[Leslie Dorner]

A friend of mine told me about Spotify a couple of months ago back in 2012 and he said that he stopped buying music as a result. So, I created an account using my Facebook account and I signed up for Spotify premium service yesterday.
 
I was wondering if anyone here listens to Spotify on a regular basis. I think it's a pretty decent music streaming service with some nifty features like the ability to download and save music and stream it to multiple devices regardless of platform.
 
The 320 Kbps "high quality" feature is nice. Most of my music is 320 Kbps MP3s from Fraunhofer and a few Lame --preset-insane rips from CDs that I have. It's not loss less which may be a disadvantage for some people here.
 
The music library is pretty big. There's over 18 million songs and it is growing at a healthy pace. The radio feature is similar to Pandora and it is fun to listen to the radio.
 
I like the ability to integrate social media like Facebook and Last.FM with your friends. I also like the fact that I can import my entire music library and I can just use Spotify as my music player to listen to music whether it's on my portable hard drive or in their library.
 
Spotify makes it convenient to search and listen to music, but it's missing some features because it's still evolving. One missing feature is the ability to purchase individual albums or tracks in the format of your choice. Another missing feature is the ability to share music with friends and family members like peer to peer sharing. They also don't have family plans at discounted prices yet.
 
Just wondering if anyone else uses Spotify and what you think about it. I'm on the fence about paying annually for the service as I am a new member and I wanted to try it out on a monthly basis for a few months. It's addictive to listen to so much music for just $10 per month. If Apple were to add this feature to iTunes, then it would be a killer feature.

 

[StratocasterMan]

I subscribe to both Spotify and MOG. I don't know if you are in the service area for MOG, so I'm not sure if MOG is an option for you.
 
For desktop use only, MOG is available at best sound quality for $5 a month, so that is a steal. It's $10 a month if you want to use it on your phone.
 
MOG is the winner in terms of sound quality. Spotify is very very good, but not quite as good as MOG in terms of sound quality in my opinion and I have them both. I subscribe to both because the features and track availability aren't exactly the same.
 
I don't use either one for remote devices. My use is desktop only. Some people prefer the user interface, radio features, playlist features, remote device features etc. etc. of one over the other.
 
Even though I have both, I use MOG 90% of the time, because the sound quality is better. I'm not particularly interested in the social networking features or radio features.
 
Spotify is great and I'm a subscriber. However, it's not so great that I don't need MOG too, and MOG gets the nod 90% of the time because it sounds just a little better. 

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I use Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit GNU/Linux and Spotify has a beta preview of their client for Ubuntu. MOG does not support Linux so I can't really use them. When using Linux, I always have to check for compatibility and support. Spotify has over 18 million tracks.
 
It's basically similar. You have to pay $10 per month to download and stream to mobile devices with either service and for 320 Kbps quality.
 
I'm in the United States so Spotify works in my country. I have Witopia personal VPN pro so I can connect to almost any country worldwide and I can try out different products or services worldwide.
 
I listen to Spotify much more frequently now. I think that it's a great service that's well worth its low price. It has supplemented my already large private music library with a wider and deeper selection of music. I hardly find it difficult to search for specific artists or albums in almost all genres using Spotify. They have everything that I care to listen to daily.
 
The 320 Kbps quality is superb. It makes for an enjoyable high end hi-fi experience.
 
MOG allows friends to listen to music for free if you share albums or tracks with them. That seems to be its unique feature over Spotify.
 
I'm going to give Spotify another month to test it out. So far, I like what I'm listening to daily. I feel that I get an incredible value for my money since I love music so much.

 

[StratocasterMan]

Yeah, Spotify is great. It's unfortunate that you can't use MOG though, because it does sound better. They have a similar number of tracks. Although they are both supposed to be 320 Kbps, MOG clearly sounds better. If you do a search, you will find that many people here say the same thing.
 
I love Spotify and subscribe to it and use it too, but given the choice, I will listen to the same track on MOG before I listen to it on Spotify.

 

[StratocasterMan]

Actually, I'm not sure why you couldn't use MOG. Couldn't you just use the web player?

