Which Music Streaming Service Should You Use?
There are tons of music streaming services you can choose from right now (including Amazon’s all-new HD service). They work on any smartphone you have, usually support streaming to speakers via Airplay or Google Cast, and usually come with premium plans that allow you to stream music on demand, ad-free and / or store it for offline listening. mode.
However, this is where the similarities usually end. Each service has its own characteristics, and figuring out which one is best for you can be a daunting task. To help, we’ve put together this quick explanation for each of the major music streaming services – Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Google Play / YouTube Music, Pandora, and Tidal – to help you find the one that best suits your taste and budget. …
Spotify (iOS, Android, Desktop)
Oh Spotify. It’s the golden child of music streaming – and for good reason. It works almost everywhere (Android, iOS, Mac, PC, Linux, and just about all web browsers), and it has almost all the music you can ask for. In addition to radio and playlist rotation, the service also offers a variety of not-so-musical content, including performances, poetry, and popular podcasts. The $ 9.99 Premium and $ 14.99 Family Plan are standard, with the latter providing additional features for up to six family members. Students with a valid school email address are eligible for a discount of just $ 4.99 per month.
Spotify is a solid music streamer and probably the best for users looking for a service that isn’t tied to third-party Apple, Amazon, or Google ecosystems while enjoying voice control and broad device support. It doesn’t have Jay-Z, though, so … yeah.
Apple Music (iOS, Android, desktop)
If you are an Apple fan or Android user looking to break the convention, try Apple Music. The on-demand streaming service works with any Apple device as well as Android. If you don’t want to pay for it, you can still listen to Beats 1 Radio for free. Playlists and radio stations are constantly being updated, and all the exclusive content Apple gets from various artists is a great way to find new jams (to show off to friends). Apple Music starts at $ 9.99 per month and offers a $ 14.99 family subscription for six members.
Unfortunately, Apple Music is not supported on voice assistant devices without Siri, and more speakers support services like Spotify or Pandora anyway. However, it’s the only music streaming service that will work with an Apple HomePod speaker (surprise!), Making Apple Music an even more attractive (and obvious) choice for Apple households.
Amazon Music Unlimited (iOS, Android, desktop)
Amazon Music comes in several flavors, and which option works best for you depends a lot on how much music you want to access, with what sound quality, and how much you’re willing to pay for it.
All Amazon Prime subscribers get access to the basic music streaming tier, which includes access to a selected number of tracks from the Amazon Music library. This is best for Prime members who don’t want to subscribe to another streaming service and are used to a relatively small library (it’s still thousands of songs).
If you decide that the baseline isn’t enough (or you’re not a Prime member), you can opt for the Unlimited plan, which increases songs to “tens of millions” and includes on-demand streaming, ad-free. Amazon Music Unlimited is available for $ 9.99 per month, or $ 7.99 if you’re already a Prime member. The family plan is also available for $ 14.99 per month.
There is also a new Amazon Music Unlimited HD plan that includes the library and benefits of the Unlimited plan, but with the addition of streaming and downloading lossless HD audio (24-bit rates between 44.1 and 192 kHz) for $ 14.99 a month or USD 12.99. from prime members. The only other streaming service that offers lossless HD audio is Tidal, but its HD level costs $ 19.99 a month, making Amazon the most affordable HD music streaming service right now. (Assuming you can even hear the difference when playing a track in HD and not HD.)
No matter which plan you choose, Amazon Music is available on a variety of devices, from iOS and Android devices that can store music offline, to their own Amazon Fire TV and Fire tablets. Connected speakers from companies such as Sonos and Polk are also supported. You can authorize up to 10 devices with one subscription.
Google Play Music / YouTube Music (iOS, Android, PC)
Google Play is a weird thing; Google has openly announced plans to migrate Google Play Music to another music subscription service, YouTube Music . For now, both services exist separately, but the Google Play subscription includes YouTube Music and YouTube Premium as part of the deal (for now).
Google has yet to come up with any specific timeline for the transition, so until it is absorbed by its Youtube counterparts, Google Play Music is still a viable option. The service allows you to add up to 50,000 of your own tunes to your account and stream them anywhere, in addition to purchasing and streaming nearly 40 million songs on the service itself. You can stream music from your select Google Music Library for free (with ads enabled) or access on-demand and ad-free access to everything on the service for $ 9.99 a month, or $ 14.99 for a family plan that supports up to six people. …
Play Music also handles your podcasts. Placing all of your audio content in one place is a definite boon if, like me, you hesitate like Newton’s cradle between songs and podcasts. Google will likely transfer this feature to its Google Podcasts app in the future as soon as YouTube Music takes over, but for now, you can have both podcasts and music in the same app.
Pandora Radio (iOS, Android, desktop)
Pandora is great for casual listening, such as when you need something in the background, when you wash dishes or write blog posts. Its ad-supported free option lets you create personalized radio stations, while the $ 4.99 option unlocks unlimited skips and repeats, better music, and offline radio listening. Spending $ 9.99 a month gives you streaming on demand, which puts Pandora on par with other streaming services.
You can listen to Pandora almost anywhere, from your smartphone to your smart TV. It’s compatible with voice assistants like Amazon Echo, Google Chrome, and a variety of connected speakers.
Pandora’s legacy as a radio streaming platform bites her ass when it comes to streaming on demand. Some of the songs in her catalog are licensed for streaming on demand, while others will only play when they hit Pandora radio, a difference that leaves us unsatisfied.
Tidal (iOS, Android, desktop)
Come for Jay Z and 40 million songs, stay and enjoy fan-pleasing perks like exclusive access to presale concert tickets and exclusive music videos. You can use Tidal on any smartphone or desktop computer, and it plays nicely with Sonos music streaming speakers. Tidal’s upcoming artists section, Tidal Rising, is all about new musicians looking to break into the mainstream, which is arguably the best and most intriguing aspect of any music streaming service. The service also boasts quality music depending on your subscription. The maximum streaming speed for AAC is 320kbps, while uncompressed lossless tracks are used for HiFi music.
Tidal still lacks refinement, as well as real support from various electronics manufacturers – for example, you can’t control the service from Amazon Echo or Google Home. And while $ 9.99 is a great price for Tidal’s premium service, $ 19.99 for its Hi-Fi plan feels overwhelming, especially when Amazon’s comparable HD service drops that price by $ 5 even if you’re not a Prime member. The $ 14.99 Tidal family plan (and the $ 29.99 HiFi version) supports five instead of six users (which seems to be the standard for competitors), although Tidal does offer student discounts ($ 4.99 for a premium, 9 , $ 99 for HiFi) and military plans ($ 5.99 for premium, $ 11.99 for HiFi).
This post has been updated on 09/17/2019 with new information on all the latest streaming service offerings.