I'll toss my hat into the ring. After years and years of streaming, here's what I've learned:
If you are selective about what music you listen to, there is no replacement for having a locally-stored music library. Period. Artists get added to and removed from a streaming services' library constantly. If you build playlists like I do, you're constantly losing tracks. Everybody's done this too, so it's not a Spotify or Qobuz-specific problem.
Really wish I could call Amazon the crown champ for streaming, but they have issues with bitrate reporting on just about every device that uses their app. Until they get that fixed, I can't include it in the top.
That makes Qobuz, despite its limited library, the winner in terms of pure sound quality. Their library leaves some to be desired, depending on what you listen to (and that's been previously discussed), but there are no MQA pitfalls and what you listen to is the same master as the track you can buy from Qobuz direct. I highly recommend going with the Sublime+ tier if you have it in your head that you may want to buy music along with streaming it since that tier gets you discounted pricing on Hi-Res albums and it's not too uncommon to grab new releases for $6-7 in full 24/96 or higher.
Alternatively, Bandcamp's great if you prefer the indie scene (even electronic music). Quality is a step down in comparison to the lossless streamers, but the library is positively massive. There are some artists I have only found on Bandcamp as well. You can also rest easy knowing the artists get a pretty substantial cut of purchases made there. Bandcamp's app has come a long way since inception and I think it's much easier to discover new items now.
But Spotify is still the reigning champ for discovery. They've been around long enough to build a good social aspect to the streaming service, its playlist management is probably my favorite across the board, and quality's plenty fine for mobile use. Perhaps YT Music will take over if they can work on the curation aspect a bit, though.
If you are selective about what music you listen to, there is no replacement for having a locally-stored music library. Period. Artists get added to and removed from a streaming services' library constantly. If you build playlists like I do, you're constantly losing tracks. Everybody's done this too, so it's not a Spotify or Qobuz-specific problem.
Really wish I could call Amazon the crown champ for streaming, but they have issues with bitrate reporting on just about every device that uses their app. Until they get that fixed, I can't include it in the top.
That makes Qobuz, despite its limited library, the winner in terms of pure sound quality. Their library leaves some to be desired, depending on what you listen to (and that's been previously discussed), but there are no MQA pitfalls and what you listen to is the same master as the track you can buy from Qobuz direct. I highly recommend going with the Sublime+ tier if you have it in your head that you may want to buy music along with streaming it since that tier gets you discounted pricing on Hi-Res albums and it's not too uncommon to grab new releases for $6-7 in full 24/96 or higher.
Alternatively, Bandcamp's great if you prefer the indie scene (even electronic music). Quality is a step down in comparison to the lossless streamers, but the library is positively massive. There are some artists I have only found on Bandcamp as well. You can also rest easy knowing the artists get a pretty substantial cut of purchases made there. Bandcamp's app has come a long way since inception and I think it's much easier to discover new items now.
But Spotify is still the reigning champ for discovery. They've been around long enough to build a good social aspect to the streaming service, its playlist management is probably my favorite across the board, and quality's plenty fine for mobile use. Perhaps YT Music will take over if they can work on the curation aspect a bit, though.
