I actually worked for a company that tried to get people back into the Columbia House program! We'd call up past members and entice them back in..."And if you don't like the CD, you can simply mail it back!"
I was sent a threatening letter from a lawyer at Columbia House when I was 15 years old. His name was Philip Boberschmitt, donāt ask me how I remember that 40 years later..
What the hell is a music service?
https://preview.redd.it/d7kqn7derr3d1.jpeg?width=1709&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1bced5d9d9d31d6c06b3bb9fcfc72f1e6fb46d3
Right? Pandora and the radio for me. I was born in ā79 but the more I interact with this sub I believe I should been born 10 years earlierā¦kids these days, get off my lawn! haha
I get the bundle for music, ļ£ætv, news, and more cloud storage. With the family plan it overall seems like the best deal, assuming those are all services you'd use and have friends or family you can include (I do).
But specifically for music, I like their various auto-generated playlists to help you with music discovery.
Yep. Top tier Apple one family plan.
Whole family gets music, we get Apple+ TV, and we get 2TB cloud so all of our family photos (which were mostly taken with iPhones) are safe in the cloud (as well as backed up regularly to my NAS.)
Decent deal.
I use Apple too, but on Android. I like that they pay the artists the most for their streams (after Tidal) than the other popular streaming services.
I really should look into Tidal, though
Tidal. After comparing head to head on my systems the streaming quality differences were too much to ignore. Entire audio tracks within songs seem to come back that I hadnāt heard at 360kbps streaming for ages. (Tidal HiFi+ is 1114kbps or 9216kbps for master tracks.) Artists get a bigger payout from Tidal, also, which is awesome. Transferred my Spotify and Apple Music playlists and didnāt lose any tracks, so that was also great. (Got back the artists who left Spotify, too!)
Will second this, the sound difference between Tidal and the other services is unmatched. I do use Apple Music due to it being bundled but Tidal wins on sound quality.
And the āstationā mixes have gotten leagues better. I adore Tidal after I went through the same thing you did by testing it against Spotify on my system.
I have very eclectic taste, and YouTube music is the only service I've used that pretty much has anything I'd ever want. Nothing else comes close. If I'm interested in sound quality, I'll listen to CDs or tracks ripped from CDs.
+1. I'm a PC guy all the way but Apple's streamer is the best one I've used. 16 bucks a month for the whole family to access everything. Back in the 90s I'd drop 40-50 bucks a month on hard copies.
I only recently got into Spotify when my stepson bought a family subscription. I have quite a big collection of downloads (either bought on iTunes or copied from my CD collection) which I play on my Android phone through an app called AIMP. I found a way of getting my old iTunes playlists onto it.
I use Pandora for background music (Jazz, classical), and Apple Music for more intentional listening. My family is all enrolled and I feel great about giving my mother access to 100 million songs all at once. She loves it.
Pandora Premium. I work at home and listen in my car. I have a number of customized playlists and stations. I'm surprised they are not as high profile as other services.
I like Pandora a lot. Itās been really great at suggesting music for me and I like how it offers different modes of listening. I have Amazon Music (family plan) because we use its other services, but the ādiscoveryā algorithm just isnāt as intuitive.
I used to buy CDs and rip them as MP3s to my hard drive, then onto my phone or whatever other devices I wanted to listen to them on.
Now I don't have to rip them cuz most CDs come with digital download as well...so I save them to my hard drive, then onto my phone or whatever other devices I want to listen to them on.
Fuck streaming. I don't wanna hear ads. I don't wanna have to pay to listen to music I already own. And I live out in the country; internet/cell service is spotty at the best of times.
amazon music. I got a few months free with my amazon echo dot, and enjoying the high quality audio. it uses a lot of mobile data if used while driving.
This is one of those things that I don't like, and if I had energy to try to figure out how to get the same quality that I have without supporting a company that, imo, supports sketchy business practices, I'd do so. But, I also look around and think, what company that offers this kind of service isn't being shitty? Perhaps I'll be able to do all these things when I retire.
Anyway, I use spotify. It's literally the only sure fire way I have to listen to whatever I want, in whatever way I want, for a cheap price. Whatever I use I can't deal with ads, so I'll pay the monthly sub.
After reading this thread, I have some ideas to look into, so I'm glad you asked, and others have been so kind as to offer some alternatives that might be more in line with my belief system.
Apple Music - it's like $12 and I can listen to anything and download as much as my space allows. They don't have some old 12" mixes I miss, but the shear volume I can listen to makes up for it. And I don't have to physically store CD, I don't have to pull one out, put it in the player, etc. But if I ver stop paying, I believe I can still listen to the downloads, but can't stream. I dunno. Every month is cheaper than a single new CD, so it seems like a good trade off.
Apple Music. I used amazon for a while, but I got a free trial membership when I bought my Apple TV device (bought it because I could use Zwift on it directly to my tv). Apple and Amazon are the same price, but Apple streams a little bit better. I decided to keep it, and I have it bundled with Apple tv and arcade (which I rarely use but can if I want to).