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I'd rather use a desktop client so that I can integrate it within Ubuntu Unity. If my web browser crashes, then I lose my music stream.

 

[xeizo]

I've used Spotify since it was closed beta some years ago and have no thought of leaving it, despite annoyances like certain songs/artists come and go and then come again. I've used the IOS-client, I use the Android-client, I use the Windows client but in Linux I use Clementine player with it's Spotify-plugin http://www.clementine-player.org/ since it is far more stable than Spotifys own Linux-client. And since it's integrated with ones own music collection plus all of the largest cloud services, and has a great search functionality.

Ubuntus own repository of Clementine doesn't support the Spotify-plugin because of licensing issues, but one can use Clementines dev-repository instead:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:me-davidsansome/clementine-dev
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clementine

Sound quality? With your local files it sounds as good as is physically possible using Linux and lossless files, the Spotify-plugin sounds surprisingly close but sound quality is of course not in the lossless league. One has to know that the rip-quality of Spotify-songs vary much, some are very good rips thankfully most progressive rock like I listen to but some mostly mainstream pop can be quite bad. But so are often the masters in that case. Anyway, it mostly sounds very good, and they main benefit of using Clementine is it's utterly stable

 

[Leslie Dorner]

Thanks. I added that Clementine Dev PPA and I am listening to Spotify in Clementine. It's not nearly as pretty as the Spotify app itself, but it gets the job done. I like Clementine a lot better than Banshee. It's a lot more features rich.
 
Spotify is growing on me. It's a lot of fun to discover a whole range of music every single day. I was listening to the new Lifehouse Almeria CD yesterday night and I totally rocked out! 320 Kbps sounds very very good to my ears. To my ears, it sound very near to CD quality. It sounds like FLAC, but there are slightly more artifacts present.
 
The Spotify Linux Beta preview client can be sketchy at times. I had problems accepting the user agreement license upon logging in using my Facebook credentials and it took a while before Spotify fixed the problem. It is not on par with their Microsoft Windows client. So far, they have not specified when they plan to give it official support. This is the thing that sucks about being a Linux user. I get short shifted by companies looking for my business. It sucks.
 
I'm having a lot of fun with the Clementine music player with Spotify plug-in. I think that I found my ideal FLOSS music player.

 

[Leslie Dorner]

I'm back to using the unofficial beta Spotify Linux desktop client again. I find that it has a much more useful and prettier user interface than the Clementine development version. I like the ability to follow people on Spotify. I also like the music recommendations and suggestions found on the Spotify Linux desktop client. It's slick and useful.
 
I think that I am going to pay for another month of Spotify Premium service at the end of this month to extend the amount of listening time that I can enjoy. I do enjoy Spotify tremendously! It's so much fun and it is so interesting to browse new music recommendations and it gets smarter about what I like to listen to.
 
I do miss the download music feature in the Linux desktop client. I see the Google Android client still has a download music feature. I know Spotify phased this feature out, but it's a total bummer for me. This means that I will have to continue to purchase and download high resolution FLAC and 320 Kbps MP3 files to build up my private music library. I currently have 14,725 320 Kbps MP3 songs. I expect to reach the big 15,000 song milestone by the end of this month with the way that I purchase and download music or CDs. I ordered a bunch of older Madonna albums at used prices from Amazon today. I expect that will give me an additional 120 320 Kbps MP3 songs to add to my music library.
 
Unfortunately, I can't really try out the competitors like MOG, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc. I can try out Last.FM and Rdio in Ubuntu 12.10 64 bit GNU/Linux. I'm thinking about taking a closer look at Rdio as I subscribe to Last.FM right now.
 
I have this insatiable appetite for more music. It's crazy. When I don't work, I listen to music all of the time. Or, I perform as a lead vocalist in my church choir twice per week.
 
I'm hoping to get the word out regarding Spotify. It's a very very good music streaming service. The sound quality is excellent. The depth and breadth of music selection is astonishing. The amount of music that I listen to on Spotify is almost limitless. I'm constantly listening to new music on Spotify. It's amazing!
 
