Streaming music service follow-up / rant

Thanks all for your feedback on my music streaming service thread. I decided to try Tidal first because I'd like the option to have hi-res songs. 
Well, I can officially say, Tidal is the suck! Not because of the file quality, not because of the song library, not because of the price but because you can't cancel them. 
I wasn't digging the user interface, and the clunky nature of doing what I wanted to do. I decided to cancel my subscription. 

That's when they became The Suck. 

It appears there is simply no way to cancel the sub. I tried to go to my account / manage subscriptions / cancel subscription because that makes sense. When I do that it tells me that I have an active subscription and that I need to sign in to iTunes  Why? I don't use iTunes, I didn't sign up through iTunes.  

So I sign in to iTunes and search around and can find no mention of Tidal anywhere. I do a google search and others are saying the exact thing! 

I go back to tidal.com and use the chat box. What a joke! It's not a chat, it's a way for them to force you to create a ticket. Ok, so I create a ticket. After creating the ticket the chat says "You'll be notified when someone responds to your ticket". At the same time, I get an e-mail with my ticket info. The e-mail says that they are busy, and they'll respond in 2-3 days, and I'll be notified. Ok, I wait.

A few days later I get another e-mail saying that since I haven't responded (to what?) they are canceling my ticket !!!!

I just want to cancel my subscription, but there is no way for me to do it on the website, and the ticket system doesn't garner a response. I was going to look into things a bit more and quite possibly go back to Tidal, I just wanted to try Spotify as well. 

Now, there's no way in Hell, Michigan I'm giving Tidal a dollar. If I can't get this cancelled before the billing cycle ends, I'll cancel my CC and get another one. 

Rant off.

I like Spotify though. More variety than I was getting with (the free version of) Pandora. 

Yikes, thanks for the heads up.   In other news, I'm pretty sure I read that Spotify is supposed to be offering a high-res version sometime fairly soon (for a fee of course).   I've got to say I'm pretty pleased with the sound quality of their standard version for what that's worth.

11GTCS said:

Yikes, thanks for the heads up.   In other news, I'm pretty sure I read that Spotify is supposed to be offering a high-res version sometime fairly soon (for a fee of course).   I've got to say I'm pretty pleased with the sound quality of their standard version for what that's worth.

A hi-res Spotify would be awesome. I like their interface the best. Currently testing out Amazon Music HD and am happy, but Spotify has a number of features I prefer.

The sound quality on Spotify is fine. It's 256kbps AAC for premium. Basically, a good quality MP3. In most situations, the file resolution will not be the limiting factor for audio quality. That will be background noise, car speakers, or your earbuds. It's high enough to sound decent, but low enough to stream on a cell network without worrying about chewing through your data.

What it's *not* for is sitting down and listening. If you put it on a decent stereo in your living room while you drink a beer and stare out a window, you'll notice the difference between MP3 and CD (or better) quality.

The hi-res stuff is really for audiophile folks, because it's becoming easier and easier to listen to audiophile quality music. Sound equipment is getting better and cheaper just like all other electronics. (Even audiophile stuff, I've discovered. Like, I just ordered a fancy subwoofer that costs $1000. The equivalent 20 years ago would have cost $1,400 before factoring in inflation, to not be as good.) The advantage of MP3 was how readily available and portable it was. That outweighed the loss in audio quality. But now, we can have that portability AND better than CD quality audio.

I want Hi-Res streaming for the music I want to sit and actively listen to, but I only want to do so ONCE, making it not worth $20+ for an LP or HD digital file.

In reply to 11GTCS :

Just looked Spotify HiFi up. It's not out yet, but will be later this year. Looks like it's only going to be CD quality. Definitely a HUGE jump up, but still not quite what I'd consider HiFi. It's smart though, because very few people will actually have sound systems capable of differentiating above CD quality.

https://www.whathifi.com/us/news/spotify-hi-fi-tier-finally-launching-to-offer-cd-quality-streaming

Beer Baron said:

In reply to 11GTCS :

It's smart though, because very few people will actually have sound systems capable of differentiating above CD quality.

https://www.whathifi.com/us/news/spotify-hi-fi-tier-finally-launching-to-offer-cd-quality-streaming

I agree, not many folks will really benefit from the quality. I'm one of those that have the equipment and ears to hear it. But, mosy of my listing is done while working. MP3 quality is fine then. 

In reply to Beer Baron :

There's still a few people left that can appreciate an actual made for listening to music system vs. something mostly for surround sound / background.   My tastes are not as high end as yours but I had a lot of exposure to high end equipment (a good friend was a complete high end geek in the 80's) and I can still hear the difference.   I have a decent set up in my WFH office / man cave, nothing special but still nice enough to appreciate a good recording.    The look on my (then) teenaged son's face when I set up my old Technics / Advent system in their "teen lounge" was priceless, I don't think he'd ever listened to anything played through speakers that were actually capable of moving some air.   I'll probably donate it to him when he finishes up with school and lands somewhere.

