Amazon/Spotify/Deezer/etc
Discussion
Any recommendations?
Currently I'm paying 3.99/month for single device plan for Amazon music, linked to an Echo. They seem to have a massive range of music but the automatic playlists get a bit repetitive and with the single device license I can't access it from my phone or computer to build better playlists, not sure if I would have more control with more devices.
I've fiddled with with the free version of Spotify a bit and it seems to have a decent range of music and can manage playlists from a PC. But with the paid version would I be able to set up playlists on the PC and then listen to them on an Echo? And I would I need to tell the Echo to play it from Spotify or just tell it to play music?
Deezer appears to be similar in both amount of content and price but I've not played with it. Spotify and Deezer would also both work on my watch but I'm not sure I'd use that anyway, and both are apparently supported by Echo.
Presumably for for any of them I'd want the family account so my wife and I can both use it separately, all 3 are the same price, but is one substantially better than the other, or are there other good options?
TLDR - Which streaming music service to use on multiple platforms including Amazon Echo?
Currently I'm paying 3.99/month for single device plan for Amazon music, linked to an Echo. They seem to have a massive range of music but the automatic playlists get a bit repetitive and with the single device license I can't access it from my phone or computer to build better playlists, not sure if I would have more control with more devices.
I've fiddled with with the free version of Spotify a bit and it seems to have a decent range of music and can manage playlists from a PC. But with the paid version would I be able to set up playlists on the PC and then listen to them on an Echo? And I would I need to tell the Echo to play it from Spotify or just tell it to play music?
Deezer appears to be similar in both amount of content and price but I've not played with it. Spotify and Deezer would also both work on my watch but I'm not sure I'd use that anyway, and both are apparently supported by Echo.
Presumably for for any of them I'd want the family account so my wife and I can both use it separately, all 3 are the same price, but is one substantially better than the other, or are there other good options?
TLDR - Which streaming music service to use on multiple platforms including Amazon Echo?
I love Spotify, the main reason for that is the "Discover Weekly" automated playlist. As you use it more, save more songs/albums, subscribe to playlists etc. it builds up an idea of what you like to listen to. Every Monday the playlist refreshes with another 30 tracks it thinks you'll like. I've discovered tonnes of music I'd never heard of before. For the £13/month (we have the duo subscription so my wife gets her own library, can listen independently of me etc.) it's more than worth it IMHO.
RizzoTheRat said:
I've fiddled with with the free version of Spotify a bit and it seems to have a decent range of music and can manage playlists from a PC. But with the paid version would I be able to set up playlists on the PC and then listen to them on an Echo? And I would I need to tell the Echo to play it from Spotify or just tell it to play music?
You know that with the free version of Spotify you can associate your echo with your spotify account, and play playlists from the PC on the Echo? It's a long time since I actually started playlists by name on my Echoes, I just say "Alexa resume" and she restarts whichever playlist I was part way through.Spotify is great. I've been a long term user and as already said the algorithms are scary. There is one called time capsule which will play songs of your past. Mine plays me songs from the 90s I've not heard for year's let alone searched on Spotify.
It integrates pretty well with smart speakers etc. I don't think the free version can do this.
It integrates pretty well with smart speakers etc. I don't think the free version can do this.
I've tried a bunch, software-wise they are all awfully-written pieces of trash produced by companies too busy writing articles about how great their engineering is to actually do any good engineering. But you put up with idiocy like going through a tunnel making the app decide it is now offline and will stay offline forever to get access to 40 million tracks. Some are awful in different ways so you might get lucky and find your use case doesn't trigger the horrific nest of bugs lurking beneath the shiny surface, in which case stick with that.
Spotify and Deezer are the only ones which integrate with nearly everything under the sun. Spotify has the best in-app experience for using things like A/V amplifiers and smart speakers, you'll still get halfway through an album and your phone will forget your amp has ever existed, but at least it keeps playing music. And you can do it from the Spotify app, rather than ending up 7 pages deep into an FAQ which is something like, "select HEOS menu, then music, then you will need to type the 19 digit activation code, except on Wednesday or for x400 series models, in which case..." which is the experience most of the others provide once you get off basic Bluetooth or line-in.
Tidal sounds nice. Spotify Premium is also plenty good enough unless you're the kind of person who hunts down specific pressings and makes FLAC copies of them. Deezer sounds like it's underwater on the standard tier, which is the point at which you discover their billing system is so utterly broken you can't combine HiFi and Family in the same subscription. They all suffer from the problem that every once in a while the record label will release a brickwall limited, compressed and noise reduction artifact-ridden remaster of an album which is now "the streaming service version" so don't expect to throw out all your LPs.
