[RRod]

  Why anyone that claims to love music would make a sacrifice to not have at least one of these services is a mystery to me.

 
Because some of us who love music are still backlogged on listening to CDs we've bought ^_^ But I agree for $100-ish a year, it's a good deal to have one service just to have options.

 

[sonitus mirus]

   
Because some of us who love music are still backlogged on listening to CDs we've bought ^_^ But I agree for $100-ish a year, it's a good deal to have one service just to have options.

 
I understand.  I always add the entire album even if I have only ever heard 1 track from it.  As a consequence, I have thousands of songs in my library that have never had a second of play time.  I generally just play music shuffling my entire library, so there is always a chance one of these new songs will be heard.  I do listen to full albums on occasion, and when I rip a new CD, I try and give it a full listen from beginning to end the first time I play it.  
 
I have purchased expensive, foreign, or rare CDs just for a single song that was not available online.  "Hey Grandma" from Moby Grape was one that I can recall from memory.  And I did make one giant song from side B of the Beatles "Abbey Road", as I don't always have access to a player that does gapless playback.  I've done this with some other albums/songs from artists like Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, and some classical music, too.  That is one thing that iTunes does right, gapless playback.

 

[perhapss]

A couple of interesting articles in the news today regarding both Apple music and iTunes.
Neither affect me personally

 but still interesting in implication:
 
 
https://torrentfreak.com/itunes-is-illegal-under-uk-copyright-law-150805/
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dr-dre-new-album-compton-apple_55c21e73e4b0d9b28f04eab6?utm_hp_ref=technology&kvcommref=mostpopular

 

[visanj]

I could notice slight quality difference between apple music and itunes music (purchased), not sure if its placebo effect
 
Any trained ears able to notice the difference?

 

[Soundizer]

May I please share this regarding a recent experiment. I listened to a Dire Straits Album (Brothers in Arms) on my Apple iPhone 6 Plus with the Creative E5 Soundblaster Dac/Amp on the ATH M50x headphones.


Compared:
1. Spotify Premium with Album downloaded. EQ levels off in the Spotify App.
2. Apple lossless version ripped from my CD. Played on Apple music App with EQ levels off.
3. Mastered for Apple iTunes Album on Apple iTunes store. I am in the UK. Played on Apple music App with EQ levels off.

I much prefer the Apple Lossless to Spotify Premium which makes sense and probably no surprise. Can confidently do a blind test to this for Dire Straits Album.
After a while the Spotify quality sounded a bit artificial with high treble and low end bass tuned up, some what fatiguing.
Inititially Spotify sounded more entertaining but then edgy and over engineered.

What I simly cannot explain is that I prefer the Mastered for iTunes Album the best.

Strangely ilogical, right?

PS. I have not tried Apple Music service yet, but will do next month. For the time being I assume that purchased music from Apple iTunes sounds better than Apple Music Service, otherwise people would be giving Apple Music Service higher ratings. If the Service matched the quality on iTunes surely it would be the best Quality Steaming Service?

These are only questions, not statements.

 

[tylerchris]

Compared:
1. Spotify Premium with Album downloaded. EQ levels off in the Spotify App.
2. Apple lossless version ripped from my CD. Played on Apple music App with EQ levels off.
3. Mastered for Apple iTunes Album on Apple iTunes store. I am in the UK. Played on Apple music App with EQ levels off.

I much prefer the Apple Lossless to Spotify Premium which makes sense and probably no surprise. Can confidently do a blind test to this for Dire Straits Album.
After a while the Spotify quality sounded a bit artificial with high treble and low end bass tuned up, some what fatiguing.
Inititially Spotify sounded more entertaining but then edgy and over engineered.

What I simly cannot explain is that I prefer the Mastered for iTunes Album the best.

Strangely ilogical, right?

PS. I have not tried Apple Music service yet, but will do next month. For the time being I assume that purchased music from Apple iTunes sounds better than Apple Music Service, otherwise people would be giving Apple Music Service higher ratings. If the Service matched the quality on iTunes surely it would be the best Quality Steaming Service?

These are only questions, not statements.