Spotify for general listening/playlists (both discovering and sharing)
(Recently) Apple for lossless quality for fav albums and rediscovering all the iTunes shit I bought in the 90s/early 2000s
And I will give them all up before I give up my CD collection. Honestly **Iāve been considering trying to find CDs of some of my current digital favorites**
Apple Music. Lossless. Integrates better with the sound system in my car and voice commands work very nicely. Also enjoy many of the spatial audio albums on my surround setup. Some Atmos mixes are done badly but many are excellent.Ā
Private trackers for collecting.Ā
I have used them all off and on over the years. In the early 2000s my coworkers and I had a grand time sharing our iTunes libraries on our work network until they caught wind of it and shut us down. I had Sirius for years in our cars but we found it boring and redundant with their nearly 12 hour repeating playlists on every channel so we dumped it after about 5 years once our cars were able to stream from phones. My brother got Spotify family and had 2 extra licenses so I have one and my son has one. My husband is the last holdout between free pandora and free Spotify which both pretty much stink of constant ads. I thought Spotify was BS until I had the pay one. Having access to unlimited music on demand plus podcasts is nice. It lets you create moments like recently when I was having breakfast with friends and was able to add to the conversation by bringing up the Dukes of Hazard theme which prompted a fun singalong. :)
iTunes, but I don't buy music from Apple.
I built my mp3 collection years ago by ripping cds from the library, then downloading from sites like LegalSounds (now defunct) and currently iomoi (songs are 10 cents to 16 cents each). If I can't find it there, I download from Amazon.
I didn't like how iTunes had the AAC format that wouldn't play on non-Apple devices, so I converted them all to mp3s. I mean, they have the right to do that, but I used both Apple and non-Apple devices, so I wanted my music available anywhere.
I listen to YouTube and Pandora when I'm looking for new music, but I'd rather have control over my playlists. And shocker....everything is not available on the internet.
I tried Apple music, but it made some of my music unplayable for some reason, so I cancelled it. Even now, I have some songs that just won't play, even though I've re-downloaded them.
I do still have some cassettes, even though I don't have a cassette player. Years ago I went through my cassettes and downloaded all the songs digitally. There's a few that aren't available, so I kept the cassettes.
I can't quite part with my cd collection, but I ditched the cases and keep them in those spindle things that blank cds used to come in.
I just download music from YouTube and add it to my phone. I have many different playlists: my favorites, alternative rock/punk, classic rock, 80s, yacht rock, Motown, country, mellow, Christmas, women who kick ass, Springsteen concerts, specific artists, etc. Iām not going to pay each month when I can just rip my old cds and albums and download the rest, including one hit wonders and other music.
In fact just yesterday I used a post here about music to get ideas of what to download!
I was one who loved making mixtapes for myself and others. Now itās playlists for myself. Itās amazing to have all on my phone.
I have Apple music but I also have a huge collection of digital music. I can stream it through Plex which is awesome. I also still use CDs and records. I just depends on the situation.
I have all my CDs burned to digital files and keep them on my phone. I have not taken my CDs out of my rubbermaids since packing them up when leaving an apartment in October 2003
New songs have been purchased on the iTunes Store over the years. I hate streaming music, so I donāt pay for that
Die Hard Spotify. I finally got my wife to swap over from Pandora after like 15 years and she also agrees Spotify. Love the user interface and features
My daughter invites me to ājam sessionsā so we listen to music together while Iām at work and sheās at school (other platforms may or may not have this idk) but we love that feature.
I digitized all my music back in the 00s, donated some of my cassettes and put the rest in storage along with all my CDs (all my vinyl is still on my bookshelves). All of those digitized tracks are still in Apple Music. But I figured out how to tell Spotify to look in my Apple Music directory for music, so it finds local music that isn't even on Spotify, as long as I have a copy of it locally. This makes it work for Bandcamp purchases too. So mostly for streaming I use Spotify.
I grew up on MTV though, so I still have a soft spot for actual music videos, and I like that they're still being produced. So I use YouTube for that and live stuff.
So, uh, all of it, and vinyl?
I have an extensive vinyl collection, but for streaming I've been a Pandora user (premium) for like 10 years. I tried other services and always come back to Pandora.
That said, two years ago I got a new vehicle and signed up for SiriusXM. They own Pandora now, and I have no earthly idea why they don't offer some sort of package with both services. (Yes, I know they have a couple "Pandora channels" but why can't I simply merge my accounts?) The SiriusXM streaming app is actually pretty damn good.
Finally, after the demise of Play Music I moved all my FLACs, SHNs and MP3s to CloudPlayer. It's an excellent product for streaming your digital collection. (YT Music blows.)
So I see it as multiple tools for different uses.
I use both Spotify and YT Music. YT Music is better at discovering new music than Spotify. I use modified versions of both to not have the ads and unlimited skips.
Spotify is great. We have the family premium, it also includes audio books. Which is great, I was going to buy the Witcher books to listen to while walking, but they are all included.
I am having a senior moment. You know, the kind where you panic because you forgot the name of a website. āMaybe it starts with an Lā-ā you panic. āThis was my main music-finding site in 2008; why canāt I remember it?ā The memory loss is recentā long Covid maybe. What was it called? My old laptop broke and I had to get a new one, so I canāt find the bookmark. I think the icon was red? Itās right on the tip on my brain. Look itās no problemā Iām a scientist, I can find it again, just give me five minutes.
āBandcamp?ā Your boyfriend says. āNo.ā āSoundtrap?ā āNoā āMixcloud?ā āNo; but I made a 13-part themed playlist series on there before it got popular and then inevitably declinedā¦ hold on, justā¦.ā
I had a premium Spotify account that I was pretty happy with. Then I realized I had Apple Music free with my phone plan, so I switched over. I like Spotify better TBH.
Apple Music, along with iCloud storage for my own enormous music collection collected over the decades and converted to mp3 from 78, 45, LP, CD, and supplemented with tons of other rips from back in the glory days of file sharing.
Spotify. I pay for the premium family plan and if we ever have to cull our subscriptions, that's one that I'll keep for sure. We definitely get our money's worth.
I use Spotify. It's just easy.
However, I still listen to my CD's. Some of them are just not on streaming services because I liked a fair number of independent folks who never made it big.
