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Post by MartinT on Jan 5, 2020 12:05:11 GMT
I also think CD suits your musical tastes, Mike. New releases on streaming only are less likely to interest you than me.
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 5, 2020 12:14:01 GMT
I'm still back filling my missing albums and still discovering new to me artists and music from may years ago
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Post by MartinT on Jan 4, 2023 12:09:58 GMT
Some interesting statistics for 2022. Streaming leads by a surprising margin.
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 4, 2023 16:57:36 GMT
That's, er a lot
Just as well I'm very slowly heading in that direction
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 17, 2023 11:28:57 GMT
Spotty to collapse
A very good watch
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Post by MartinT on Jan 17, 2023 12:52:57 GMT
Clickbait.
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 17, 2023 15:56:08 GMT
I found it interesting
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Post by julesd68 on Jan 17, 2023 16:26:13 GMT
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Post by MartinT on Jan 17, 2023 17:26:16 GMT
Qobuz:
Source - Wikipedia
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 17, 2023 21:21:19 GMT
Spotify Is Still Losing Money. Should Investors Be Concerned?"What the future may hold I believe there are two scenarios that Spotify could go through over the next couple of years. Looking optimistically, if gross margin starts to finally expand (management says it will happen in 2023), then Spotify could do well over the next decade. At its current market capitalization of $16 billion and with around $12 billion in overall revenue, the stock could trade at a cheap price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of around 10 based on its current market cap within a few years if net margin reaches 10%. More pessimistically, if the promotional marketplace and podcast advertising do not scale to a much larger size, then Spotify will struggle to expand its gross margin, and likely its underlying net profit margin as well. This would be bad news for the stock. Coming back to the article title, yes, I do think Spotify investors should be concerned about the company losing money and the lack of margin expansion. If this doesn't get fixed over the next few years as management says it will, then Spotify might not be a worthwhile investment to have in your portfolio. Qobuz is a private company and does not appear to publish accounts
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Post by julesd68 on Jan 17, 2023 22:28:31 GMT
Indeed, I don't think Spotify is collapsing anytime soon.
Nobody has a crystal ball into long-term.
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Post by ajski2fly on Jan 18, 2023 11:47:56 GMT
Some of us mix and will carry on doing the same Others use one exclusively. Starting from scratch with no music collection what do you do as albums you love or want are not on all platforms .... ? CD gives me the best mix today. Before that it was exclusively LP. Spotify used to have huge gaps on a vast amount of music I wanted to listen to so I gave up. Still missing a lot, dramatically improved though Then there's the 'collection' of your LPs and CDs Will they go up or down in value in years to come ? Maybe even cassettes will increase in value as they become rarer Do you want to devote space to physical media ? Looking at albums you like you can find large variations in price for physical media. Spotty and others have some / most of what you like. YouTube seems a better bet. Free, but currently lacking the quality Spotty can deliver What next for us all ? Hello Mike, I and an audiophile friend I am with for a few days saw your post and discussed it. I have given it some thought and also have asked myself similar questions over recent months. I think there are several issues that need to be considered, which I will outline below: - What music medium and level of sound quality is an individual used to, up to date, CD, Vinyl, Tape, and do they expect at least the same in SQ from streaming?
- What is an acceptable level of Sound Quality from streaming?
- Is the individual going to move to just streaming or will they be supplementing existing music media (CD, Vinyl, Tape)?
- What level of cost is an individual prepared to spend on equipment to get the SQ they want?
- What level of cost for a streaming service and support software is an individual prepared to spend?
- Do you want to access digital radio stations?
So if you think each of those 5 basic questions through, if the starting point is SQ at least equivalent to CD, Vinyl, Tape replay then a reasonable level of spend may be required to achieve that with digital streaming and be of reliable SQ, IMHO. If the person is going to use streaming as the prime source and requires good SQ then a reasonable spend will likely be required. If streaming is to be supplemental to existing music media, then the question answer here is streaming to be for just casual listening and not serious, and if so a simple cheap solution may be suitable. But if the listener will find lesser SQ than say CD or Vinyl level then that may be a compromise too far. The same questions can be applied to Streaming Service IMO. My findings are thus:- Spotify is a good platform but I am not convinced by its so called Premium service, I believe quite often this is OGG and is lossless, and I find it questionable that you cannot determine the bit rate/frequency of what you are currently playing in Spotify(or maybe I have not found out how yet). So if high SQ is not a pre-requisite the Spotify may fit the bill for some. YouTube streaming I consider much that same as Spotify at present. TIDAL I used initially as I wanted a higher SQ but as MQA became more prevalent on it and I compared with Qobuz it was not for me, although I know some love it. Qobuz as a streaming service floats my boat in terms of SQ with a premium subscription and I quite like its native app layout. If you want to stream music tracks/albums only then any of the above will easily fit the bill depending on SQ level you want. But if you want digital radio stations then applications like ROON, Volumio or Audirvana support that as well, alternatively some Streamers have that built into them already. From a kit point of view I think you can get pretty good sound quality from not very expensive equipment, say sub £500, and as long as you use a streaming service that meets your SQ expectations you should be happy. I now used a Raspberry Pi 2(B+) with HifiBerry Digi+ Pro spdif board into a DAC(on my Marantz CDP), and power it with a £70 linear PSU. This gives very good results, certainly for my occasional streaming and is more than adequate. I use Volumio(£5.99/mnth) and Qobuz(£11.99/mnth) at present, but really could just use the Qobuz app and save £72 a year. I try to keep a check with reality in terms of streaming and costs. If I was going to go purely be Streaming I would likely invest £1-2k on kit, possibly more and aim for the best SQ I could get, but bear in mind the rest of my system is good enough to support that. So what I am saying is spending a large amount on a streamer/DAC and plugging it into mediocre or average amp and speakers if not really VFM, it would be like spending thousands on a Turntable and CD player and using it with a low end amp and speakers, you are not likely to get great results. Conversely I find and my friend find it difficult to understand why some have high end gear and stream, yet balk at paying for a premium hi-res service, if you don't then SQ will be compromised IMO, its that old adage of put rubbish in and you will get rubbish out. At the end of the day it digital horses for different courses and what makes your ears happy.