Spotify does some clever things with discovery. I've found some great music from Discover Weekly and the radios. Playlists are annoying, they lose tracks over time and for a music company they seem to have missed the entire concept of artists recording multiple versions of a song so you'll come back to your playlist a month later to find it's swapped the electric version of The Sound Of Silence with the acoustic version from Wednesday Morning 3am because hey, same song right?
Ultimately it's £15 for a household account, the ability to dial almost anything short of obscure short-run psychedelia and listen to it in reasonable quality is worth suffering the piss-poor engineering quality, enjoy it and grudgingly accept that you won't be able to run the Windows app on your desktop computer for Reasons while support just tell you "listen on something else".
Spotify and Deezer are the only ones which integrate with nearly everything under the sun. Spotify has the best in-app experience for using things like A/V amplifiers and smart speakers, you'll still get halfway through an album and your phone will forget your amp has ever existed, but at least it keeps playing music. And you can do it from the Spotify app, rather than ending up 7 pages deep into an FAQ which is something like, "select HEOS menu, then music, then you will need to type the 19 digit activation code, except on Wednesday or for x400 series models, in which case..." which is the experience most of the others provide once you get off basic Bluetooth or line-in.
Tidal sounds nice. Spotify Premium is also plenty good enough unless you're the kind of person who hunts down specific pressings and makes FLAC copies of them. Deezer sounds like it's underwater on the standard tier, which is the point at which you discover their billing system is so utterly broken you can't combine HiFi and Family in the same subscription. They all suffer from the problem that every once in a while the record label will release a brickwall limited, compressed and noise reduction artifact-ridden remaster of an album which is now "the streaming service version" so don't expect to throw out all your LPs.
Spotify does some clever things with discovery. I've found some great music from Discover Weekly and the radios. Playlists are annoying, they lose tracks over time and for a music company they seem to have missed the entire concept of artists recording multiple versions of a song so you'll come back to your playlist a month later to find it's swapped the electric version of The Sound Of Silence with the acoustic version from Wednesday Morning 3am because hey, same song right?
Ultimately it's £15 for a household account, the ability to dial almost anything short of obscure short-run psychedelia and listen to it in reasonable quality is worth suffering the piss-poor engineering quality, enjoy it and grudgingly accept that you won't be able to run the Windows app on your desktop computer for Reasons while support just tell you "listen on something else".
Turn7 said:
Slightly O/T, but how does Apple music stack up against the others ? Im starting to get tired of keeping ever larger backups of Music for iTunes.....
I've used most of the providers and Apple music comes in 2nd place for me. It does work with Amazon Alexa devices, but you can't cast the music to them (only Google devices unless it's updated and I haven't noticed)
I find the App a little bit clunky and not easy to find music that you may be interested in.
Out of all go them I've used, this is my list in order
1 - Spotify - it just works as it should with everything
2 - Apple music
3 - Deezer - integration with my BMW was pretty good
4 - Amazon music - just rubbish compared to the others
xeny said:
You know that with the free version of Spotify you can associate your echo with your spotify account, and play playlists from the PC on the Echo?
The adverts get a bit annoying in the free version thoughHairyMaclary said:
Spotify is great. I've been a long term user and as already said the algorithms are scary.
Yeah, I was quite surprised after only having experimented with it briefly a few years ago, it seems to have already worked out some playlists with stuff I like. Currently playing it's daily mix and there's loads of great stuff on there, although I may need to train to look at some newer stuff, I don't think there's anything more recent than about 1990 on this playlist 
I'm no audiophile but sound quality seems fine.
Oh, one thing that annoys me about Spotify, now I think about it...
I use an iPod Touch in my car, specifically so I can keep my iTunes library and access to Spotify (via downloading stuff for offline play) when I'm driving. Sometimes (i.e. maybe one time in every 10 I start the car) instead of Spotify picking up where it left off, iTunes starts playing all the tracks in its' library in alphabetical order by song name. It's fixed easily enough just by going into Spotify and pressing the play button but it's irritating to have to do that. I don't know for sure if that's the fault of the Spotify app, of iTunes or of the iPod OS itself.
Before anyone else says it, yes it's absolutely a first-world problem and it may not be relevant to the OP but I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone was considering doing the same thing. I suppose also if anyone knows of a resolution for that then I'd be keen to hear it.
