Ditch Streaming Services and Start Buying Music Again
Remember loyalty? Spotify doesn’t. The company’s previously announced update to its Spotify Connect platform is unfortunately discontinuing the streaming service on various speakers ostensibly advertised as devices connected to Spotify. Some of them (from companies like Onkyo and Denon) are very expensive Spotify-connected devices. What does this mean for you? Well, if you have a speaker that isn’t scheduled to receive any updates fixing the shutdown according to Verge , you’ll have to find a new way to get sound out of it. Instead of looking for a new streaming service that will eventually disappoint you, why not get rid of the middlemen and start using the music library that you actually own? Benefits such as uninterrupted music playback, increased portability, and the extended lifespan of the hardware you actually use justify the cost of multiple albums.
Your music library doesn’t care about licensing
Want to listen to Jay-Z’s latest album, 4:44 ? Would you like lemonade ? Well, you’re out of luck if you subscribe to any streaming service other than Tidal. Fans of Taylor Swift may remember when the beautiful dress owner removed her discography from Spotify.
This fragmentation preventing you from listening to the music promised to you by companies like Spotify is the most frustrating aspect of the music streaming landscape. To get (almost) every song you want to hear, you might be frustrated enough to subscribe to two subscription services and switch between them. Of course, if you buy music directly, it doesn’t matter what device, app or smartphone you have: you can still listen to your album.
Avoiding closed services prevents headaches
While most speakers affected by the Spotify update do have additional inputs that you can use to connect your phone or Google Cast device, that’s probably not why you bought it. If you spent the $ 5,000 offered on the B&O BeoSound 5 now not using Spotify, the deciding factor was probably its ability to stream music at the same time and do it without your smartphone.
Instead of depending on a particular streaming company and its support for your particular speaker, you can build a web-accessible library that works with just about any speaker that supports standards like DLNA used by various manufacturers for streaming content. You can easily create your own music (and movie) server at home using your network storage device and hard drive. Some routers with USB inputs also support iTunes media servers stored on connected external hard drives.
You can listen to music offline
One of the more annoying downsides of streaming music is the actual streaming part, which is useless if your commute involves subway tunnel sections without internet. This resulted in a few songs ending with a chorus or silence filling my headphones as I expected Jaden Smith’s gentle tones. Instead, keeping music in place means no interruptions, no matter your reception. Spotify and other music services have offline functionality and download songs to your smartphone, but only when explicitly instructed.
Or you can post them online
If you still want an easy way to stream music to devices that don’t support local file streaming, or if you’ve connected multiple Cast-enabled dongles to disabled speakers, you can subscribe to a music streaming service. which caters to those with their own libraries. Google Play Music lets you upload up to 50,000 songs to your personal music library, allowing you to listen to your songs using Google Play Music and cast them to Google Cast devices. You will have access to the entire streaming library in addition to purchased pirate songs. If you’re an Apple fan, you can use Apple AirPlay to stream your local music (or Apple Music service) from iTunes or your iOS device to AirPlay-compatible speakers or AirPlay receiver.
You don’t have to do everything at once
By all means, leave your streaming music service for now. After all, there is a lot of new music available, and you don’t have to spend money on every track you decide to listen to in the comfort of your home. But you can definitely save a few dollars by choosing the free ad-supported version and investing that money in buying new music. It won’t come cheap, and the $ 10 a month you’ll pay for streaming is mostly an album a month, but it’s worth it in the long run, especially when you know you’ll never have to replace your speaker at a cost of thousands of dollars. because some developer decided to kill its functionality with a software update.