching a high end system, the whole world of great music a few buttons away on the remote, and what do I do? On to YouTube and start playing old episodes of "I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue"... sad, isn't it?

[Hi-Fi Whipped]

48 minutes ago, Eggcup the Dafter said:

I have Tidal running into my system from the TV app, but the sound quality is pretty terrible for some reason - might be something to do with the conversion to 48/24 optical, but the YouTube app generally sounds better. Maybe it's time to plug a laptop into the TV as a second source.
 

So here I am, finally get to something approaching a high end system, the whole world of great music a few buttons away on the remote, and what do I do? On to YouTube and start playing old episodes of "I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue"... sad, isn't it?

Unfortunately when you are streaming music via tv or YouTube you are no where near the hardware quality you need to determine the difference in sound quality of any streaming service.

[Marc]

10 hours ago, RankStranger said:

 

 

Great insight and realistic views from John. Thanks for sharing.

[Jventer]

Really great video, thanks

[April Snow]

Wow that is a great video - nice and simply explained and I have heard that about Tidal before - it is not all High Rez - it was interesting hearing John Darko crunch the numbers too. I will stick with Spotify for streaming as I only use it for casual listening anyway, or previewing new artists before purchasing the physical media. 

[RankStranger]

11 hours ago, Eggcup the Dafter said:

I take your point, though I'm pretty sure a native app will send back more information in practice. The listen next information will necessarily be coming from app users, for the simple reason that the likes of Roon will not be reporting back when your next choice is from your own library and not from them (and of course as you say the number of Roon users is miniscule).

The other thing, which is related, is that the Spotify app will only show and make Spotify track suggestions. Neither it nor Tidal know what is on my NAS drives. So using the app keeps you engaged with them. WIth Roon, you're one step removed. (As an aside - if you use Roon, do you still get recommended tracks and albums from all those rappers using the same names as famous 1970s prog bands? That might push me in that direction)

I've always thought that things like MQA, high-res and device integration are ways of Tidal saying "we're higher quality" as their selling point. What happens to them if Apple Music finally releases their entire 96/24 library for public consumption as a response to this move from Spotify? Is Tidal's USP gone?

As much as an Apple tragic as I am, I don’t use Apple Music. I did the free trial for Apple Music after being a Spotify premium subscriber for years and the Apple interface is a hot mess. It’s much harder to find what you’re looking for and to control when you find it. It may have improved somewhat in the last few years but from what I read, it hasn’t sorted that stuff out, which is a bit surprising for Apple and also a bit not, I guess. The only benefit I saw was being able to say ‘hey Siri play such and such" in the car but you can currently do that with Spotify by adding "on Spotify" to the end and at the next update you’ll be able to set Spotify as your default music service like you can on Echo devices and you won’t even have to say that anymore. 

[Guest Eggcup the Dafter]

9 hours ago, Hi-Fi Whipped said:

Unfortunately when you are streaming music via tv or YouTube you are no where near the hardware quality you need to determine the difference in sound quality of any streaming service.

The surprise is that Tidal is lower quality than anything else played through the TV. I know Tidal normally as a high quality service even when not streaming lossless, 

 

Some output from YouTube over the TV is surprisingly good, in fact. Which makes me think that the software quality rather than the hardware quality is the bigger limitation at least to a certain point.

[RankStranger]

Whatever you think of Darko - and I happen to really like him but I know others don’t - he has always been very on top of the streaming services and their respective benefits, drawbacks and compatibilities. He understands that, among the hundreds of millions of Spotify users, there is some percentage of them that are potential audiophiles and quite a lot of his videos are speaking directly to them

[April Snow]

26 minutes ago, RankStranger said:

Whatever you think of Darko - and I happen to really like him but I know others don’t - he has always been very on top of the streaming services and their respective benefits, drawbacks and compatibilities. He understands that, among the hundreds of millions of Spotify users, there is some percentage of them that are potential audiophiles and quite a lot of his videos are speaking directly to them

I don't mind him either & it is interesting hearing other people's opinions too. The first video I watched of his was about his Kallax Hi-Fi - it was after one of my very early threads on Record Storage and kind people pointed out I had mine around the wrong way and I saw John Darko did too !! Was funny to me at the time.

 

[Kaynin]

Spotify Hifi?  

Should be Spotihifi.

[Guest DrSK]

On 24/02/2021 at 9:40 PM, April Snow said:

For anyone interested, I discovered that you can stream Spotify directly to your TV via Chromecast too - it is pretty cool the artist details come up on the screen, playing next, history notes etc - looks cool. Ok I know it is not perfect CD quality but if you have your TV connected to your amp, it is kinda fun for casual listening - I cast Spotty from my Mac Book Pro to the Chromecast.