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 18, 2023 13:44:01 GMT
Thanks I'm on the move. Currently CD 90%, streaming 10% That will probably reverse given time Stopped buying CDs a couple of months back, filling in with streaming occasionally
Streaming quality needs to be as good as CD, eventually There has never been a rush and still the same
Budget Have spent £475 on a Bluesound streamer and recently added a Zero Zone PSU for the Router More to come
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Post by petea on Jan 18, 2023 18:35:32 GMT
Another factor one should consider is how the artist gets rewarded. I still have a lot of physical media (mainly LP and CD) and still buy it and, wherever possible, I buy directly from the artist or their publisher. I do also buy some S/H LPs to fill gaps in collections though. When I first looked at streaming services I chose Tidal as at the time they paid the best royalties to the artist (next was Deezer I think). I still have a Tidal account, but prefer the sound quality of Qobuz and I understand their payment model is similar to what Tidal was.
When I find something I like I will usually buy files either directly from the artist (often via Bandcamp or the publisher) or, if they are not available, then from either HighResAudio in Berlin or via Qobuz Sublime (and then fix the scrambled metadata!). I will quite often buy a physical version (usually LP) at the same time if I really like the music as in Germany I only play files / stream whereas in the UK I use LP, CD and files / streaming.
Whenever I get to see an artist live I will always buy any CDs and LPs they are selling.
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Post by ajski2fly on Jan 18, 2023 18:46:51 GMT
Thanks I'm on the move. Currently CD 90%, streaming 10% That will probably reverse given time Stopped buying CDs a couple of months back, filling in with streaming occasionally Streaming quality needs to be as good as CD, eventually There has never been a rush and still the same Budget Have spent £475 on a Bluesound streamer and recently added a Zero Zone PSU for the Router More to come Hi Mike I hope my ramblings helped a bit. From what I have read the Bluesound node with a good amp and speakers combo should give a good result. If you find you like streaming and want to improve to a very good level of SQ without spending a fortune, then I would consider a simple but good streamer RPi/Hifiberry or Allo spdif card and feed into either a Topping DX DAC or if you want super SQ go for a RME ADI2 DAC FS, my understanding of the RME DAC is that you can spend thousands more and not better it, its the solution at present I would go for if I got into streaming more. Others may have other examples.
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 18, 2023 19:25:31 GMT
Thanks I'm on the move. Currently CD 90%, streaming 10% That will probably reverse given time Stopped buying CDs a couple of months back, filling in with streaming occasionally Streaming quality needs to be as good as CD, eventually There has never been a rush and still the same Budget Have spent £475 on a Bluesound streamer and recently added a Zero Zone PSU for the Router More to come Hi Mike I hope my ramblings helped a bit. From what I have read the Bluesound node with a good amp and speakers combo should give a good result. If you find you like streaming and want to improve to a very good level of SQ without spending a fortune, then I would consider a simple but good streamer RPi/Hifiberry or Allo spdif card and feed into either a Topping DX DAC or if you want super SQ go for a RME ADI2 DAC FS, my understanding of the RME DAC is that you can spend thousands more and not better it, its the solution at present I would go for if I got into streaming more. Others may have other examples. Thanks Adrian My TAD D1000 is doing a very fine job playing CDs, (90% of what I currently listen to,) DAC and Pre into a TAD M2500 The Bluesound is my 2nd move into this area from a Pi with Volumio and Beresford
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Post by ajski2fly on Jan 19, 2023 17:12:13 GMT
Hi Mike I hope my ramblings helped a bit. From what I have read the Bluesound node with a good amp and speakers combo should give a good result. If you find you like streaming and want to improve to a very good level of SQ without spending a fortune, then I would consider a simple but good streamer RPi/Hifiberry or Allo spdif card and feed into either a Topping DX DAC or if you want super SQ go for a RME ADI2 DAC FS, my understanding of the RME DAC is that you can spend thousands more and not better it, its the solution at present I would go for if I got into streaming more. Others may have other examples. Thanks Adrian My TAD D1000 is doing a very fine job playing CDs, (90% of what I currently listen to,) DAC and Pre into a TAD M2500 The Bluesound is my 2nd move into this area from a Pi with Volumio and Beresford Mike, if you have still got it hang onto the RPi and SPDIF card, if you decide you want to go for more SQ then it is a good beast to use for streaming a feed to a high quality DAC. The Hifiberyy Digi+ Pro I have found is very good, alternatively Allo Digione Signature. Are you using the Bluesound standalone or are you using it with the Beresford?
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Post by MikeMusic on Jan 19, 2023 17:20:45 GMT
Bluesound into the TAD
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Post by ajski2fly on Jan 19, 2023 17:29:00 GMT
Have you tried it with a DAC between the Bluesound and TAD?
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Post by MartinT on Jan 19, 2023 19:00:10 GMT
Mike is saying he uses it with the TAD DAC.
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