Just to confirm on the Spotify, you had Extreme for stream quality and sync quality p? (I think if downloading offline, only sync quality matters, but Extreme = 320kbps Ogg Vorbis).

Altho I have a lot of my music in Flac, a lot of my new music listening is on Spotify with Extreme quality enabled, and most of the time this sounds about as good on my HiFi-M8 + Ether C.

I think both Apple Music and iTunes should be both AAC 256kbps but it's possible having to stream Apple Music live might make for some slight differences. Particularly if the source is a different version / from a different master, although that would be strange assuming there's only one version available on iTunes for download for Apple Music to use a different version...

 

[Soundizer]

Hello and many thanks for your input. Yes i have Spotify Extreme selected and ofcourse is the Premium Service. Apologies as. I should have detailed it.

Try listening to the sample Dire Straits Album on iTunes, you can listed to about 60 seconds of each track as free samples.

 

[Evoked Response]

What I simly cannot explain is that I prefer the Mastered for iTunes Album the best.

Strangely ilogical, right?

I think the explanation may simply be that you prefer one master to the other.

 

[perhapss]

http://9to5mac.com/2016/01/08/iphone-7-wireless-headphones-beats/
 
"As has been previously rumored, sources confirm that the iPhone 7 will not include a standard headphone jack and will instead require headphones to connect via the Lightning connector or wirelessly over Bluetooth."
 

 
 
EDIT:
 
We will provide your music, your device and your headphones.
Because we know what`s best for you!
We have no problem eliminating competition and promoting the correct taste in style, sound and music.
You will, buy and love and buy and buy etc...

 

[migasson]

I'm gonna chime in on this.

I've resisted joining any streaming service, because I simply liked the old traditional method of going into a store and buying records.

As I'm heading overseas, semi permanently, I need to carry my tunes with me, and not hoard stuff prior. So, giving it try, and you know what, it's actually pretty good. Considering most of the time I'm on public transport, or working at home, on my iPad pro, doing conceptual sketches, or creating stuff on Adobe when I'm on my Mac, it all fits pretty well in my system of work and play. Even semi critical listening, it's still great.

As for questioning Apple's strategy, I think they've got it right for their target market. Most of the time they do. They aren't loaded with cash through making bad business decisions

 

[yay101]

As lovers of music I expected more discussion of the $ amounts handed on to the artist (well, label.) Apple is among the bottom rung for artist payments and about average on everything else.

 

[perhapss]

As lovers of music I expected more discussion of the $ amounts handed on to the artist (well, label.) Apple is among the bottom rung for artist payments and about average on everything else.

 
 
Great point IMO.

 

[tylerchris]

I don't know much about the economics behind commissions paid to artists via iTunes & streaming services vs traditional cd sales. But we should keep in mind that during the "mp3 revolution", and the popularity of p2p services like napster -> bittorrent, an entire generation has grown up believing that music should be / can be accessed for free.
 
Obviously this was an unsustainable business model, and the result would be less good music being created.
 
While iTunes and streaming services aren't perfect, they filled a need for a go-to storefront where music was "cheap enough" that people would start paying for it again. That's better than lots of people trying to download music for free. I do think iTunes stemmed the tide of massive losses that the traditional music industry was seeing from pirating / downloading, and got people buying music again. I agree that the next step is for the industry to evolve further to better pay artists and incentivize them to make great music... but I think that takes time.
 
I personally buy lots of music on HDTracks for hi-res, and use Spotify Premium for my more on-the-go music. I tried Apple Music during the free 3 month trial period, and while it does have a leg up on Spotify to the average consumer because of integration into the Music app, for me, I preferred keeping my owned music library separate from the streamed Apple Music songs. I also much prefer Spotify's playlists, which has had much longer time to evolve than Apple Music.

 

[sonitus mirus]

I used to have the formula for Google's service on a sticky note that has been lost.
 
Not sure if the information in this link is still accurate, or if it was even accurate to begin with.
 
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2014/02/21/favoritepays/

 

[Ansem]

Guys I would try this apple music.
Can someone tell me when will end the offer to try it for free for 3 months?