[Freefallr4545]

right on, spotify used to have some floyd.. now its just floyd+ish

 

[gidgiddonihah]

I hate to revive a dead thread but its better than starting a new one...
 
I have a Spotify Premium account and loved it until I got my Dragonfly DAC/amp for Christmas.  Though they claim 'extreme' quality on 99.9% of their songs I find that this no to be the case; quality varies too widely to be true.  I have played around with MOG for a few minutes and the interface is frustrating compared to the simple layout of Spotify. Was curious if anyone compared them to each other or Rdio recently as all reliable threads/review are pretty old.
 
Also having technical problems with both MOG and Spotfiy not buffering/loading right.  My connection runs over 24 Mbps so who knows.
 
(Edit) After signing up for a second account because apparently I can't push my current free MOG account up to a full 7 day trial.  They would rather me create a new account with another email on my phone.  They also claimed when I created my original account that I would be doing a full trial but neither the desktop or Android app wouldn't work because I needed a primo account. So I set it up through the Android app for a 7 day trial, burning yet another email account.  I now fully appreciate how cool the Spotify app is. The MOG app is ugly, clunky and confusing and the web player can't seem to hold a buffer with Chrome.  BUT it sounds a whole heck of a lot better in a lot of cases.  In the more popular tracks its more or less equal with a small nod toward MOG.  I may try Rdio and update tomorrow...  If no one replies I may end up creating a new thread with my thoughts.

 

[Freefallr4545]

Quote:

I hate to revive a dead thread but its better than starting a new one...
 
I have a Spotify Premium account and loved it until I got my Dragonfly DAC/amp for Christmas.  Though they claim 'extreme' quality on 99.9% of their songs I find that this no to be the case; quality varies too widely to be true.  I have played around with MOG for a few minutes and the interface is frustrating compared to the simple layout of Spotify. Was curious if anyone compared them to each other or Rdio recently as all reliable threads/review are pretty old.
 
Also having technical problems with both MOG and Spotfiy not buffering/loading right.  My connection runs over 24 Mbps so who knows.
 
(Edit) After signing up for a second account because apparently I can't push my current free MOG account up to a full 7 day trial.  They would rather me create a new account with another email on my phone.  They also claimed when I created my original account that I would be doing a full trial but neither the desktop or Android app wouldn't work because I needed a primo account. So I set it up through the Android app for a 7 day trial, burning yet another email account.  I now fully appreciate how cool the Spotify app is. The MOG app is ugly, clunky and confusing and the web player can't seem to hold a buffer with Chrome.  BUT it sounds a whole heck of a lot better in a lot of cases.  In the more popular tracks its more or less equal with a small nod toward MOG.  I may try Rdio and update tomorrow...  If no one replies I may end up creating a new thread with my thoughts.

Just got my first I touch and had been trying Spotify V MOG, (again) and I must say, MoG is the clear winner for me. The Itouch app for MOG is almost gapless, and the sound quality is Primo. I must agree that for the PC's spotify is seamless, but aain MOG sounds better

 

[sonitus mirus]

I've had both services for as long as they have been available in the US.  I go to MOG first, then Spotify.  Agree that the Spotify interface is more mature and user friendly compared to MOG.  But even though MOG can be somewhat clumsy to navigate, I prefer it overall because of the better music discovery with their radio.  
 
Sound quality is tough to choose between the two.  
 
Spotify streams Vorbis Q9 (~320 kbps) in "Extreme" quality and Q5 (~160 kbps) in high quality.  Spotify was confronted about only having a small portion of their library encoded at -q9, but that was well over a year ago and they have made vast upgrades to their library to get the highest quality streams made available.
 
MOG streams mp3 at 320 kbps or 256 kbps, and this is all dependent on how the record labels make their music library available to them.  I recall that a couple of larger labels are only encoded at 256 kbps.  
 
That said, I seem to prefer MOG for sound, but this opinion is not based on any legitimate testing that could withstand any scrutiny. I can't imagine that adding a DAC/amp would suddenly make either service sound terrible or otherwise inadequate.   I feel confident that a proper ABX test would show that few could tell the difference between the highest quality streams and a CD or lossless file.