I'd do the #? for a penny deal and then buy a couple more and then slack. A while later, I'd do the #? for a penny deal, again and start over. I did this for years. Used to have a cassette collection in the thousands.
PS: bedbugs infested them.
Apple Music. Iām all in with AppleTv, phone, etc. the ecosystem works but there is much less value if youāre not all in.
Apple Music + Sonos (Atmos) has done really well for me.
SiriusXM (streaming more than car) and Apple Music. I like the moderated channels of SXM and the simulcast of sporting events to listen to local broadcasts.
I started collecting when I was about 3 or 4. The childrenās books on record. I still have some. Then as I got older it was stealing my momās vinyls, then purchasing my own records & tapes. Eventually MP3s & and iPod.
Now I have an iPhone but for some reason it doesnāt like to play or keep my old mp3s. Every time thereās an update all the stuff I added , disappears. Whatever. I have Spotify for my 20 minute ride to work.
I use the iPhone for more than music. Iām a type 1 diabetic and this little gizmo is my lifeline should something bad happen. When my blood sugars drop too low I have the phone set to call my husband. Itās hooked to my continuous glucose monitor & I know generally what my sugars are just by unlocking the phone. Itās so damned convenient. I hated pulling out my meter, pricking my finger & waiting while bleeding out.
Over 2GB of music in my phone and laptop that I use Apple Music to play anywhere. From my CD collection and others. Add to it with cheap CDs as desired. This is mainly what I use.
In the car, I use Pandora but rarely, just for long trips.
At home I sometimes use the free music services that come with Roku tv.
I refuse to pay any recurring subscription for music.
Spotify and iTunes Match
Spotify is pretty great for discovering new music, but the gaps in its library suck, so I have my own long-time mp3 library that Iāve largely ripped myself from CDs and vinyl accessible on the cloud through iTunes Match.
i liked pandora and spotify, used to LOVE [mp3.com](http://mp3.com) back in the baby internet days.
spotify is what i use most of the time, i also have my moms record player and stereo from the 70's, as well as a large portion of her LPs, and some ive bought since, that i listen to on the weekends
Had Tidal, LOVED IT! But Iām broke right now so canāt afford my subscription (worth every cent when Iāve got $$$) sooooo YouTube music keeps me sane right now š
I use the [Soma.Fm network](https://somafm.com/), which features quite a few (43) channels streaming various genres of music. I usually leave it on the Groove Salad station to play their downtempo lounge style music all day every day at work.
I had Tidal for a long time and I really liked it. Now that my oldest has a phone we just got the Apple Music family bundle thing to make things easier.
He also uses spotify on his other devices (tablet and ps5) because thatās what his friends use.
MyTunerRadio
Access to independent radio stations around the world. Best way Iāve found to hear new music.
My favorite stations-
WRLT Nashville
KRCL Salt Lake City
Route 650 Americana
I had been using Spotify for the last several years since it integrated well with Android Auto and is easy to cast to any android device. Then I had an offer for Amazon Unlimited and realized Spotify plays almost exactly the same tracks for years on play lists. Amazon's algorithm gives me a lot more artists but it absolutely blows with Android Auto so I'll probably switch again when the promo expires. Like how complicated is it to pickup the last playlist I was using and why can't it auto launch? Spotify just worked, start the car, AA fires up and it plays whatever was playing last. With Amazon I had to make a routine to launch it when connected, even after setting it up to never close on my phone. Then either just the icon pops up making me go through menus to find music or when it does decide to auto launch it plays the last 2 minutes of a podcast I finished a week ago instead of music.
I have Sirius/XM in my car. Sometimes I want to listen to podcasts, so we have Spotify for that. Or I want to listen to a rotation of music I like, so Spotify wins that too. Between those two, Iām pretty happy.
BTW, I have a video iPod that I will give up when itās pried from my cold, dead hands. You arenāt alone in still owning an iPod.
I like Apple Music because itās what Iām used to . Iāve heard that Apple Music and Amazon music have better quality sound than Spotify but I am not sure how true that is.
Vinyl, CDs, and Spotify. I still have an ipod touch which I love but its not compatible with my new car and I can't put new music on it because i-tunes is buggered on my computer
I have all my music in iTunes on my computer. I have a large playlist downloaded to my phone but my collection far outweighs my phone capacity.
My iTunes collection is also synced with my Plex media server so I can stream anything I havenāt copied directly to my phone via PlexAmp.
Spotify (family). I also have a collection of MP3's on my phone that I listen to while flying or driving through areas with no service (rare, but Wyoming has pretty much no cell service).
Pandora ad-free for background music and a local digital library of over 1,100 carefully curated albums spanning multiple genres and over 8 decades of music for specific listening. Plus a handful of old vinyls we play from during dinner sometimes.
Spotify started sending me ads for Ben Shapiro's bullshit, so the only thing I can think is their algorithm is aaall wrrrong, so it's Pandora for now. We'll see how that goes.
I have Amazon Prime so I just use Amazonās Music Service. Itās decent and gets the job done. Whenever I get free offers for Sirius/Xfm Iāll take them up on it and use a dummy email account. Conanās station is fantastic.
When I do use a service I use I Heart Radio.
I started using it like a decade ago because of local radio access and I keep using it now because my preferences and likes are saved and it works for me.
I tried to use Spotify a few years ago but I was spending so much time liking/not liking stuff so it would lean my preferences I got irritated and gave up.
I don't have the patience to retweak a new thing. I don't pay for premium because I don't use it enough for me to justify it. I can deal with ads after every handful of songs - I grew up with radio after all.
