Spotify

Blisterman

It's actually not as easy to tell 128 and 320kbps apart, as people make it out to be.

Try this
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-128-320/

Interestingly, since it's a 50-50 shot of getting it right, the majority of people got it wrong.

Sulla Felix

From the Forbes article, just for giggles. :pac:

We now need to correct The Guardian’s figures. They’re all arts graduates over there so they tend not to get on well with numbers. 5,000 Spotify plays brought in £20. That’s not the 0.004 pence per stream they say it is, that’s 0.4 pence per stream. They’ve got it right if it’s 0.004 pounds per stream, which is indeed 0.4 pence.

Anyway, I was a premium user pretty much since launch here, I've let it lapse but will probably subscribe again in the new year. I can definitely say I'm listening to more music and that the artists are getting more money from me than they used to.

ThisRegard

garde2k10 wrote: »

spotify is free atm, but its terrible... you can only shuffle a playlist to listen to full tracks and only have 6 skips in an hour??....

You're talking about the free service. How can you say a service is terrible when you won't even stump up a little cash to see what it's actually like ?

Grayditch

The free service should be way better, then more people would pay th...

No wait... that doesn't sound right :pac:

lertsnim

The free version on mobile will do just nicely. Had premium for a few months and the few times i used it didn't justify the tenner a month.

Grayditch

There's no way they'll release a free mobile app, though. That's where they make their monkey. Spotify and the artists.

ThisRegard

They already have.

loyatemu

Grayditch wrote: »

There's no way they'll release a free mobile app, though. That's where they make their monkey. Spotify and the artists.

they already have released a free mobile app - thinks its limited to radio playlists though.

I'm a premium subscriber, its well worth the money. I probably didn't spend €120 per year on cds or downloads before, so the industry is getting more money out of me. Spotify claim the majority of their users are paying more for music now than previously, and that in Sweden (where they've been operating for the longest) piracy has reduced dramatically due to streaming.

As for how the money gets divided up, Spotify say 70% of revenues go back to rights-holder, I seriously doubt they saw that proportion from CD sales.

Grayditch

Oh right, that's not bad, but not one with your own playlists. I find the radio option so-so. They should use more songs from their related artists section, which is always spot on.

Stavro Mueller

The free one's reasonably OK in that you can play your own playlists. But I do think they missed the boat on not giving us a €5 option. Perhaps one that only allows you a certain amount of skips per hour (like the free one) or limits you to a lower bitrate or maximum number of plays per month. €10 is great if you're someone who devours music but it's a big commitment to people who aren't as ardent a fan.

NeVeR

Blisterman wrote: »

It's actually not as easy to tell 128 and 320kbps apart, as people make it out to be.

Try this
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-128-320/

Interestingly, since it's a 50-50 shot of getting it right, the majority of people got it wrong.

I was able to pick the better one.. but it took 2 -3 listens of each clip.

But there was just a tiny difference in them. I picked the correct one based off the start of the clip.

I use the free app for iphone. Just started yesterday.

it's really good and I don't mind the ad's. The biggest thing I dislike about it is not being able to play the song you want when you want it.. But hey it's free.. I could always pay.. and I might get a paid account once I get a home system that can connect to it and stream music to the whole house.

briany

There's a certain android, non market app that I still find much handier for streaming as it allows on-demand on the free profile but the choice wouldn't be as great as Spotify's, being that it pulls from the Grooveshark database.

robvam

(remember those days, 24 euro for a cd - f-uck off!)

100% agree..........

Dr.Winston O'Boogie

The ipad app is seriously lacking a "discover" option like on the smart phone apps.

Other than that its a great service.

Dr.Winston O'Boogie

Anyone else find the volume on the android app is much lower than other music players like Google Music for example? Annoying.

ThisRegard

Both are the same for me.

greenspurs

can you download music from spotify ?
Do you have to be a premium member ?
Was thinking of signing up ...

Sonic Death Monkey

No you can't download - it's a streaming service.

However, you can export your playlists and save them offline - but note - it just saves the playlists data info for importing if you wanted to add them to another account.

You can't actually play those files separately, say on iTunes or something.

loyatemu

If you're a premium member you can "download" albums and playlists, in the sense that they are stored on your phone or laptop and you can listen to them in Spotify without an internet connection (e.g. if you're on a plane, or just don't want to stream over 3G) - but you can't copy the files for use in another program, they're not MP3s.

greenspurs

thats a no from me then .....
will stick to the free one so ...
thanks guys !

aristotle25

As a recent spotify premium subscriber I think it is great. I really would love to see the likes of AC\DC on it.

