The definition of insanity.

[eljr]

Tidal for me as the best compromise between availabilty and sound quality (I use the lossless HiFi spread).

I do enjoy classical, but prefer listening to that genre in high resolution.

don't know if you saw it but I posted a link to Primephonic. Seems they have a new streaming service, all classical, all CD quality and 30 days trial with no credit card number required for the trial. So no unsubscribing needed after 30 days if you don't like it.

It's limited as is Tidal in selections but the recording they do offer are clearly not whatever they could add but rather someone took the time to only make available well recorded albums. So, it easily sounds, to me, at least as good as Tidal masters.

If you are interested.

 

[E-Stat]

don't know if you saw it but I posted a link to Primephonic. Seems they have a new streaming service, all classical, all CD quality and 30 days trial with no credit card number required for the trial. So no unsubscribing needed after 30 days if you don't like it.

It's limited as is Tidal in selections but the recording they do offer are clearly not whatever they could add but rather someone took the time to only make available well recorded albums. So, it easily sounds, to me, at least as good as Tidal masters.

If you are interested.

Thx for the tip!

 

[+48V]

I probably need to stick with one of these for a while, use the thumbs up and down more and see what kind of music it thinks I'll like.

Yes.

It can take some devoted time to get your real seas legs; past just playing & poking around the candy store. Spotify, in particular, has some pretty great nooks and 3rd party API hooks that can possibly deliver more fine tuning for you. Holster your frustrations and apparent "impatient" pistols and really dig in for a while. Tell it what you want/like. Then Google some of the many 3rd party API hooks for Spotify. Rinse & repeat.

What I wish now is a Spotify phone app that can control the music played through the Windows app so I can give thumbs up/down as I am working on the house. Any such app out there?

Wish granted. Fire up an instance of Spotify on any platform/device. Fire it up on another device and you can opt to control the show remotely from where you are at the moment.

 

[uofmtiger]

Wish granted. Fire up an instance of Spotify on any platform/device. Fire it up on another device and you can opt to control the show remotely from where you are at the moment.

IMHO This is Spotify’s best feature.

 

[+48V]

IMHO This is Spotify’s best feature.

Aye. I'm pretty sure/think they stole it from rdio.

 

[uofmtiger]

Aye. I'm pretty sure/think they stole it from rdio.

Yep, it was one of the main reasons I left Spotify for Rdio.

 

[Alobar]

Wish granted. Fire up an instance of Spotify on any platform/device. Fire it up on another device and you can opt to control the show remotely from where you are at the moment.

How does this work? I assume that a Spotify app is required on the phone. Does it communicate with my computer directly via my router or does it do it at their end? Can I pause, skip, thumbs up or down and adjust volume for music i am streaming from my pc? Not interested in playing music from my phone and Bluetooth ,but through my pc and dac, controlled by my phone.

 

[E.Auer]

How does this work? I assume that a Spotify app is required on the phone. Does it communicate with my computer directly via my router or does it do it at their end? Can I pause, skip, thumbs up or down and adjust volume for music i am streaming from my pc? Not interested in playing music from my phone and Bluetooth ,but through my pc and dac, controlled by my phone.

Yes. You can use the app to control the stream.

Eric

 

[gvl]

but through my pc and dac, controlled by my phone.

Note that Spotify on PC/Windows supports neither ASIO nor WASAPI which is a real shame as SQ of audio played through default device/DirectSound sucks. However if you own JRiver license you're in luck as you can enable its WDM driver and route Spotify through JRiver, applying DSP as needed, and finally out to Wasapi or maybe ASIO if supported for your DAC, which sounds great.

 

[sberger]

I chose Spotify because I think they have a little bigger catalog then Tidal, but I use and enjoy Tidal as well. Really don't think you can go wrong with either.

If you're really into trying out new music, Bandcamp is a great resource, and while you don't get the audiophile bit rates that S & T offer, you get all the new music you can stand. And often music available on BC is also available on S or T if you have to listen to a lossless file.

 

[MannyE]

I ,like the Live Music Archive. It's not about quality but hearing new music. I find stuff I like there then seek it out for purchase.

Sometimes its just amazing ephemera like this:

https://archive.org/details/gfc2004-02-12

 

[Alobar]

Note that Spotify on PC/Windows supports neither ASIO nor WASAPI which is a real shame as SQ of audio played through default device/DirectSound sucks. However if you own JRiver license you're in luck as you can enable its WDM driver and route Spotify through JRiver, applying DSP as needed, and finally out to Wasapi or maybe ASIO if supported for your DAC, which sounds great.

