Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Mar 14, 2015 15:17:02 GMT
Has anyone tried the Tidal streaming service?
It looks ok with some good choice of music on there at high resolution. Just seems quite expensive at £20 per month. I guess one downloaded hi res album would come out at that, but at least you have it. Here, you have to keep paying.
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Post by hifidez on Mar 15, 2015 8:13:06 GMT
Yes, I have a £20 subscription and the sound quality is.. uh.. sound. It is seriously good.
Not sure how long it will be before I cancel it though. £20 to effectively rent an unimaginably large CD library is, without doubt, good value... but I already have a large and personalised music library of CDs and stored WAVs & FLACs. Maybe if I didn't have my own collection then £20 would feel better value. IIRC the subscription is 20 Euro elsewhere. Why the UK surcharge I wonder?
Derek
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Mar 15, 2015 9:58:17 GMT
I feel that the charge is a bit steep as well Derek. £20 = £240 per year for music streaming. I have used Spotify for some time, since it is a bit cheaper but even then, I found myself using it less and less and my own music collection much more, so I cancelled.
At that price level, it might not really attract enough to ultimately make it viable. I took a look at what's on offer and there is a good collection of music with some well known stuff missing. Once again, no sign of King Crimson and some others aren't there. I was considering until I noticed the absences.
The idea of hi res is appealing, but not at a regular £240 per year. I'd rather own the music for my dap.
Also, I'm not being funny, but I think a lot of people wouldn't even notice the difference between a 320 download from Amazon and a hi res stream.
I have no idea why the UK is being charged more. Are there more audiophiles in this country so they think they can make a killing?
It's tempting but I just don't fancy yet another subscription on top of TV rubbish. It seems that media is going that way though. We are beginning to become 'renters' of music and video. All well and good, but pricing is the key to its success I think.
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gommer
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Post by gommer on Mar 16, 2015 18:59:55 GMT
You might also take a look at Qobuz. It seams that high Q streaming services are popping up at different places, that's a nice evolution after Spotify & co. got it started in low Q
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Post by hifidez on Mar 17, 2015 8:22:44 GMT
Tried the free Qobuz trial and didn't get on with the interface... I'm sure that was just me though. Isn't Qobuz £20 / 20 Euros too?
Derek
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Post by ronzo56 on Mar 17, 2015 10:52:19 GMT
I think Tidal streams at CD quality only. At least here in the U.S. It is only $20 a month over here. I wonder why it's more elsewhere?
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Post by hifidez on Mar 17, 2015 11:36:36 GMT
It is just about time for me to pay my second £20 subscription and I'm thinking "so I'll have spent £40. If I cancel the subscription then I'm £40 down and I don't 'own' any recordings".
£40 to listen to stuff for two months? I'm glad I have tried out a lossless streaming service. I've satisfied my curiosity. I'll make sure I make full use of my final month with Tidal.
The words: "quit", "while" and "ahead" come to mind.
"I'm out."
Derek
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gommer
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Post by gommer on Mar 17, 2015 12:14:07 GMT
I think the streaming services are only useful for people craving the convenience. These people listen on different devices, often switching between them. They make lots of playlists, like receiving suggestions and switch the target device with the touch of a button, continuing the same playlist.
Most on this forum own a collection and listen on one or two devices exclusively. In that use case scenario there's really no benefit with subscribing a streaming service.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Mar 17, 2015 17:03:51 GMT
The availability of new music is a pull for me, but the cost stops me. I don't want to spend £20 per month on music that is never mine. The idea is appealing but I wonder whether people will get fed up with the continual bills. But like paying ridiculous amounts for Broadband. It ought to be cheaper than it is imo. Too much is being put on to hi res where so many won't even detect it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2015 0:00:30 GMT
I think the streaming services are only useful for people craving the convenience. These people listen on different devices, often switching between them. They make lots of playlists, like receiving suggestions and switch the target device with the touch of a button, continuing the same playlist. Most on this forum own a collection and listen on one or two devices exclusively. In that use case scenario there's really no benefit with subscribing a streaming service. Marc, I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. Your first paragraph describes your average teen-age music listener, more bothered about convenience and portability than sound quality. Maybe most on this forum do listen to one or two devices exclusively, but some, maybe quite a lot, also use streaming services to 'find' new music, and to provide 'background' music to their daily activities. It's exactly how I, and I suspect the vast majority of listeners who are out of their teens, use it. So AFAIC, that means paying for HD, Hi-Res, or even CD-quality streaming is out of the question, for two reasons. 1. I'm listening to it in a 'background' situation, and to discover new music, therefore super-high quality is . . . superfluous. 2. To pay a 'relatively' large sum every month on music that I never "own" just doesn't make sense to me . Six month's worth of Tidal streaming leaves me with nothing, yet for that price I could have got a Beyerdynamic DT 250, DT990, a Grado SR80i, a second-hand Senn 600, etc,etc. However . . . The availability of new music is a pull for me, but the cost stops me. I don't want to spend £20 per month on music that is never mine. The idea is appealing but I wonder whether people will get fed up with the continual bills. As Ian says, constantly spending money on music that is never yours can get to be a PITA, but as a subscriber to Last FM, I pay £3 a month (yes, just £3 per month), and lets face it, for most of our members, you could lose £3 out of your pocket and never realise it! It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, it's not as trendy as Quobuz or Tidal, it doesn't stream in hi-res (or even CD quality!), but I do get music 24/7 with no adverts, and the joy of discovering new artists.
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