Just watch your data usuage, it will use about 40BM per hour so you need a decent data package or use wifi.

danger_mouse_tm

We're listening to The 101 most amazing songs of2014 playlist and it's sold us into taking out a subscription. I'm not worried about some mainstream artists not being available. From working nights for years and listening to Dave Fanning, Donal Dineen, amongst others for the most part, I've avoided the top 40 ( although would be aware of current trends).
I may wait for Vodafone to re-introduce Spotify vouchers on the cherry points scheme before I take the plunge as I've so many points accumulated. However, I will be moving to America soon, which brings along more options e. g Pandora. Any recommendations?

guitarrrszz

artist probably wins out in the end with spotify, hard to know tho!

adox

Sort of on topic but I'm currently trialling Google play Musics access all areas service and am finding it pretty impressive so far.

Mobile apps are very well laid out and easy to use, can make playlists within them and of course it gives you a free cloud service for your own songs, up to 20,000 tracks which is excellent. I have over 10,000 tracks uploaded and accessible on all my devices and that's available with their free service. They also sell albums for download if using their free service, if that makes sense and usually have 99 cent specials with some very recent albums appearing at that price for a limited time.

I've been a user of Spotifys free service for a long time although have used it less and less because of the ads, the shuffle only option and the limited skips.

I never thought I would subscribe to a service like Google Play or Spotify but now I am seriously considering it when my trial runs out at the end of February.
Been trawling the music section here on boards and pulling up albums instantly for a listen on the stereo at home from recommendations and saving quite a few albums, which is what the experience should be about I suppose.

Was going to ask if Spotify have the feature for cloud support for your own library but that's not so important as I will keep googles one either way as its free but I am undecided which to go for if I do subscribe.

Can you create playlists within the spotify app? Anyone tried both services and have a preference? Apologies if this takes the thread off topic and please ignore the comparison question if you feel it is but would love to hear more from people on their Spotify experience.

loyatemu

adox wrote: »

Was going to ask if Spotify have the feature for cloud support for your own library but that's not so important as I will keep googles one either way as its free but I am undecided which to go for if I do subscribe.

no - the Spotify desktop client will add in any tracks you have on the local machine, but it won't upload them to the cloud.

Can you create playlists within the spotify app? Anyone tried both services and have a preference? Apologies if this takes the thread off topic and please ignore the comparison question if you feel it is but would love to hear more from people on their Spotify experience.

yes you can create playlists, share them etc. I'm a big fan of Spotify, but I haven't used Google's streaming service, just the cloud music storage.

MooShop

greenspurs wrote: »

can you download music from spotify ?
Do you have to be a premium member ?
Was thinking of signing up ...

Sonic Death Monkey wrote: »

No you can't download - it's a streaming service.

However, you can export your playlists and save them offline - but note - it just saves the playlists data info for importing if you wanted to add them to another account.

You can't actually play those files separately, say on iTunes or something.

loyatemu wrote: »

If you're a premium member you can "download" albums and playlists, in the sense that they are stored on your phone or laptop and you can listen to them in Spotify without an internet connection (e.g. if you're on a plane, or just don't want to stream over 3G) - but you can't copy the files for use in another program, they're not MP3s.

Does anyone know of any alternative similar to Spotify, but lets you download the songs for use on say an MP3 player?

adox

Anyone who is using Google Play Music, is there an option to get notifications for new albums added, recommendations etc? Can't see anything.

I still have a free Spotify account active and it regularly sends me notifications when albums it probably thinks would be of interest to me are added. It's a pretty cool feature.

On trial with Google until the end of Feb so will decided then whether to stick with them or take out a Spotify sub instead.

Tomo.Murphy

I've been using the Spotify iOS app for a while and was thinking about downloading the PC version. Is it similar to the iOS app where you can only shuffle play songs and have a limited number of skips or can you listen to songs at random?

FrewBrews

Tomo.Murphy wrote:

I've been using the Spotify iOS app for a while and was thinking about downloading the PC version. Is it similar to the iOS app where you can only shuffle play songs and have a limited number of skips or can you listen to songs at random?

The free pc version allows you to listen as you please but will intersperse ads now and again.

BuilderPlumber

I assume Spotify is free? I can listen to all types of music on it for free. There is a premium version but had a trial run of this and apart from no ads, I didn't notice any difference.

loyatemu

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

I assume Spotify is free? I can listen to all types of music on it for free. There is a premium version but had a trial run of this and apart from no ads, I didn't notice any difference.

the main difference is in the mobile version; if you subscribe you can listen to whatever you like and download to your device; the free mobile version only allows shuffled playlists and adds in extra tracks etc.

adox

The adds are an absolute pain as is the shuffle only.
If I was using a mobile device Id never be able to put up with them.