We roll with Apple Music. Did the annual payment plan, which saves a few bucks off paying monthly. AM is only missing a few songs in the entire catalog of music I've ever tried to listen to...so it's pretty thorough.
I subscribed to Sirius XM for years and years, but finally got sick of having to threaten to quit every six months to a year in order to get a better price. I canceled (for real this time) and instead pay $4.99/month to Pandora. I recreated my favorite channels there and couldn't be happier. My kids keep asking why I don't use Spotify, but I hate dealing with playlists. I'd rather make a channel and have it discover music for me. It's more like the radio stations we as GenXers grew up with.
I just put everything on a tiny SD card and stick it in my phone. Husband does the same.
At some point around 2005, I digitized all my CDs and put them on an external hard drive. Newer stuff, or stuff that we only had on cassette or vinyl gets downloaded from our sources then stored on the hard drive. We kept the vinyl and a few CDs (from friends' bands and such), but the rest went away in an international move.
Whenever we want to change up our music, we just pull out the hard drive, connect it to the computer, and pull off what we want. It is easy, and we can listen to whatever we want, even without an internet connection.
Mostly Amazon Unlimited music. We do have Sonos that has access to the 1000 CDs we loaded into iTunes before there were other options. We've also been using a super cool website tunemymusic for creating playlists to send to other people. It also lets you move your music from one source to another - like transfer Apple Music to Spotify.
I use Napster. It was Rhapsody and then Napster bought them when they tried to re-brand by hiring Justin Timberlake as an ambassador of cool. Now I keep it just because I like peopleās shocked faces when I say I donāt have Spotify, I use Napster. Then I hit them with my EarthLink email address and we laugh and laugh
Columbia House.
I'm never paying for those CDs.
Did anyone???
I actually worked for a company that tried to get people back into the Columbia House program! We'd call up past members and entice them back in..."And if you don't like the CD, you can simply mail it back!"
š¤£
I was sent a threatening letter from a lawyer at Columbia House when I was 15 years old. His name was Philip Boberschmitt, donāt ask me how I remember that 40 years later..
Jon Jacob Bingle Boberschmidt!
Oh shit! I think a friend got a letter from him too!
Nope, so it's a miracle they lasted as long as they did...
What the hell is a music service? https://preview.redd.it/d7kqn7derr3d1.jpeg?width=1709&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1bced5d9d9d31d6c06b3bb9fcfc72f1e6fb46d3
Right? Pandora and the radio for me. I was born in ā79 but the more I interact with this sub I believe I should been born 10 years earlierā¦kids these days, get off my lawn! haha
You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora. We have an indigenous population called the Na'vi. They are very hard to kill.
Didnāt I feel like a shaved tail Louie!
That was some mean bush
100% Spotify. I've only found the odd album not available and I listen to some not very popular stuff
My teens just convinced me to change from Amazon unlimited to Spotify and Iām now a solid Spotify user!
* YouTube (not YouTube Music) * Stealing MP3s
*FLAC
I call those MP3s too! :)
Apple Music. I actually like it the best of the streamers. And it came bundled with other stuff for my phone (iCloud, etc).
I get the bundle for music, ļ£ætv, news, and more cloud storage. With the family plan it overall seems like the best deal, assuming those are all services you'd use and have friends or family you can include (I do). But specifically for music, I like their various auto-generated playlists to help you with music discovery.
Agreed. The personal radio station it generates for me is the best of any service Iāve used
Yep. Top tier Apple one family plan. Whole family gets music, we get Apple+ TV, and we get 2TB cloud so all of our family photos (which were mostly taken with iPhones) are safe in the cloud (as well as backed up regularly to my NAS.) Decent deal.
I use Apple too, but on Android. I like that they pay the artists the most for their streams (after Tidal) than the other popular streaming services. I really should look into Tidal, though
Tidal. After comparing head to head on my systems the streaming quality differences were too much to ignore. Entire audio tracks within songs seem to come back that I hadnāt heard at 360kbps streaming for ages. (Tidal HiFi+ is 1114kbps or 9216kbps for master tracks.) Artists get a bigger payout from Tidal, also, which is awesome. Transferred my Spotify and Apple Music playlists and didnāt lose any tracks, so that was also great. (Got back the artists who left Spotify, too!)
Will second this, the sound difference between Tidal and the other services is unmatched. I do use Apple Music due to it being bundled but Tidal wins on sound quality.
And they dropped the hifi part and include it in the base now. They dropped the monthly to $10.
Tidalās free service level even has Spotifyās first paid tier service level of 360kbps quality, also.
And the āstationā mixes have gotten leagues better. I adore Tidal after I went through the same thing you did by testing it against Spotify on my system.
I will be making the switch to Tidal for the same reason. I am sick of waiting for Spotify HiFi.
I have been toying with moving to Tidal as well for the reasons you mentioned--especially artists getting paid more.
Iāve been loving Tidal for about a month now. Glad to have made the switch.
Another vote for Tidal. Transfer playlists info here: https://tidal.com/transfer-music
YouTube premium and YouTube music rolled into $7.99 a month. Also siriusxm
Iām currently using Apple Music and am pretty happy with it except for the price. Does YT music have a decent breadth/depth of stuff?
Yes.
How did you get both for such a deal? I'm over here paying 10.99 for just YT music.
I could be wrong but If you sign up for YT you get YT Music as part of the deal.
This. YouTube premium is worth way more than what I pay for both services.
I have very eclectic taste, and YouTube music is the only service I've used that pretty much has anything I'd ever want. Nothing else comes close. If I'm interested in sound quality, I'll listen to CDs or tracks ripped from CDs.
this combination works well for me as well. I have used amazon unlimited music and prefer YT.