In reply to 11GTCS :

CD quality is very good. I say "only" CD quality realizing how good that actually is. Kinda like saying you "only" swapped an LS1 into a car, or you "only" installed Koni Yellow shocks.

Most people will be able to see the benefit of CD quality. Very few will have equipment to tell the difference of better than CD quality, and that step will be incremental compared to the jump from MP3/AAC to CD.

I'm just a bit bummed because I am one of those few with the equipment and proclivity. I only want one streaming service, and I like Spotify.

Beer Baron said:

In reply to 11GTCS :

CD quality is very good. I say "only" CD quality realizing how good that actually is. Kinda like saying you "only" swapped an LS1 into a car, or you "only" installed Koni Yellow shocks.

Most people will be able to see the benefit of CD quality. Very few will have equipment to tell the difference of better than CD quality, and that step will be incremental compared to the jump from MP3/AAC to CD.

I'm just a bit bummed because I am one of those few with the equipment and proclivity. I only want one streaming service, and I like Spotify.

Same here. I have Emotiva pre/pro pushing into a Magnepan 5.1 system with a home-built tapped horn subwoofer.  I truly enjoy listening to high res files, usually in a dim room with an adult beverage and my wife with me. 
Everything is right with the world at that time. 

In reply to DrBoost :

Maybe you can stop payment through your credit card carrier

In reply to Peabody :

I thought about that. This would be my first payment, so I'm not sure what name they'd be charging it through, tidal.com, youcantquitus.com lol

Give LiveXLive a shot, I give them $4 a month to get unlimited skips and no ads.  LiveXLive's algorithm for finding music I like works a lot better than Pandora's ever did for me.  Big plus is when you ban an artist or song, it you know, actually bans it, unlike Pandora.

LiveXLive used to be Slacker, they were bought and changed their name a couple years ago.

If you want DJs, that's an option you can turn on, they're usually pretty good.  They have guest DJ stations, other musicians, actors and what not playing their favorite songs or songs relevant to whatever show/movie they're in.

One of my favorite features is the Artist DNA, channels that play music that inspired or was inspired by some of your favorite artists.  I've found a lot of new music thanks to those stations.

DrBoost said:

Same here. I have Emotiva pre/pro pushing into a Magnepan 5.1 system with a home-built tapped horn subwoofer.  I truly enjoy listening to high res files, usually in a dim room with an adult beverage and my wife with me. 
Everything is right with the world at that time. 

Same here. At the moment, I am enjoying the vinyl experience. Either way, as long as its HiFi quality.

Wish I could persuade my wife to chill and listen to music with me more, but the dog is usually happy to curl up in my lap and listen. That's not too shabby either.

I'm working on getting her to join me listening to albums more. Took her record shopping a couple weeks back and she selected a couple live concert double LP's: Stevie Knicks, and Heart with the London Philharmonic. That Heart album is fan-freaking-tastic. I think she mostly misses going to concerts.

In reply to Beer Baron :

I've resisted vinyl, only because I know how deep that rabbit hole can go, and my propensity for finding more rabbits.  That Heard album sounds interesting. 
Since you can enjoy high-res files, there's a site that has downloadable files in various lossless formats for free. Now, you won't find everything you're looking for, but I've been able to find some good stuff that I enjoy.  

www.the-archive.org

Beer Baron said:

In reply to 11GTCS :

CD quality is very good. I say "only" CD quality realizing how good that actually is. Kinda like saying you "only" swapped an LS1 into a car, or you "only" installed Koni Yellow shocks.

Most people will be able to see the benefit of CD quality. Very few will have equipment to tell the difference of better than CD quality, and that step will be incremental compared to the jump from MP3/AAC to CD.

I'm just a bit bummed because I am one of those few with the equipment and proclivity. I only want one streaming service, and I like Spotify.

I'll be honest in my listening experience (including doing some blind testing) I could not find hear a difference between CD quality and anything higher.

In reply to 93EXCivic :

What do you mean by anything higher?  SACD, or ogg / flac files?  

DrBoost said:

In reply to 93EXCivic :

What do you mean by anything higher?  SACD, or ogg / flac files?  

CD is 16bit/44.1khz. It's not uncommon to find 24 bit/96khz. There's upwards of 24bit/192khz, but that's just gratuitous.

FLAC is just a lossless compression format. It can be most any sampling rate.

93EXCivic said:

I'll be honest in my listening experience (including doing some blind testing) I could not find hear a difference between CD quality and anything higher.