Tomo.Murphy

It hasn't really been much of an issue for me until recently. I can put up with the shuffle crap, but the ads are becoming more and more frequent. For the last 2/3 weeks the app has been playing anywhere from four to six 20-30 second ads at a time

MadYaker

So buy premium? A tenner a month is hardly going to break the bank?

danger_mouse_tm

I am on Android with a premium subscription. I can't figure out why many playlist don't have an option to be offline

kavanafl

The main benefit is getting to listen to music you may not if you had to purchase the album. I create a new playlist for suggestions or finds from blogs, papers, or my favourite way to find is going through the live gig listings and picking some acts I haven't heard before. Pond are playing in Whelans next Thursday, and I started listening when I saw them advertised. great sounds!.

Tomo.Murphy

MadYaker wrote: »

So buy premium? A tenner a month is hardly going to break the bank?

Because:
-I don't mind the shuffle play. Most of the time you get some pretty decent songs.
-Whenever ads start to play I just close the app and re-open it. Sorted.
-I don't use it enough to warrant a €10 per month subscription. If I start to use it more often I probably will now they've added the option to play any song you like with a premium account.

wrt40

OneDrive on Windows 10 will allow you to stream music, some saying this will even come before Windows 10. 15gb storage for free and multiple accounts allowed.

Use spotify to try out albums, discover new stuff. Buy the album, upload once to your onedrive, stream to all your devices across all platforms.

loyatemu

wrt40 wrote: »

OneDrive on Windows 10 will allow you to stream music, some saying this will even come before Windows 10. 15gb storage for free and multiple accounts allowed.

Use spotify to try out albums, discover new stuff. Buy the album, upload once to your onedrive, stream to all your devices across all platforms.

Google Music already allows you to do this, they recently increased the maximum number of tracks to 50,000 which I would imagine is enough for 99% of people.

strawdog

I trialled the spotify and google premium apps. Both were fine but as I don't have unlimited data on my phone I found they were chewing up my monthly allowance, even when listening from my own collection uploaded to the cloud. I'm now considering buying an old school mp3 player that will hold everything I have. it would also mean not having to rely on my phone battery lasting

Grayditch

Maybe just save your Spotify playlist to the phone when you're at home. That's what I do, and I have unlimited data but it stops breaks in the music in bad 3G areas and saves on battery too.

adox

Currently trialing Beats Music at the moment. Very sleak app and slightly different but enjoyable UI.

Gonzovision

I've only just updated to the latest desktop client to find apps have been removed. What a joke. Any decent music was brilliant for finding new albums. There were loads of great apps on it. All we are left with now is 'Discover'....Disappointing to say the least.

SepTomBer

Spotify is my music companion

Vernonymous

I love using Spotify. One of the best app ever made

Steve King

trudub83 wrote: »

Surely if the artists didn't want us to listen to their music on Spotify they would ask to be taken off it?

I dont think they'd have a say, it would be upto the label.

I tried Spotify for a day or two and then went back to TunedIn and the huge choice of "Listen Back" radio shows every genre offers right now. If you dont like a bit of chat and info between the songs there's always Soundcloud and it's big selection, especially if you like Electronic genres.

That said, I know people ranging from 20s to mid 40s who love their Spotify so it definitely has lots of takers. There has never been a better time to be a music lover, all you need is WiFi or a decent data plan

loyatemu

Gonzovision wrote: »

I've only just updated to the latest desktop client to find apps have been removed. What a joke. Any decent music was brilliant for finding new albums. There were loads of great apps on it. All we are left with now is 'Discover'....Disappointing to say the least.

Any Decent Music have a website with direct Spotify links on each of the albums.

A lot of the other apps seemed abandoned e.g. the Guardian and Rolling Stone apps.

Gonzovision

loyatemu wrote: »

Any Decent Music have a website with direct Spotify links on each of the albums.

A lot of the other apps seemed abandoned e.g. the Guardian and Rolling Stone apps.

I actually never used their website! Will have to start checking it out now. It was just so handy for getting new releases. Just think it's a step backwards overall.

mass_debater

I'm back using Google Play Music after dropping it for Spotify six months ago, the repetitive radio playlists on Spotify got very tiring. Google Play seems to have made a few changes for the better with regards to random playlists, there's now mood, working out, relaxing, brand new etc.

danger_mouse_tm

I had 4 days left on a Spotify premium subscription which I redeemed from my Vodafone cherry points. My friend gave me his cherry points voucher that he wasn't using so I entered that into my account and my premium subscription now shows an expiry date of 8 may. Should if not be added on to the end of my current subscription?