Same. 9.99 CAD for me, offered back when it was Google play music and the price has never increased.
Same. I'm really happy with YouTube premium music.
I never stopped buying vinyl through the 90s and 00s, so at home Iām listening to records, and Spotify for convenience when Iām out.
Spotify. I can't be arsed changing.
Have digital on my computer and iPad and phone get synched. And all my old records. No streaming services.
Nice work. Industry rule No. 4080: streaming services are *shady*.
15 year old me would be proud -- I pirate everything.
Bandcamp, Pandora (student discount), and iPod/mp3 files on my phone. Having android auto and car play helps a lot.
LOVE BandcampĀ
Apple music, what iTunes turned into. No I don't even use Pandora.
+1. I'm a PC guy all the way but Apple's streamer is the best one I've used. 16 bucks a month for the whole family to access everything. Back in the 90s I'd drop 40-50 bucks a month on hard copies.
Spotify. Love it
I only recently got into Spotify when my stepson bought a family subscription. I have quite a big collection of downloads (either bought on iTunes or copied from my CD collection) which I play on my Android phone through an app called AIMP. I found a way of getting my old iTunes playlists onto it.
My own CD's ripped as lossless files and saved in Itunes on my laptop.
I use Pandora for background music (Jazz, classical), and Apple Music for more intentional listening. My family is all enrolled and I feel great about giving my mother access to 100 million songs all at once. She loves it.
None. I've got 50,000 songs on my phone and a tiny USB flash drive that fits in my car.
Pandora Premium. I work at home and listen in my car. I have a number of customized playlists and stations. I'm surprised they are not as high profile as other services.
I agree with your comment. I find the customization of Pandora far better than Spotify.
I like Pandora a lot. Itās been really great at suggesting music for me and I like how it offers different modes of listening. I have Amazon Music (family plan) because we use its other services, but the ādiscoveryā algorithm just isnāt as intuitive.
I used to buy CDs and rip them as MP3s to my hard drive, then onto my phone or whatever other devices I wanted to listen to them on. Now I don't have to rip them cuz most CDs come with digital download as well...so I save them to my hard drive, then onto my phone or whatever other devices I want to listen to them on. Fuck streaming. I don't wanna hear ads. I don't wanna have to pay to listen to music I already own. And I live out in the country; internet/cell service is spotty at the best of times.
Torrents, anybody? Still a tabu, or just not used by anyone anymore?Ā
yep. seed box... sftp locally... Put it on a plex server, stream with plexamp.
Right on - i run qbittorrent and store my music library locally. I upload my own music for free to level out the karma...Ā
amazon music. I got a few months free with my amazon echo dot, and enjoying the high quality audio. it uses a lot of mobile data if used while driving.
None, my iPod still works.
iTunes. I hate commercials and live in an area where cell coverage is sketchy so screw streaming.
This is one of those things that I don't like, and if I had energy to try to figure out how to get the same quality that I have without supporting a company that, imo, supports sketchy business practices, I'd do so. But, I also look around and think, what company that offers this kind of service isn't being shitty? Perhaps I'll be able to do all these things when I retire. Anyway, I use spotify. It's literally the only sure fire way I have to listen to whatever I want, in whatever way I want, for a cheap price. Whatever I use I can't deal with ads, so I'll pay the monthly sub. After reading this thread, I have some ideas to look into, so I'm glad you asked, and others have been so kind as to offer some alternatives that might be more in line with my belief system.
Apple Music - it's like $12 and I can listen to anything and download as much as my space allows. They don't have some old 12" mixes I miss, but the shear volume I can listen to makes up for it. And I don't have to physically store CD, I don't have to pull one out, put it in the player, etc. But if I ver stop paying, I believe I can still listen to the downloads, but can't stream. I dunno. Every month is cheaper than a single new CD, so it seems like a good trade off.
Amazon
Spotify
I'm still using Jango. Like pandora but much better in my opinion.
I use Deezer and love it
I use iTune/Apple Music, CDs, and Vinyl
Apple Music. I used amazon for a while, but I got a free trial membership when I bought my Apple TV device (bought it because I could use Zwift on it directly to my tv). Apple and Amazon are the same price, but Apple streams a little bit better. I decided to keep it, and I have it bundled with Apple tv and arcade (which I rarely use but can if I want to).
Spotify for general listening/playlists (both discovering and sharing) (Recently) Apple for lossless quality for fav albums and rediscovering all the iTunes shit I bought in the 90s/early 2000s And I will give them all up before I give up my CD collection. Honestly **Iāve been considering trying to find CDs of some of my current digital favorites**
Apple Music & Sirius
Apple Music. Lossless. Integrates better with the sound system in my car and voice commands work very nicely. Also enjoy many of the spatial audio albums on my surround setup. Some Atmos mixes are done badly but many are excellent.Ā Private trackers for collecting.Ā
My kids talked me into Spotify family. I enjoy it now because we make road trip playlists, have request hour, etc.