Could still be equipment/setup. My dad sent me a nice quality HD recording of Miles Davis. It was nice, but didn't sound any better than CD quality. Later discovered in the settings for my DAC that the computer was only outputting at CD quality. Had to dig into settings to tell it to output at 24bit/96khz.

That is a feature I'm liking for Amazon Music HD. It tells you what the max file quality is, what your equipment's max capability is, and what quality it's playing at.

Only music streaming service I use is Bandcamp - although I usually just buy and download rather than actually streaming. They sell music DRM-free.

Having grown up in the vinyl era, and having put together a pretty solid system for playing LPs, I don't understand that fascination with it.

Sure, there are bad CD mixes of music originally issued in vinyl. But except for those particular failures, I don't find a difference in sound quality.  Give me the smaller, more robust CD format any day.

Beer Baron said:

93EXCivic said:

I'll be honest in my listening experience (including doing some blind testing) I could not find hear a difference between CD quality and anything higher.

Could still be equipment/setup. My dad sent me a nice quality HD recording of Miles Davis. It was nice, but didn't sound any better than CD quality. Later discovered in the settings for my DAC that the computer was only outputting at CD quality. Had to dig into settings to tell it to output at 24bit/96khz

I doubt it was setup. I tried in on two headphone setups. One was Mr Speaker's Ether headphones with a Schitt Yggdrasil DAC and Mjolnir amp. The other was Grado PS1000e with a Woo Audio WES tube amp and some stupid high end DAC and power supply (probably like $20k worth of equipment).

We set it up where we couldn't see the computer screen and some switched the settings to see if we could hear the difference between different bit rate/ frequency and played the same recording multiple times.

The brain is incredible good at tricking us into hearing what we want to hear. IMO I have found a whole lot of the high-fi world is built on this. If we believe, that a super high end DAC/cables/etc sounds better it will which is why double-blind or at least blind testing is useful.

Duke said:

Having grown up in the vinyl era, and having put together a pretty solid system for playing LPs, I don't understand that fascination with it.

Sure, there are bad CD mixes of music originally issued in vinyl. But except for those particular failures, I don't find a difference in sound quality.  Give me the smaller, more robust CD format any day.

I do it pretty much entirely as a ritual to force myself to sit and do nothing. If I'm listening to digital music, I'll jump up and skip songs, pause them and come back to it, actively start thinking, "Oh! I'd enjoy [this song] next. I should search for that," etc.

With vinyl that's too much hassle. Forces me out of my habits of trying to anxiously control or fiddle with things and just sit and be in the moment.

It's not so much the quality of the LP itself. It's controlling my own behavior.

93EXCivic said:

I doubt it was setup. I tried in on two headphone setups. One was Mr Speaker's Ether headphones with a Schitt Yggdrasil DAC and Mjolnir amp. The other was Grado PS1000e with a Woo Audio WES tube amp and some stupid high end DAC and power supply (probably like $20k worth of equipment).

I didn't mean equipment. I meant it could have been not having the setting adjusted properly on the computer. Everything could be capable of 48bit/Bajillionty herz, but if the settings hidden inside the OS say, "Output to DAC at 16/44.1," that's all it's going to do.

The brain is incredible good at tricking us into hearing what we want to hear. IMO I have found a whole lot of the high-fi world is built on this. If we believe, that a super high end DAC/cables/etc sounds better it will which is why double-blind or at least blind testing is useful.

...but this is the more likely answer.

I feel like I'm telling a difference between CD and Ultra-HD tracks, but they're different tracks. It's more likely that a track that is available in Ultra-HD had more care into its mastering than one where CD is the top quality, and that's the real difference I'm noticing.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Well, I grew up in the vinyl LP era so I have a strong preference for the AOR format.  Even if it is just on as background streaming, I frequently listen to full albums rather than mixes.

In reply to Duke :

I'm in the weird "Oregon Trail" micro-generation that bridges the Gen-X/Millennial divide. I grew up mostly listening to CDs. So putting on an album, but it being easy to skip around tracks. Discovered MP3 my freshman year of college... right when Napster got big.

I've also considered buying a used CD player. You know, that *only* plays CD's. Then I won't be as tempted to get up and constantly fiddle with it.

Beer Baron said:

In reply to Duke :

I'm in the weird "Oregon Trail" micro-generation that bridges the Gen-X/Millennial divide. I grew up mostly listening to CDs. So putting on an album, but it being easy to skip around tracks. Discovered MP3 my freshman year of college... right when Napster got big.

I've also considered buying a used CD player. You know, that *only* plays CD's. Then I won't be as tempted to get up and constantly fiddle with it.

I'm also an Xenninial. And I've started digging vinyl for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

It forces me to sit down and just enjoy a full album instead of constantly skipping around with Spotify, or YouTube.