 

[gidgiddonihah]

It made a huge difference because I was just running off my motherboard headphone jack and my SII and both sound terrible (it's what you get when the motherboard is the lowest priority when building a PC--not smart). When I hooked in the new DAC everything became much more transparent, including the quality of the track file.  I stumbled on several tracks in my library that I play quite a bit and were lower quality MP3s (around 192) instead of the FLAC versions.  Spotify isn't terrible per se.  Its just MOG sounds a lot better 

. I also read that Spotify is just upconverting the existing 'high' quality tracks into the 'extreme' format.  I'll do a blind test when I get home tonight.  Anyone tried Rdio?
 
(Edit) Rdio sounded poorly compressed on the two tracks I had time to listen to.  Both MOG and Spotify sounded fuller.  I'll update when I can.  
 
(Edit 2) I can't seem to stay away 

...  Rdio sounded bad because apparently it was scaling down due to the slow connection from my Ad-Hoc network from my phone.  Forgot to disable it when I got back in range of Wi-Fi.

 

[tinamou62]

I upgraded to premium as part of a free promotion...wow, what a difference. I think if you have good headphones and listen to spotify for the majority of your music, premium is a must. Otherwise, the headphones are simply underpowered, and you aren't getting the bang for your buck. ATH M50's here, and premium was a great 10 dollars spent per month. 

 

[SoundFreaq]

I use Spotify (premium) for most of my listening, and buy CDs or download hi-res of the music I love. 
 
I couldn't believe it, but there is absolutely a difference in hi-res vs 256k on the same material, blind test - to me. 320k is my usually preferred bit rate unless I love the album, then it's lossless. 

 

[Argax]

I don't have a problem with the sound quality of Spotify. Of course, I'm not going to complain either way since I'm getting to listen to just about anything I want for free without having to worry about making a court appearance.

 

[ILL-Audiophilac]

Spotify premium or Neutron MP are my go to players and I must say Neutron sounds better imo than PowerAmp

 

[Soundwave76]

I used to prefer FLAC or Apple Lossless as a matter of principle mostly. Then when I started using Spotify Premium, I did a small test -> I took a high quality 10025kbs song and encoded it to 32, 64, 128 and 320 kbs MP3 files. Everybody hears the difference with the 32kbs, but 64kbs was not that easy any more. 128kbs I couldn't tell a difference any more.
 
So I concluded that Spotify Premium is MORE THAN GOOD ENOUGH for me...

 

[Click]

Spotify Premium free for 60 days:
 
https://www.spotify.com/us/gilt/
 
Promotion ends in 11 days as of this post. Enjoy

 

[gidgiddonihah]

Spotify Premium free for 60 days:
 
https://www.spotify.com/us/gilt/
 
Promotion ends in 11 days as of this post. Enjoy

I quite liked Spotify but the Android app had way too many bugs for me to be paying them $10 a month with no progress for almost a year. Switched to Google Music All Access (Portify works wonders for your many playlists) and I like it a lot; but the fact there is no desktop application really is not much fun. Audio skips like a CD when the browser is pushed hard (loading complex pages) and I cannot get my laptop media keys to work right with it. Sound sounds similar - great for a streaming service - but I'll need to give it a proper listen in the next few days.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[sonitus mirus]

I actually bought a $300 Samsung Chromebook to use exclusively with Google Music All Access.  I am able to use any of the USB ports to connect to a DAC.  I carry this device with me to and from work so that I can use it either in my office or at home. It acts as a portable jukebox with millions of songs.  This is the best solution for me, and I have used Rhapsody, MOG, and Spotify each for several years, often at the same time.  

 

[dalb]

I've been using Spotify Premium since it was available in Australia. I also have quite an extensive FLAC collection. I can't hear a difference. I've tried, but with my equipment (not bad at all), 320 and lossless are indistinguishable and I believe a lot of the differences people 'hear' are placebo.

 

[money4me247]

  I've been using Spotify Premium since it was available in Australia. I also have quite an extensive FLAC collection. I can't hear a difference. I've tried, but with my equipment (not bad at all), 320 and lossless are indistinguishable and I believe a lot of the differences people 'hear' are placebo.

true that. I've tried blind testing against 320kbps & I personally could not tell the difference as well.
 
though there are some tracks in spotify are not 320kbps. even mog which advertises that their whole collection is in 320kbps has a lot of tracks at a lower bitrate.