I was wondering about that.. I have 2 licenses for JRiver, one on my PC and one on the RaspberryPi. I normally run JRiver through the RPi and the Modi MB but I have my original Modi still tied into my Win 10PC so I should do some homework on this. I am waiting for the day when I can stream from someone's vast library and seemlessly play my own files with them all through JRiver and its tools.. Maybe that day has already come?

 

[eljr]

I chose Spotify because I think they have a little bigger catalog then Tidal, but I use and enjoy Tidal as well. Really don't think you can go wrong with either.

.

I never used Spotify but I can't imagine a major (not genre specific) streaming service with a worse selection than Tidal.

Anyone have any available track numbers from the different services?

 

[John James]

I never used Spotify but I can't imagine a major (not genre specific) streaming service with a worse selection than Tidal.

Anyone have any available track numbers from the different services?

Spotify = 30 million.

From here...

https://press.spotify.com/us/about/

 

[eljr]

Note that Spotify on PC/Windows supports neither ASIO nor WASAPI which is a real shame as SQ of audio played through default device/DirectSound sucks. However if you own JRiver license you're in luck as you can enable its WDM driver and route Spotify through JRiver, applying DSP as needed, and finally out to Wasapi or maybe ASIO if supported for your DAC, which sounds great.

Can you explain this to the slow here?

 

[Alobar]

Can you explain this to the slow here?

I would like to know more as well. I enabled the WDM driver last night but it wasn't clear how to take the next step to get JRIVER to recognize my Spotify account. I was looking into it the other day on JRivers forum and evidently some are making it work but was completed in nature and limited.. There were a lot of users of JRiver (including me) who want a seamless experience between their own music and streaming but thus far the streaming business doesn't want this, and is making it difficult.

 

[sberger]

I never used Spotify but I can't imagine a major (not genre specific) streaming service with a worse selection than Tidal.

Anyone have any available track numbers from the different services?

I suppose if they don't have what you're looking for you might feel that way. Not knowing the kind of music you like I can't comment beyond that. I do know that they have a lot of the more obscure jazz stuff I like, and many things from obscure bands otherwise only on Band Camp, so for that, and the sound quality, I like them.

 

[gvl]

Can you explain this to the slow here?

To get best SQ the player needs to be able to talk to the sound hardware directly, ASIO, Wasapi and Kernel Streaming are the ways to do it on Windows. Spotify can do none of those and it relies on the Windows default audio device for playback which routes audio through the system mixer and more often than not the signal will be resampled and changed, so you don't get bit-accurate stream to your DAC in a general case. In theory if you set the sampling rate that matches your material and disable effects/system sounds on your device it "should" allow for bit-accurate playback but in my experiments sound through ASIO/Wasapi always provided better SQ. The purists will argue that given Spotify is compressed audio to begin with it doesn't matter, but the fact of the matter is it does with Spotify Premium at 320kbps.

JRiver has a special virtual sound driver called the WDM driver (disabled by default, there is a checkbox for it in settings), after you install it you need to make it the default system audio device and set the sampling rate/bit-depth to match your source (16/44.1 for Spotify). This driver will then send the audio stream to JRiver that will in turn route it through its engine out to the currently selected audio device. Now, I'm still trying to find more information, but given the WDM driver itself installs as the default audio device it should be subject to the same problems in Windows (resampling and such), but somehow the SQ is noticeably better when using it with JRiver.

This is the audio path when playing Spotify (or any other streaming service client that can't talk to the h/w directly), naturally JRiver needs to be running:
Spotify App->WDM Driver (set as the default playback device/16bit/44.1kHz)->JRiver engine (DSP, etc.)->WASAPI/ASIO/KernelStreaming->Your DAC

More details here:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Output_Modes
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/WDM_Driver

 

[Alobar]

Thanks gvl, is there a way to confirm that it is playing through JRiver? I suppose I could use DSP studio to hear if it is having an effect.

 

[gvl]

Thanks gvl, is there a way to confirm that it is playing through JRiver? I suppose I could use DSP studio to hear if it is having an effect.

Yes, you can use DSP and such to confirm it audibly. JRiver will indicate it is playing an IPC/Live stream. Apparently some users are experiencing clicks and stuttering, but I had no issues on 3 machines I tried it on (W7).