[fufula]

Not sure if this is public knowledge or not, but I just found out WiMP streams lossless music. The service is currently only available in some European countries, namely Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden. The HiFi offer is double the price of their Premium (320kbps) subscription.
 
It largely depends on what kind of music you listen to, so it's best to see for yourself, but from my point of view, the library is a little lacking compared to Spotify. From what I've checked (tested this with some obscure electronica producers as well as some more popular yet not exactly top of the charts music), their entire catalog seems to be lossless; this is actually a nice surprise after finding out that Deezer has a mixed catalog of 128kbps and 320kbps and serves them both to Premium users with HQ streaming enabled.
 
WiMP is availble on Win, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Sonos, Squeezebox. Unlike Deezer and Rdio, they actually have a stand-alone client for Windows, which is nice, but it needs a lot of work to compete with Spotify. It might be a subjective matter, but I think it's ugly, lacks stylistic coherence and is awkward to navigate. As for non-subjective things, a lot of its elements could use a little more anti-aliasing, including the fonts, which are just hard to read; it also doesn't fill the entire screen in full screen mode.
 
Having said all that I think it's really awesome someone's finally offering FLAC streaming and I hope more streaming services follow suit.
 
http://wimpmusic.com/

 

[SilverEars]

Is ISPs in US raising a stink about the bandwidth usage, is that why we're not seeing this service in the US?  What high fedility(high bit rate higher than 320 such as FLAC or other lossless) streaming service are available in the USA?

 

[cel4145]

Is ISPs in US raising a strink about the bandwidth usage, is that why we're not seeing this service in the US?  

As opposed to streaming video, which uses a lot more bandwidth???

 

[Dawls]

I used Spotify before, after I got wimp I instantly canceled my Spotify sub   I don't really care if they don't have all the different music, 20+ million songs is enough for me!

 

[watsaname]

I don't know of many ISPs that have bandwidth caps, at least in SoCal. I don't have a cap and can download as much or as little as I want and I will be charged the same. Samething with my friend who has Cox Cable and he has a seedbox set up on his line.

 

[ianeith]

I've been using wimp for a few days now. I have been able to find almost every track for which I have searched. Additionally, the catalogue offering is sure to expand as time passes and the content ingestion process progresses. The sound quality is excellent and I see my spotify account gathering dust in the future.

 

[visanj]

I gave a try and I am really happy with the sound quality...far superior sound quality...I guess even tidal music should have similar sound quality as both are sister concerns

the only con I could see is, I am not able to download individual tracks, offline option is available either for the complete album or playlist. Are there any other work arounds?

 

[ianeith]

Only workaround I can see is creating separate play lists that include the tracks you want to have offline...
Also, make sure you have a large data plan if you aim to stream on the go; WIMP burns through data.

 

[m00ndancer]

You can always use a android based media player with an external DAC (I use HDMI to my receiver).
I have a 128GB microSD installed and store my favourites there. Only need go online every 30 days to verify them.
The DAC on my Denon 591 is ok for my use.