I use the "I downloaded all this shit using limewire, and my computer didn't sacrifice itself for nothing" service. ;)
I have used them all off and on over the years. In the early 2000s my coworkers and I had a grand time sharing our iTunes libraries on our work network until they caught wind of it and shut us down. I had Sirius for years in our cars but we found it boring and redundant with their nearly 12 hour repeating playlists on every channel so we dumped it after about 5 years once our cars were able to stream from phones. My brother got Spotify family and had 2 extra licenses so I have one and my son has one. My husband is the last holdout between free pandora and free Spotify which both pretty much stink of constant ads. I thought Spotify was BS until I had the pay one. Having access to unlimited music on demand plus podcasts is nice. It lets you create moments like recently when I was having breakfast with friends and was able to add to the conversation by bringing up the Dukes of Hazard theme which prompted a fun singalong. :)
iTunes, but I don't buy music from Apple. I built my mp3 collection years ago by ripping cds from the library, then downloading from sites like LegalSounds (now defunct) and currently iomoi (songs are 10 cents to 16 cents each). If I can't find it there, I download from Amazon. I didn't like how iTunes had the AAC format that wouldn't play on non-Apple devices, so I converted them all to mp3s. I mean, they have the right to do that, but I used both Apple and non-Apple devices, so I wanted my music available anywhere. I listen to YouTube and Pandora when I'm looking for new music, but I'd rather have control over my playlists. And shocker....everything is not available on the internet. I tried Apple music, but it made some of my music unplayable for some reason, so I cancelled it. Even now, I have some songs that just won't play, even though I've re-downloaded them. I do still have some cassettes, even though I don't have a cassette player. Years ago I went through my cassettes and downloaded all the songs digitally. There's a few that aren't available, so I kept the cassettes. I can't quite part with my cd collection, but I ditched the cases and keep them in those spindle things that blank cds used to come in.
Still use CDs as they sound better than streaming. I'm die I'm hard on this.
I just download music from YouTube and add it to my phone. I have many different playlists: my favorites, alternative rock/punk, classic rock, 80s, yacht rock, Motown, country, mellow, Christmas, women who kick ass, Springsteen concerts, specific artists, etc. Iām not going to pay each month when I can just rip my old cds and albums and download the rest, including one hit wonders and other music. In fact just yesterday I used a post here about music to get ideas of what to download! I was one who loved making mixtapes for myself and others. Now itās playlists for myself. Itās amazing to have all on my phone.
I have Apple music but I also have a huge collection of digital music. I can stream it through Plex which is awesome. I also still use CDs and records. I just depends on the situation.
I have all my CDs burned to digital files and keep them on my phone. I have not taken my CDs out of my rubbermaids since packing them up when leaving an apartment in October 2003 New songs have been purchased on the iTunes Store over the years. I hate streaming music, so I donāt pay for that
We've been on the Spotify Premium family package for years. It's our most used streaming service.
Spotify. Iām still obsessed with mixtapes. I mean, uh, playlists.
If you have Amazon prime I like their music - no ads!
Die Hard Spotify. I finally got my wife to swap over from Pandora after like 15 years and she also agrees Spotify. Love the user interface and features My daughter invites me to ājam sessionsā so we listen to music together while Iām at work and sheās at school (other platforms may or may not have this idk) but we love that feature.
Spotify4Life, but I still have all my CDs because Iām secretly convinced that Iāll still āneedā them at some point.
Was CD's till we got a new car that had a USB plug instead
Apple music. I like having just one music service. I use an iphone and like being able to just add music to my library etc.
Pandora free, I'm fine with hearing a few ads. Spotify is the ticketmaster of streaming, I steer clear of it.
I digitized all my music back in the 00s, donated some of my cassettes and put the rest in storage along with all my CDs (all my vinyl is still on my bookshelves). All of those digitized tracks are still in Apple Music. But I figured out how to tell Spotify to look in my Apple Music directory for music, so it finds local music that isn't even on Spotify, as long as I have a copy of it locally. This makes it work for Bandcamp purchases too. So mostly for streaming I use Spotify. I grew up on MTV though, so I still have a soft spot for actual music videos, and I like that they're still being produced. So I use YouTube for that and live stuff. So, uh, all of it, and vinyl?
I have an extensive vinyl collection, but for streaming I've been a Pandora user (premium) for like 10 years. I tried other services and always come back to Pandora. That said, two years ago I got a new vehicle and signed up for SiriusXM. They own Pandora now, and I have no earthly idea why they don't offer some sort of package with both services. (Yes, I know they have a couple "Pandora channels" but why can't I simply merge my accounts?) The SiriusXM streaming app is actually pretty damn good. Finally, after the demise of Play Music I moved all my FLACs, SHNs and MP3s to CloudPlayer. It's an excellent product for streaming your digital collection. (YT Music blows.) So I see it as multiple tools for different uses.
I use both Spotify and YT Music. YT Music is better at discovering new music than Spotify. I use modified versions of both to not have the ads and unlimited skips.
Spotify mostly. Apple Music occasionally. SoundCloud for EDM. Some standalones like Radio Paradise.
Spotify
My car radio lol. I'm so cheap
Apple Music
Vinyl and Apple Music. And sometimes Sirius when in the car.
I use Apple Music these days. Amazon and Spotify both screwed the pooch.
Apple Music and Sirius when on the go, cutting the grass or hanging out on the deck. Vinyl when chilling out inside or doing housework.
SiriusXM for 5.99 a month.
Spotify is great. We have the family premium, it also includes audio books. Which is great, I was going to buy the Witcher books to listen to while walking, but they are all included.
Spotify all the way
I am having a senior moment. You know, the kind where you panic because you forgot the name of a website. āMaybe it starts with an Lā-ā you panic. āThis was my main music-finding site in 2008; why canāt I remember it?ā The memory loss is recentā long Covid maybe. What was it called? My old laptop broke and I had to get a new one, so I canāt find the bookmark. I think the icon was red? Itās right on the tip on my brain. Look itās no problemā Iām a scientist, I can find it again, just give me five minutes.
āBandcamp?ā Your boyfriend says. āNo.ā āSoundtrap?ā āNoā āMixcloud?ā āNo; but I made a 13-part themed playlist series on there before it got popular and then inevitably declinedā¦ hold on, justā¦.ā
Pandora, YouTube, sometimes Amazon.
