

There are some very good reasons to be deeply embedded in Spotify. Spotify has powerful music-discovery tools But anyone who’s not already deeply embedded in Spotify as a music streamer owes it to themselves to make the comparison. If you test out Spotify for yourself and don’t hear a difference, you can ignore my analysis. Every single person was able to identify the Spotify stream and thought it sounded worse. I then played a minute or so from the song in a blind test between Spotify and the other two. Just to check, I asked six friends and family to pick a favorite song until we landed on one that was CD-quality at Apple Music and Tidal. After a direct comparison between dozens of tracks on the various services, I was surprised at just how much worse Spotify’s streams sounded. While there’s a popular notion that “no one can hear the difference” between lossy and lossless audio, there’s a marked disparity between Spotify’s streaming quality and the CD-quality streams from its competition. If the Premium tier goes CD-quality at $9.99/month and they offer high-resolution options at $14.99, Spotify will have at least some claim to being competitive with the competition. If Spotify comes out with an upgraded HiFi tier at $14.99/month, the service will still be playing from behind. Apple and Amazon do it for a monthly price that’s equal to what Spotify charges now, and Tidal’s CD-quality tier also costs the same as Spotify. Tidal, Apple Music, Qobuz, and Amazon Music Unlimited all offer high-resolution streaming at bit rates much higher than the lossless CD rates that Spotify promises.

Spotify uses its incredibly deep store of data to create its outstanding Daily Mix playlists.
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Finally, streaming quality on the free tier is limited to just 160Kbps. Free users cannot play individual tracks on demand. You’ll get ads with your music and, if you want to listen to a particular album, you’ll only be able to play it on shuffle. Spotify offers a popular free tier that give access to the entire music catalog, but with significant restrictions. Users who qualify with SheerID are eligible for this subscription for up to four years. Spotify Student costs $4.99/month and comes with free subscriptions to Hulu’s ad-supported tier as well as Showtime. The $15.99/month Premium Family plan supports up to six people (with the same living arrangement restriction), and it comes with an explicit content filter and a Spotify Kids app that exclusively streams children’s music. You can add a second person living under the same roof with the Premium Duo plan at $12.99/month. Let’s break down the issues so you can decide.

What are strengths for some users will be deal-breakers for others. Where you come down on the Spotify question has a lot to do with what you’re looking for when you subscribe to a music-streaming service. Spotify supports emerging artists by including live show dates and links to merchandise on each performer’s home page.
