Spot The Fly?

[Puffin]

I have had a Free Spotify account from almost day one (2008ish). I have just upgraded to Premium and I can't really hear much difference if any. I will ditch it nearer the end of the 30 day free period.

I know there are far far better streaming services I could choose and I "may" get a better result but Spotify Free has served me very well for years and I am happy with it so why spend money and effort on chasing scintilla's.

[Ali Tait]

Never used it, is the premium higher quality?

[Pigmy Pony]

I have had a Free Spotify account from almost day one (2008ish). I have just upgraded to Premium and I can't really hear much difference if any. I will ditch it nearer the end of the 30 day free period.

I know there are far far better streaming services I could choose and I "may" get a better result but Spotify Free has served me very well for years and I am happy with it so why spend money and effort on chasing scintilla's.

Aren't they made by Apogee? They sound expensive :)

I agree, no point throwing money at a more expensive service if there is no discernible improvement. Though does the 'free' version not come with adverts? That might matter to some.

[AJSki2fly]

I have had a Free Spotify account from almost day one (2008ish). I have just upgraded to Premium and I can't really hear much difference if any. I will ditch it nearer the end of the 30 day free period.

I know there are far far better streaming services I could choose and I "may" get a better result but Spotify Free has served me very well for years and I am happy with it so why spend money and effort on chasing scintilla's.

I have used Spotify(on and off), Qobuz and Tidal. To give some sort of terms of reference my streaming kit is not state of the art, RPI with HiBerry HAT to Marantz 96mhz DAC, the RPI/HiBerry is modded with clean 5v DC from Linear PSU direct to the HAT board which feeds the RPI with power, so removes use of dirty power circuit on RPI. For what it is it sounds as good as a good CD played on my Marantz KI Pearl CDP, the pre-requisite IMO is a good digital file feeding it which is at least at CD level 44.1mhz.

I have been using Spotify premium for that past 3 months, mainly for ease of use in the car, it has to be subscribed service, and for when on holiday. Recently I was listening to a recommended album using Spotify on my home system and thought it sounded odd, so I restarted Qobuz and listen to the same, there was an immediate SQ improvement, better bass, detail and soundstage. After a bit of investigation I believe that Spotify have higher resolution files if you use the premium service BUT if their service is overloaded at a point in time (bandwidth issues) then you may not get that as they will throttle what goes out just to maintain a service.

Tidal used to be very good IMO and has a good interface, but this change when they introduced MQA files. MQA are lossy in terms of data content, IMHO they do sound different to a FLAC file of the same recording even when rendered properly with hardware and software supporting it. It is not terrible and it depends upon you personal opinion and what is acceptable to you as a listener.

For me Qobuz gives the best VFM in terms of SQ.

[Puffin]

Aren't they made by Apogee? They sound expensive :)

I agree, no point throwing money at a more expensive service if there is no discernible improvement. Though does the 'free' version not come with adverts? That might matter to some.

If you stream from a PC which is what I do and start the next track on the fade out the adverts do not play as they don't get a chance to start. On my Android phone app you cannot do the same to avoid the ads.

[willbewill]

I've used Spotify Premium for a few years, yes same quality as free but no ads, better catalog and , interface than others imho, great for using travelling especially in car on android auto, also allows download for offline play whilst on long haul flights. Until recently I also used Tidal which has much better quality through hi res, it has also recently stopped mqa support so just flac now. Then Amazon offered me 5 months of music unlimited for free, for prime members, so I'm now using it instead of Tidal. I find the Spotify interface, especially searching, far superior to either tiddl or Amazon.

[Puffin]

Actually it will come in handy for music on the move....or not so on the move. I am due to have a complete knee replacement next week and will be in hosp for 2 - 3 nights so my playlists will be ad free :)

[Pigmy Pony]

Actually it will come in handy for music on the move....or not so on the move. I am due to have a complete knee replacement next week and will be in hosp for 2 - 3 nights so my playlists will be ad free :)

Knee replacement? :eek: Honestly, the things some folk will do to make full use of their Spotify premium ;)

Hope it goes well, here's some songs for your hospital playlist:

Spencer Davis group - Keep on Running
Van Halen - Jump
Andy Fairweather Low - Wide eyed and Legless
INXS -Knee'd you tonight (alright that one's pushing it a bit)

[Puffin]

Knee replacement? :eek: Honestly, the things some folk will do to make full use of their Spotify premium ;)

Hope it goes well, here's some songs for your hospital playlist:

Spencer Davis group - Keep on Running
Van Halen - Jump
Andy Fairweather Low - Wide eyed and Legless
INXS -Knee'd you tonight (alright that one's pushing it a bit)

:eek: I'm always on the look out for a bargain! I might be able to salvage the cartilage for me turntable:lol:

[Barry]

This could be the start of a contest for who can come up with the most cringe-making puns. :scratch:

[Pigmy Pony]

This could be the start of a contest for who can come up with the most cringe-making puns. :scratch:

My money's on Kevin (Cagey H). He'd love the chance - he lives in France, where no doubt his efforts are underappreciated.

[CageyH]

My money's on Kevin (Cagey H). He'd love the chance - he lives in France, where no doubt his efforts are underappreciated.

:lol:

[Stryder5]

I have had a Free Spotify account from almost day one (2008ish). I have just upgraded to Premium and I can't really hear much difference if any. I will ditch it nearer the end of the 30 day free period.

I know there are far far better streaming services I could choose and I "may" get a better result but Spotify Free has served me very well for years and I am happy with it so why spend money and effort on chasing scintilla's.

I thought with Premium you had the choice of resolution and other options to configure best for you, including turning off volume equalisation, which squashes any dynamics.

If you just switched between free and premium without any adjustments that are available I wouldn’t expect you to hear a difference.

[Stryder5]

I believe that Spotify have higher resolution files if you use the premium service BUT if their service is overloaded at a point in time (bandwidth issues) then you may not get that as they will throttle what goes out just to maintain a service.

@AJSky2fly

Can you verify the source of this information please?

Gary

[Puffin]

I thought with Premium you had the choice of resolution and other options to configure best for you, including turning off volume equalisation, which squashes any dynamics.

If you just switched between free and premium without any adjustments that are available I wouldn’t expect you to hear a difference.

These are the only adjustments I can use is that what you mean?

https://i.imgur.com/WSnarsB.png

[Stryder5]

These are the only adjustments I can use is that what you mean?

https://i.imgur.com/WSnarsB.png

Yes, exactly. They made quite a difference to my SQ.

Not perhaps, up there with Deezer, Quobus, Tidal etc when at their best.

Gary

Sorry Normalise Volume should be off! And auto adjust quality. Streaming quality should be very high.

[willbewill]

https://i.imgur.com/MeNGxV5h.jpg#rBtPP

[Puffin]

Thanks Gary and Malcolm

[Puffin]

I have changed the settings and the SQ has certainly changed. I am not sure whether I prefer HIGH or VERY HIGH but I have only been on it about 30 mins this morning. Will have a proper listen later and see which Dac gives me the best balance.

[Stryder5]

I have changed the settings and the SQ has certainly changed. I am not sure whether I prefer HIGH or VERY HIGH but I have only been on it about 30 mins this morning. Will have a proper listen later and see which Dac gives me the best balance.

Cool!

[Puffin]

Had a couple of hours playing today. There is certainly a lot more information coming out with the increased bit rate which will take a bit of getting used having been using Free for so long. Sounds ok though.

[Colin2040]

I just use Amazon and have found it very good no issues and haven’t struggled to find anything music wise. I think they do a premium as well .

Colin

[Puffin]

Premium is defo and improvement over free and being a luddite I will stick with it :)

[Gazjam]

Fan of Apple Music here,

their curated Playlists are terrific.
All the music videos you could ever want too, your own personal MTV (when it played music)

Way better sound quality than Spotify, even Premium at 320kHz.
But sometimes that doesn’t matter if its “more than good enough”.

which is a thing