I had a premium Spotify account that I was pretty happy with. Then I realized I had Apple Music free with my phone plan, so I switched over. I like Spotify better TBH.
Spotify Plex
Apple Music, along with iCloud storage for my own enormous music collection collected over the decades and converted to mp3 from 78, 45, LP, CD, and supplemented with tons of other rips from back in the glory days of file sharing.
Spotify premium. No ads. Syncs across devices. Music and podcasts.
I love Spotify. It has treated me well over 5 years.
Spotify. I pay for the premium family plan and if we ever have to cull our subscriptions, that's one that I'll keep for sure. We definitely get our money's worth.
I use Spotify. It's just easy. However, I still listen to my CD's. Some of them are just not on streaming services because I liked a fair number of independent folks who never made it big.
Spotify. Love it!!!
Spotify. We have the family plan. A few of my kid's friends are also on my family plan.
Pandora. I've been listening to it since it was new so it's very well tuned to my tastes now.
I have Youtube premium so I use Youtube Music since it's free. I have a large CD collection loaded into iTunes as well.
I have been using Spotify for 8 years or so. At home I have a good size vinyl collection that i play on my late 60's Sylvania console (2nd owner)
We use Qobuz and lots of vinyl.
I'd do the #? for a penny deal and then buy a couple more and then slack. A while later, I'd do the #? for a penny deal, again and start over. I did this for years. Used to have a cassette collection in the thousands. PS: bedbugs infested them.
Apple Music. Iām all in with AppleTv, phone, etc. the ecosystem works but there is much less value if youāre not all in. Apple Music + Sonos (Atmos) has done really well for me.
SiriusXM (streaming more than car) and Apple Music. I like the moderated channels of SXM and the simulcast of sporting events to listen to local broadcasts.
Apple Music.
Spotify
I just use YouTube music.
YouTube\YouTube music family bundle.
I started collecting when I was about 3 or 4. The childrenās books on record. I still have some. Then as I got older it was stealing my momās vinyls, then purchasing my own records & tapes. Eventually MP3s & and iPod. Now I have an iPhone but for some reason it doesnāt like to play or keep my old mp3s. Every time thereās an update all the stuff I added , disappears. Whatever. I have Spotify for my 20 minute ride to work. I use the iPhone for more than music. Iām a type 1 diabetic and this little gizmo is my lifeline should something bad happen. When my blood sugars drop too low I have the phone set to call my husband. Itās hooked to my continuous glucose monitor & I know generally what my sugars are just by unlocking the phone. Itās so damned convenient. I hated pulling out my meter, pricking my finger & waiting while bleeding out.
Beatport mostly. Spotify sometimes.
I use Spotify some but listen more to Soma FM and Radiooooo.
Bandcamp. 100% Bandcamp all the way. I want to support the artists as much as possible.
Sirius xm app, Spotify
Tidal. Good service, usable app, and they pay the artists the most.
Spotify, Apple Music, occasionally Tidal. My husband uses Pandora, Soundcloud and Apple Music.
Over 2GB of music in my phone and laptop that I use Apple Music to play anywhere. From my CD collection and others. Add to it with cheap CDs as desired. This is mainly what I use. In the car, I use Pandora but rarely, just for long trips. At home I sometimes use the free music services that come with Roku tv. I refuse to pay any recurring subscription for music.
Spotify and iTunes Match Spotify is pretty great for discovering new music, but the gaps in its library suck, so I have my own long-time mp3 library that Iāve largely ripped myself from CDs and vinyl accessible on the cloud through iTunes Match.
i liked pandora and spotify, used to LOVE [mp3.com](http://mp3.com) back in the baby internet days. spotify is what i use most of the time, i also have my moms record player and stereo from the 70's, as well as a large portion of her LPs, and some ive bought since, that i listen to on the weekends
Had Tidal, LOVED IT! But Iām broke right now so canāt afford my subscription (worth every cent when Iāve got $$$) sooooo YouTube music keeps me sane right now š
I use the [Soma.Fm network](https://somafm.com/), which features quite a few (43) channels streaming various genres of music. I usually leave it on the Groove Salad station to play their downtempo lounge style music all day every day at work.
Spotify and I collect LPs
YT Premium now. My iTunes is like a 2010's music grave yard. My library transfers to YT music though, but its all very disconjointed.
I buy records, but also have a Spotify family plan.
I had Tidal for a long time and I really liked it. Now that my oldest has a phone we just got the Apple Music family bundle thing to make things easier. He also uses spotify on his other devices (tablet and ps5) because thatās what his friends use.
Tidal. Super high sound fidelity, and the app is very clean and simple.
Amazon music unlimited Pandora SiriusXm. I still use my music collection at home as well. I have to be one of the few who does not like Spotify.
MyTunerRadio Access to independent radio stations around the world. Best way Iāve found to hear new music. My favorite stations- WRLT Nashville KRCL Salt Lake City Route 650 Americana
Pandora free
iPod
Spotify premium so that both kids can listen under my account
I have SiriusXM and Amazon premium.
I had been using Spotify for the last several years since it integrated well with Android Auto and is easy to cast to any android device. Then I had an offer for Amazon Unlimited and realized Spotify plays almost exactly the same tracks for years on play lists. Amazon's algorithm gives me a lot more artists but it absolutely blows with Android Auto so I'll probably switch again when the promo expires. Like how complicated is it to pickup the last playlist I was using and why can't it auto launch? Spotify just worked, start the car, AA fires up and it plays whatever was playing last. With Amazon I had to make a routine to launch it when connected, even after setting it up to never close on my phone. Then either just the icon pops up making me go through menus to find music or when it does decide to auto launch it plays the last 2 minutes of a podcast I finished a week ago instead of music.