Give it a free 30 day trial for their premium service. You'll get hooked immediately.

 

[swmtnbiker]

What's holding me back from buying Spotify Premium is DLNA support. Until they decide to implement this so I can stream to my Denon receiver from my PC, I'll stick with Rhapsody. This has been requested and requested for over a year. Come on Spotify, step up already!

 

[StratocasterMan]

Quote:

What's holding me back from buying Spotify Premium is DLNA support. Until they decide to implement this so I can stream to my Denon receiver from my PC, I'll stick with Rhapsody. This has been requested and requested for over a year. Come on Spotify, step up already!

 
Is it Spotify's desktop client that prevents you from using DLNA? I don't know much about DLNA, but MOG doesn't require a desktop client. It can be streamed via the web player in a browser and it sounds better than Spotify. I don't know if it might work with DLNA since it doesn't require anything except a browser...
 
I have both Spotify and MOG. Spotify sounds very good, but MOG definitely sounds better. I can easily hear the difference using headphones or speakers. MOG has a bigger soundstage and Spotify just sounds somewhat compressed by comparison.

 

[swmtnbiker]

Quote:

 
Is it Spotify's desktop client that prevents you from using DLNA? I don't know much about DLNA, but MOG doesn't require a desktop client. It can be streamed via the web player in a browser and it sounds better than Spotify. I don't know if it might work with DLNA since it doesn't require anything except a browser...
 
I have both Spotify and MOG. Spotify sounds very good, but MOG definitely sounds better. I can easily hear the difference using headphones or speakers. MOG has a bigger soundstage and Spotify just sounds somewhat compressed by comparison.

 
Yes, it's Spotify's desktop client that doesn't support DLNA, which is an industry-standard streaming protocol that's been around for quite a while:
 
http://www.dlna.org/
 
You either need something like this or a Spotify app on your AVR. My Denon only support Rhapsody, Pandora, and Napster. If Spotify added DLNA support to their desktop app, then you could stream from that app to any DLNA device.
 
I've never tried MOG but it also requires that the downstream hardware either supports it with a native app or with Airplay. My receiver does support Airplay, so maybe I'll give MOG a try. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[kingblind]

why don't you just use an airport express (about 65 bucks used) or build a little raspberry pi (35 bucks+ a usb audio adapter $10= 45 bucks)
 
http://lifehacker.com/5978594/turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-an-airplay-receiver-for-streaming-music-in-your-living-room

 

[Leslie Dorner]

Spotify has made me purchase and download more music lately. I've found so much more music to complete my private music library that it's been a fun way to explore new music or just to listen to the latest or older albums from my favorite artists. I'm listening to the Fray Scars & Stories now and I didn't even know they released this album back in 2011. I was listening to Beth Hart's My California earlier this morning and it's a terrific album.
 
I think that I'm going to purchase another month of Spotify premium at the end of this month. I found the Spotify app for my Motorola Droid Bionic running Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich and it's been a lot of fun exploring music on my Bionic while I am traveling on the road. All I have to do is bring my Etymotic ER-4PT and I'm good to go for the road. It's a minimalist portable rig that suits me well.
 
I was curious to learn what other music streaming services are compatible with Linux specifically Ubuntu? I know Last.FM is compatible and Rdio is another alternative. Rdio has an error when I try to log in using my Facebook credentials and I can't use their Linux desktop client at the moment. Bummer.
 
Spotify makes listening to music more interesting. I like following people that it recommends that I should follow and seeing what they listen to.
 
What have you been listening to lately using Spotify?

 

[StratocasterMan]

Lene Lovich – Stateless (...Plus)
 
City and Colour – Little Hell
 
Sketches Of Spain 50th Anniversary (Legacy Edition)
 
Connect.Ohm – 9980
 
Pixies – Death To The Pixies
 
Chuck Prophet – Temple Beautiful
 
Morphine – Cure For Pain
 
Leon Russell – Retrospective
 
Albert King – Live Wire/Blues Power
 
Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold