Tidal + https://github.com/yaronzz/Tidal-Media-Downloader or Soulseek
Tidal HiFi for home use with Roon.
Spotify for Podcasts and mobile use.
I’ve bounced back and forth between Tidal,Spotify, and Qobuz while also using Exact Audio Copy to burn CD’s, I rip it to FLAC and then use Foobar. I also buy tracks from Qobuz and Bandcamp, on BC sometimes when you buy a digital album, you can get the CD for just a couple dollars more, its nice to have a physical copy. Lots of “name your price” to on BC, and lots of file type options too
I’ve got Spotify and Tidal and while I think Tidal sounds a bit better, I’ve found a few things that aren’t on Tidal. Recommendations are a little better on Spotify I guess.
I’ll probably give Tidal another to as I’ve been previously using Sony WH1000’s and now have Meze 99 Classics with Nighthawk’s coming next week.
I don’t recall anyone stating they stream with Apple Music? Why is that?
I myself use Tidal (non-hifi at the moment). I used to use Apple Music, because I loved how I could stream my personal digital collection, even if Apple didn’t actually have the album in their files. I also loved how the service synced really well between my Macbook Pro and iPhone. That all changed when my MB Pro died and I didn’t feel like shilling out another $2500+ for a laptop. A few months after the MB Pro died, I happened to watch a vid on Youtube by White Sea Audio about which service sounded the best. I’ll include the link below. While I personally couldn’t hear a difference between services, the video convinced me to give Tidal a try, and I never went back to Apple Music.
I’m just curious to what the rest of you think.
I watched this couple of years ago, the proof is in the pudding. Things can change, so who knows what results we’d see today if any but it’s a good place to start.
I guess a lot of people are on Android so Apple Music isn’t a natural service to use, as well as what I’ve heard of the poorer app on Android.
I’ve used Apple Music myself over the years and I do think it sounds better than Spotify, which has been my main service. But I’m in a family plan on Spotify so it works out at £3 a month for Spotify whereas I’d have to pay £10 a month for Apple Music.
I also have a Tidal sub which I got using a VPN and Argentinian account and that works out at less than £2 a month for a premium account but I found quite a few things missing compared to Spotify, so I just stuck with Spotify in the end.
I think I might give Tidal another try now I’ve picked up some good headphones and a BTR5.
Personally, i use Deezer for a number of reasons
- It offers Flac files to some (but not all) of its music selection, those that don’t are in most cases 320 kbps
- The Flow option to me feels way nicer than any of the other service’s music exploration because it not only uses the music you like but also its part of the flow so you get, i normally get one song that i like followed by one or two new songs
- Music selection is almost as big as Spotify’s - still believe Spotify’s somewhat bigger, though i haven’t found a song in Spotify that i haven’t found in Deezer, but the upgrade in quality makes up for it
- Built-in music recognizer/“Shazam”, which made it not only easy to transfer my music library from Spotify but is also really handy when catching a new song.
The only major downside i can find to it is that there is no google map integration (if there is i haven’t manged to get it to work). but aside from a few minor issues, Deezer has been great.
I use Spotify when I’m on the go and my own FLAC library when I’m at home. I think Spotify’s recommendation algorithm is still the best for me, and also there are some indie artists that are only available in Spotify or Bandcamp.
On some occasions, I will also use Tidal to “test” out some album that I found online.
One of the streaming services not mentioned a lot here is Deezer.
I got it this week and I am suprised about the music it has, there are a lot of my favourite music numbers that Spotify doesn’t has, that I can find at Deezer. I have used Spotify for some years now and was content as Qobuz is not available in my country.
And Deezer has a lossless version “Deezer Hi-Fi” with Flac files. I a/b’ed it and couldn’t really hear it was better, but creating a playlist with known songs and listening to it, I can hear it now. It is for sure Flac files and the detail level is higher.
The first month is a trial month, so commercials are poping up now and then, but I think this is a keeper. Easy UI, Flac files and lots of content.
I find it worth looking into, if you are looking at streaming. The cost is quite high here in Europe, 20 euro per month, but I will evaluate it during the trial month and then decide.
There has been a few glitches, like a certain song where there is an error after 1 min and it stops playing and list it as an error and some poping noices, but they were only present the first day.
Edit:
There is a black version, which for me is essential. And then I just noticed now, that the UI language is local and not English. That’s a first for me to see this level of local adaption. Actually quite impressive.
same here man i use it for a while now,and really happy with it.
You should also use the “shazam”/music finding button its awesome
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Re Qobuz going into new countries, I got this e-mail reply from Qobuz:
Qobuz is not yet available in Denmark, but it will be during this year, although we do not have an official launch date, unfortunately.