It is a bit of fun but can lead to a noticeable quality drop. 

 

I think things all get reseampled to 48kHz to go through standard AV formats. 

[Guest Eggcup the Dafter]

7 hours ago, RankStranger said:

As much as an Apple tragic as I am, I don’t use Apple Music. I did the free trial for Apple Music after being a Spotify premium subscriber for years and the Apple interface is a hot mess. It’s much harder to find what you’re looking for and to control when you find it. It may have improved somewhat in the last few years but from what I read, it hasn’t sorted that stuff out, which is a bit surprising for Apple and also a bit not, I guess. The only benefit I saw was being able to say ‘hey Siri play such and such" in the car but you can currently do that with Spotify by adding "on Spotify" to the end and at the next update you’ll be able to set Spotify as your default music service like you can on Echo devices and you won’t even have to say that anymore. 

You managed to miss my point completely.

 

Apple have been collecting 96/24 files from labels for years. If they were to make that catalogue available for streaming in that format rather than the low quality lossy form it does today it leaps to the top of the hi-def tree in terms of the number of titles. Audiophiles are Tidal’s market and my care less about the interface.

 

If resolution is.what is driving Tidal sales with MQA down it goes. I note that some of the reviewers who were praising MQA a few years ago now quote Qobuz as the source for streamed music in reviews, and friends in the UK have switched, so I think Tidal could be the company to fall if the big boys weigh in with lossless streaming or what the market perceived as higher quality.
 

 

 

 

[Luc]

7 hours ago, Eggcup the Dafter said:

lower quality than anything else played through the TV

You guys play your music through a TV?

Seriously?

Get away with you.

[RankStranger]

15 minutes ago, Eggcup the Dafter said:

You managed to miss my point completely.

 

Apple have been collecting 96/24 files from labels for years. If they were to make that catalogue available for streaming in that format rather than the low quality lossy form it does today it leaps to the top of the hi-def tree in terms of the number of titles. Audiophiles are Tidal’s market and my care less about the interface.

 

If resolution is.what is driving Tidal sales with MQA down it goes. I note that some of the reviewers who were praising MQA a few years ago now quote Qobuz as the source for streamed music in reviews, and friends in the UK have switched, so I think Tidal could be the company to fall if the big boys weigh in with lossless streaming or what the market perceived as higher quality.
 

no, I took your point. It just led me down another train of thought. Should’ve been more a comment than a reply  

 

yes, Apple have a huge catalogue in 24/96 but I disagree that they’re going to release that for streaming. Just looking at it practically, a high res album is say a GB on average. I don’t think Apple would expose themselves to the publicity disaster of turning all their Apple Music subscribers on to HD and then have them blow through their data cap in one commute. They currently have somewhere in the order of 100M subscribers. Less than Spotify but Apple are a very conservative company at heart. They don’t need Apple Music to dominate in order to pay the bills so I think there’s too many downsides and not enough upsides for them to do that. 
 

Sorry if I’m not articulating that very well. I’m not disagreeing. I wouldn’t say they’ll never do it but I don’t think it’s the right time now. We’ll see  

 

I definitely agree that when Spotify goes full quality Tidal is probably the service that will suffer the most

[Eggmeister]

10 minutes ago, Luc said:

You guys play your music through a TV?

Seriously?

Get away with you.

 

sounds great

 

[Guest Eggcup the Dafter]

1 hour ago, Luc said:

You guys play your music through a TV?

Seriously?

Get away with you.

 

 

Save the sarcasm for them what are still scratching bits of plastic with stones to get noise. 
 

 

 

 

...am I banned yet?

[Luc]

5 minutes ago, Eggcup the Dafter said:

 

 

Save the sarcasm for them what are still scratching bits of plastic with stones to get noise. 
 

 

 

 

...am I banned yet?

I can see your  name still  so no,  not yet.

 

Enjoy that TV sound though. I'm not into the AV side of
SNA and yes analogue is the WTG for sure.

[Hi-Fi Whipped]

12 hours ago, Luc said:

 and yes analogue is the WTG for sure.

Can’t wait for those Spotify streaming LPs to hit the shelves!

[Chigurh]

If Spotify Hifi comes to fruition in Australia for as little (or even zero) extra as they're saying for Spotify Premium subscribers, I can't see myself bothering with my collection of CD rips. I won't discard them but I can't see myself accessing them very often.