Who streams and who dosent?

most of my phone data is done via my home wifi…but when we moved and had no internet, my provider bumped me from 5GB / m to 15GB / month at no extra charge. so that was a boon!

Wait, until it reboots.
Lucky the odd’s for that is next to nothing here.

Yea i dont want to be left with the bag if the zombie apocalypse goes down. Ill stick to buying hard copy.

can’t take it with you when you run though…

Portable drive right into my fortified bunker. Never get out of the boat.

Nope never niet…

playing FLAC via DAP and vinyl only for me

1 Like

bunker and boat don’t jive…clarify? :wink:

The certainty that the train will run on time with streaming content. never get out of the boat is a quote from the jungle scene by chef in the film apocalypse now. 2020 has been a odd year.

Those are kept encrypted, I still can’t verify the file quality (nor are they saying what the encoding and bitrate are), I can’t change the ReplayGain in each file, I can’t play them in shuffle mode with the rest of my non-Spotify collection… it all just locks me into their precious app, while I really want to use Neutron Player for everything, and have files that I can do with as I please. This “offline” gimmick they’re all offering just isn’t it.

Good thing I always treated Google Play like a file shop and downloaded everything immediately. I’m seeing a number of angry people right about now, who thought they had bought and were owners of their music files, only to now have to pay again for a monthly YouTube Music subscription just to be able to listen to “their” files without ads and with the offline option. Somebody got royally screwed. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

This one point needs corrected. You can play non-Spotify local files in a shuffle with downloaded Spotify tracks through the Spotify app. Yes, you have to use the Spotify app. No, it doesn’t tell you what the actual quality each track is within the app. But, if you add local files to a giant Spotify playlist on the desktop app, then while your phone is connected to the same network via wifi you can open the Spotify mobile app, tell it download that playlist, and the desktop app will transfer those local files to your phone along with all the Spotify tracks. This ability is really the only reason I still use Spotify. I have an enormous playlist with all my favorite stuff in it that I like to shuffle. Spotify is the only streaming company that allows mixing and matching of their streaming stuff and local fiels into common playlists short of investing in Roon. If any of Amazon, Qobuz, or Tidal allowed this feature with all lossless files, I would have dumped Spotify awhile ago. It comes in especially handy with tracks like Pink Floyd’s Happiest Days of our Lives into Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 where you always hear the tracks played together gapless yet are separated on the disc or in separate files, messing up the shuffle. I combined all such tracks with Audacity and used this trick Spotify does to get them in a shuffle with everything else.

I stream 90% of what I listen to. At first it was to discover music, now I just love the convenience and sound quality of Roon (has awesome AI for finding music) that I mainly listen to it. There is very little difference between the quality of Tidal/Roon compared to my collection of masters from Prostudiomasters played in Roon.

I also use UAPP for streaming on my phone and just the Tidal app for downloads in my car. But I do have a collection of vinyl as well as purchased studio masters, and I do buy based on what I stream often.

2 Likes

A youtube bluray reviewer talked about a report amazon stuff cannot be owned either. So im on team hard copy and external storage.

1 Like

Not sure what that’s about, but I’m still seeing MP3s for sale and individually priced on Amazon Music (the regular store, not streaming service, not “Amazon HD” or whatever) and I’m gonna need me some of that, 'cos Lianne La Havas has a new album out and it’s not in my hands yet. :slight_smile:

“Amazon argues users dont actually own purchased prime video contant.” So i guess its only for movies and shows.

Roll your own.

Disclaimer: streaming is great and i do keep a online digital library. Roll your own (when you can).

Just want to say thanks to this thread and your post, it jogged the memory back to high school daze. There was a band called Boones Farm that far as I know made one album in 1972.
I owned that album. Couldn’t tell you what happened to it though, but I’ve been searching for that album since I got into digital music in the early 2000’s. I couldn’t find it anywhere in any format.
Cue to right now when I went to Quobuz and found it in glorious 24/192! That’s an obscure album that I had given up hope of ever seeing again. Thanks to this site I found it. BTW I do a la carte song purchases all the time but always lossless if possible.