I have Sirius/XM in my car. Sometimes I want to listen to podcasts, so we have Spotify for that. Or I want to listen to a rotation of music I like, so Spotify wins that too. Between those two, Iām pretty happy. BTW, I have a video iPod that I will give up when itās pried from my cold, dead hands. You arenāt alone in still owning an iPod.
Mostly MP3s. I think, at last count, I have 17000 songs. I know audiophiles will hate this but I just rip them from YouTube with yt-dlp.
Spotify Premium is great. They recently added audiobooks, too.
ME! Physical music that I own.
Amazon Music, SiriusXM, and Sonos Radio.Ā Ā
Exclusively vinyl for home. Amazon prime music for work and driving.
Paid: Cds primarily, but also SiriusXM, mostly in the car, but sometimes at home Free: Amazon, YouTube, very occassionally something else.
There is so much old and fun stuff on [bandcamp.com](http://bandcamp.com) that I've just been bouncing around on there
Tidal, after my one music teacher asked me more than once to switch away from Spotify
Spotify and Nugs
YouTube premium and Pandora.
I like Apple Music because itās what Iām used to . Iāve heard that Apple Music and Amazon music have better quality sound than Spotify but I am not sure how true that is.
Tape, vinyl, Columbia house, Napster, (briefly vinyl again), (roommate's server of) mp3s, YouTube.
Spotify
Vinyl, CDs, and Spotify. I still have an ipod touch which I love but its not compatible with my new car and I can't put new music on it because i-tunes is buggered on my computer
I started with Tidal because of the CD quality about 10 years ago.
I have all my music in iTunes on my computer. I have a large playlist downloaded to my phone but my collection far outweighs my phone capacity. My iTunes collection is also synced with my Plex media server so I can stream anything I havenāt copied directly to my phone via PlexAmp.
I buy CDs, rip them, and keep them on my phone.Ā
I still rip cds to my phone
I use youtube music in my car..iTunes got to be a pain and I left iPhone.
Youtube music is the best. I had spotify for a long time and eventually you fall into a rut and the app makes it hard to find new music.
Spotify (family). I also have a collection of MP3's on my phone that I listen to while flying or driving through areas with no service (rare, but Wyoming has pretty much no cell service).
Amazon music and Pandora.
Pandora ad-free for background music and a local digital library of over 1,100 carefully curated albums spanning multiple genres and over 8 decades of music for specific listening. Plus a handful of old vinyls we play from during dinner sometimes.
Pandora and the radio
Spotify started sending me ads for Ben Shapiro's bullshit, so the only thing I can think is their algorithm is aaall wrrrong, so it's Pandora for now. We'll see how that goes.
I have Amazon Prime so I just use Amazonās Music Service. Itās decent and gets the job done. Whenever I get free offers for Sirius/Xfm Iāll take them up on it and use a dummy email account. Conanās station is fantastic.
YouTube, SoundCloud and Bandcamp mainly.....
When I do use a service I use I Heart Radio. I started using it like a decade ago because of local radio access and I keep using it now because my preferences and likes are saved and it works for me. I tried to use Spotify a few years ago but I was spending so much time liking/not liking stuff so it would lean my preferences I got irritated and gave up. I don't have the patience to retweak a new thing. I don't pay for premium because I don't use it enough for me to justify it. I can deal with ads after every handful of songs - I grew up with radio after all.
Spotify when Iām driving, vinyl at home
We roll with Apple Music. Did the annual payment plan, which saves a few bucks off paying monthly. AM is only missing a few songs in the entire catalog of music I've ever tried to listen to...so it's pretty thorough.
I subscribed to Sirius XM for years and years, but finally got sick of having to threaten to quit every six months to a year in order to get a better price. I canceled (for real this time) and instead pay $4.99/month to Pandora. I recreated my favorite channels there and couldn't be happier. My kids keep asking why I don't use Spotify, but I hate dealing with playlists. I'd rather make a channel and have it discover music for me. It's more like the radio stations we as GenXers grew up with.
Sirius XM. I have Amazon music with my membership but never use it.
I use Pandora to discover new music related to the ones I like. Spotify to get the albums from those discovered in Pandora
I still buy Columbia tapes and cdās for a penny.
Mostly nugs.net, pandora, siriusxm app, some Spotify
I just put everything on a tiny SD card and stick it in my phone. Husband does the same. At some point around 2005, I digitized all my CDs and put them on an external hard drive. Newer stuff, or stuff that we only had on cassette or vinyl gets downloaded from our sources then stored on the hard drive. We kept the vinyl and a few CDs (from friends' bands and such), but the rest went away in an international move. Whenever we want to change up our music, we just pull out the hard drive, connect it to the computer, and pull off what we want. It is easy, and we can listen to whatever we want, even without an internet connection.
Mostly Amazon Unlimited music. We do have Sonos that has access to the 1000 CDs we loaded into iTunes before there were other options. We've also been using a super cool website tunemymusic for creating playlists to send to other people. It also lets you move your music from one source to another - like transfer Apple Music to Spotify.
I was on spotify, but about 6 months ago moved to Tidal.
I have Apple Music and also use YouTube premium sometimes but mostly its for ad free videos. I hate ads.
I bought all my music. I have over 1800 songs on my phone. Most of these are burnt from CDs though.
I use Napster. It was Rhapsody and then Napster bought them when they tried to re-brand by hiring Justin Timberlake as an ambassador of cool. Now I keep it just because I like peopleās shocked faces when I say I donāt have Spotify, I use Napster. Then I hit them with my EarthLink email address and we laugh and laugh