Denmark is so small a country, so they must have it bundled with other countries in an expansion, like the Nordics.
I have both I want to cancel Spotify, but my dad is on my family plain and uses it, I use his log in’s for all the TV apps so its only fair I pay for something for him 
.
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NEWS. Spotify is adding hi-res tier!
I really like Spotify and YoutubeMusic, but it’s imposible to use all music in my vlogs. That’s why I am adding also Depositphotos that have a library of free royalty songs. I guess this is all my platforms that I use for getting new music.
[Rant] Why I’m skeptical of music streaming services
I don’t use Spotify much these days (I mostly use download services and CDs) but a while ago I imported some playlists to try the PS4 client. This is what it looks like now:
Recently, hundreds of Korean artists vanished from Spotify without warning.
It wasn’t until after the fact that Spotify made a media statement explaining that the sudden change was caused by a contract issue with distributor Kakao M (whose parent company Kakao owns competing service Melon Music).
“But @nxtzh, I don’t listen to much Korean music. Why is this important?”
This not unique to Kakao M or Spotify. Licensing disputes inevitably come up from time to time.
Apple Corps (The Beatles’ record label) refused to license their music for iTunes for years because Apple Corps was in a trademark suit against Apple Computer until they finally settled in 2007 (iTunes was a download service not a streaming service at the time)
Apple Corps v. Apple Computer
Jimi Hendrix’s catalog was on Google Play Music, but after Google shut down the service (2020) only one album appears to be available on the replacement service YouTube Music (on the artist page at the time of writing).
Jimi Hendrix on YouTube Music
Why No Hendrix on YouTube? (2017)
This can also happen on non-music services:
Shortly after its launch, Disney+ removed some movies in January 2020, apparently because Disney licensed them exclusively to other streaming services (temporarily) and neglected to inform their own customers.
All of the movies that have disappeared from Disney+ so far (2020)
Every now and then games are removed from Steam, most commonly because the music license expired. Luckily, customers who already purchased the game can still download it; Steam only disallows new purchases.
Alan Wake Being Removed Digitally Due to Expiring Music Licenses; 90% Off This Weekend on Steam (2017)
The point is that content can disappear from streaming services at any time
These kind of things happen for reasons that are overcomplicated, ridiculous, or both, and when negotiations go south customers lose.
In the most extreme cases, an entire service (Google Play Music, Zune Music, Rhapsody, and more) can disappear, though usually they’ll warn customers beforehand.
I’m not saying you should never use streaming services–they’re useful for discovering and previewing music. They have convenient apps, integration with voice assistants, and attractive family plans. You should be aware of trade-offs like the one described here when deciding whether it’s worth the price compared to alternatives.
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Ownership matters.
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I was super sad to hear about this. Because honestly, it was amazing to find more kpop. I was always in the know of what’s out there
Now then kpop is certainly not the only genre I listen to but it’s the only one I try to really keep up with. While other genres I mostly explore to see what exists but I don’t necessarily keep up with 
my Korean friend thankfully has a korean music streaming service but I don’t know how good it will be for recommendations. I’ll have to try it out
OH HOWEVER thankfully most of us have that music locally stored! So we are lucky but dang imagine all the kpop fans who use streaming as their only thing. They are FUCKED! So I guess it could always be worse for me lol
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I’ve lost more music over the years due to bad hard drives, my own mistakes and lack of backups, or disks simply breaking, than the couple of songs a streaming service might lose their license on.
Also the discovery for new music is unmatched. We don’t have record stores anymore, and the couple of places that do, are 99% mainstream or old music.
I think Tharbamar if I remember correctly, a hifi reviewer on youtube, made a video a year or more ago where he explains how he lost a large collection of vinyl to bugs(termites?) eating them. That was thousands of dollars in records. He was heartbroken.
Ownership is good, but for me personally, streaming is unmatched in convenience and access. Unless I ever plan to live in a forest with no internet, then hard copies clearly win.
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trying to think of what music player to buy… i only have a single PC and I like their dead of integration of tidal and my hard drive so I’m thinking either going through audirvana or roon… roon is incredibly interesting because blurring the lines between streaming and my local files (I also hear roon radio is great but I don’t do the whole autoplay feature and just want good recommendations without having a radio do it), but it seems to require a separate NUC or something to be your core and then move all your music through around then. but I do not have any the endpoints and stuff, I only have a laptop and a DAC and USB decrapifier… audirvana seems to fit that idea much better and I really liked my month free of it, sounds pretty nice too, BUT there are some issues, the tidal integration is not amazing (its clear you are using 2 different things). and there is no last.fm support so I cant scribble and integrate into things like discord for talking about what I listen to (which is the way i’d get recommendations more likely).
basically I’m asking for help