I use an iPod Touch in my car, specifically so I can keep my iTunes library and access to Spotify (via downloading stuff for offline play) when I'm driving. Sometimes (i.e. maybe one time in every 10 I start the car) instead of Spotify picking up where it left off, iTunes starts playing all the tracks in its' library in alphabetical order by song name. It's fixed easily enough just by going into Spotify and pressing the play button but it's irritating to have to do that. I don't know for sure if that's the fault of the Spotify app, of iTunes or of the iPod OS itself.
Before anyone else says it, yes it's absolutely a first-world problem and it may not be relevant to the OP but I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone was considering doing the same thing. I suppose also if anyone knows of a resolution for that then I'd be keen to hear it.
The only thing that annoys me about Spotify is the way it adds bonus tracks onto the end of albums that shouldn't be there, e.g. from other albums by that artist. If I want to hear those extra songs I'll play the album they're on, but right now I only want to listen to the songs on this one, thanks!
king arthur said:
The only thing that annoys me about Spotify is the way it adds bonus tracks onto the end of albums that shouldn't be there, e.g. from other albums by that artist. If I want to hear those extra songs I'll play the album they're on, but right now I only want to listen to the songs on this one, thanks!
You can disable that, have a look in the settings. The feature is called "album radio" I think, it'll play a selection of tracks by that artist and related ones. Like I said about the Discover Weekly playlist, that feature is one of the most valuable things about Spotify IMHO, I've found loads of music and artists that way.Turn7 said:
Slightly O/T, but how does Apple music stack up against the others ? Im starting to get tired of keeping ever larger backups of Music for iTunes.....
I had Spotify for years as part of my mobile phone contract. Switched to EE which now has Apple music bundled in. It's finely balanced but when my free trial ends I will stick with Apple music - mainly for the radio and the access to previous shows - I don't think you can access old shows on the free version of Apple music.
In particular there are a lot hosted by artists that are very entertaining - Elton John's Rocket Hour in particular.
Apple music is also slightly cheaper - you can pay annually for £100/year and as it also includes iTunes match that's another £25/year saving.
I use Spotify and it works.
Mainly on my Android phone, mainly casting to a Chromecast Audio plugged into the house hifi, but also a Bluetooth speaker or headphones, and on my computer.
It also works web-based on works laptop, which is too locked down to install the software, which with Google Chrome can even cast the the Chomechat now I'm working from home.
The 'radio' feature was rubbish, but is now much better at play related songs I actually want to hear.
It also syncs with SoundHound so if I use that to find the name of a track in the car it will add it to my playlist.
Don't have any Amazon devices.
Often I get it 'free' with a phone contract which roughly halfs the price to about £50 year.
If you want a method of finding new music, 'music map' is an excellent tool. https://www.music-map.com/
Daniel
Mainly on my Android phone, mainly casting to a Chromecast Audio plugged into the house hifi, but also a Bluetooth speaker or headphones, and on my computer.
It also works web-based on works laptop, which is too locked down to install the software, which with Google Chrome can even cast the the Chomechat now I'm working from home.
The 'radio' feature was rubbish, but is now much better at play related songs I actually want to hear.
It also syncs with SoundHound so if I use that to find the name of a track in the car it will add it to my playlist.
Don't have any Amazon devices.
Often I get it 'free' with a phone contract which roughly halfs the price to about £50 year.
If you want a method of finding new music, 'music map' is an excellent tool. https://www.music-map.com/
Daniel
Hope the OP doesn't mind me piggy backing onto his thread but my son and my wife both have a free Spotify account, happy with it but the ads get him irritated now and again (15 year old expects everything to work and be free...)
Been considering a Student subscription as a Christmas present, I presume that gets downloaded onto his PC, can he also play stuff on the phone?
And can music be recorded onto other gadgets and do you lose the recording if you close the subscription?
(I still listen to CDs in the car and Planet Rock on the Alexa or Lap top at home much to everyone elses annoyance)
Been considering a Student subscription as a Christmas present, I presume that gets downloaded onto his PC, can he also play stuff on the phone?
And can music be recorded onto other gadgets and do you lose the recording if you close the subscription?
(I still listen to CDs in the car and Planet Rock on the Alexa or Lap top at home much to everyone elses annoyance)
It applies to the account, so whatever devices he has, but only one at a time in the basis subscription. And yes, when you stop paying you stop getting, like any subscription service.
Not familiar with the student account.
For buying music, 7digital is good.
When I was his age (and im only 33 now) I recorded a Radio1 onto cassette and then re-recorded it to cut out the talking and songs I didn't like so much.
Daniel
Not familiar with the student account.
For buying music, 7digital is good.
When I was his age (and im only 33 now) I recorded a Radio1 onto cassette and then re-recorded it to cut out the talking and songs I didn't like so much.
Daniel
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