Spotify vs Apple Music

[sam9s]

Well the first impressions for me. Not great. See I am more interested in Indian Music than western so my review will always be considering this. To start of I did a search for the most popular ghazal artist in India and abroad ... Jagjit singh and the results were disappointing. First almost all the albums (Around 50 in total) were mostly assorted albums rather than actual albums, eg In search, Love is bling. Then secondly almost all the collection was after year 2000, nothing much on the legend's early years, Played couple of Ghazals and quality seems decent (I have a very moderate system so would not comment much on quality of Music as I was not able to make much of a difference between Apple Music and Spotify)

Spotify on the other hand had almost 120+ albums and rare ones as well dated back to as far as 1976, which is what I wanted.

Coming to bollywood. i started with some thing old and classic. Rafi or Kishore are too common to compare. So I searched someone who is off the general league but still immensely popular ...."khayyam shaab"

Spotify listed around 10-12 albums,with one dated as back as 1956. Apple Music ........ resulted in "Zero" no albums... ... ha! dissappointing again.

Searched something latest like...."Arijit Singh"......... Spotify around 80+ albums listed. Apple Music ..... mere 25 ......

Infact Spotify was able to list albums of rare classic music director "Ravi"(numbers like Neelay gagan ke talay or Tum agar saath dene ka). That too not just one of two .... more than 50 albums were listed...

Apple Music had no clue who Ravi was and listed some arbitrary result ....

CONCLUSION ::: Spotify wins hands down (for me atleast) when it comes to Indian Numbers .....

Will compare some Western Music as well and will report .......

PS ::: Yes one major advantage was iTunes having Airplay so I was able to stream/cast (what ever you call it) music from my laptop stright to my music system, something I cannot do with spotify application on laptop. From Android Mobile its a different story (meaning I am able to cast music running on any application to my music system)

View from other users ......

PS2: My specific Spotify review can be read HERE

 

[docd]

Sam
You are right in saying Spotify has a better collection in indian music. But when it comes to western music, Apple can give it a close run. I found almost everything I had on Spotify. You haven't discussed the most important thing, sound quality. Apple streams at 256 kbps, far better than 96 in Spotify free. If you are using Spotify premium, it can match it, but you will have to pay 9.99$ per month compared to 120 Rs for Apple.
Meanwhile Apple is still updating its library so lets wait and see. For me sound quality is important so I feel I will stick with Apple for now.

 

[sound_cycle]

I don't have spotify or anything else of that nature. So I am not pretending this is an informed piece or something.

In school I had imagined having a catalog of all the music I could ever imagine. This (apple music) is that and more

I have been having a ball discovering/ listening to stuff, anything I wish - maria schneider, rebecca ferguson, emily saunders, this morning.

Oh And of course all the abba. boney M 70's in school stuff. Those days it was with only the radio (for music that adults did not own and control. eg toto coelo, "I eat cannibals" and other embarrassing confessions recorded on one of the two cassettes that were mine to record and re-record on in the early 80s)

I tried to compare, pointlessly, with stuff I own on CD/ flac as well as from the itunes store and ofc there is a huge difference. Does it bother or pain me, no, I'll buy what I like IAC. For some tracks (not all) I felt that the itunes purchased version sounded better (Whitney I think)

I'll probably tire of it someday, but right now I'm in willie wonka's chocolate factory

ciao
gr

 

[manniraj]

Guys is there any android app to control iTunes installed in my music-pc. I have taken the 3 month trail version as I think the quality of the audio is good and also good collection. My pc is completely headless and I control the Foobar via the official app and now require a iTunes app to control on my android phone.

 

[sam9s]

Sam
You are right in saying Spotify has a better collection in indian music. But when it comes to western music, Apple can give it a close run. I found almost everything I had on Spotify. You haven't discussed the most important thing, sound quality. Apple streams at 256 kbps, far better than 96 in Spotify free. If you are using Spotify premium, it can match it, but you will have to pay 9.99$ per month compared to 120 Rs for Apple.
Meanwhile Apple is still updating its library so lets wait and see. For me sound quality is important so I feel I will stick with Apple for now.

I did mention sound quality, see as I said I have a very modest Music system. Polk TSi 300 FS and Audio Engine A5 Bookshelves with Denon x1000 acting as the amp. With Audio Engine they have their own amp built in. I compared both spotify and Apple Music on both of my spks and I did not find much of a difference. Infact spotify was better in Jagjit Singh's collection.

Spotify does not sound like 96kbps hard to believe (any link from spotify which confirms they stream at 96kbps?) It sure does not sound like that as I have MP3 songs encoded at 96kbps and the same song on spotify sounds much much better.

Sound quality is important for me too, but logicaly what good the sound quality be if you do not have the song or album, in the collection to begin with?..

 

[sam9s]

Guys is there any android app to control iTunes installed in my music-pc. I have taken the 3 month trail version as I think the quality of the audio is good and also good collection. My pc is completely headless and I control the Foobar via the official app and now require a iTunes app to control on my android phone.

ReTunes

 

[docd]

I did mention sound quality, see as I said I have a very modest Music system. Polk TSi 300 FS and Audio Engine A5 Bookshelves with Denon x1000 acting as the amp. With Audio Engine they have their own amp built in. I compared both spotify and Apple Music on both of my spks and I did not find much of a difference. Infact spotify was better in Jagjit Singh's collection.

Spotify does not sound like 96kbps hard to believe (any link from spotify which confirms they stream at 96kbps?) It sure does not sound like that as I have MP3 songs encoded at 96kbps and the same song on spotify sounds much much better.

Sound quality is important for me too, but logicaly what good the sound quality be if you do not have the song or album, in the collection to begin with?..

Sam
I have Spotify on my IPad and on this you can select the streaming quality, even though its the free version. You can select normal 96, high 160 and extreme 320! This facility is not there on Spotify windows app.
Unfortunately even though I have selected extreme, I have to stream by bluetooth to my Emotiva UMC 200 so the quality is slightly degraded.

 

[sam9s]

wow ... my Android Spotify app does not let me choose the stream quality, says I have to go premium, so its surprising that you can on iPad ..,,,

Also use UPnP if you can instead of Bluetooth to stream music, much better

 

[manniraj]

ReTunes

sam, I cannot control the streaming service that Apple has launched but only the built in menu like the playlists, internet radio, tv shows, movies etc.,

The new service shows up in the iTunes as "For You" but the same is not being listed in the Retunes app.

 

[sam9s]

Oh ok, correct me if I am wrong, you want to control Apple Music via Android right?, for that you will need a dedicated app that Apple will release on Android, its already there for ios, but for Android its coming soon. So you gotta wait ...

 

[docd]

wow ... my Android Spotify app does not let me choose the stream quality, says I have to go premium, so its surprising that you can on iPad ..,,,

Also use UPnP if you can instead of Bluetooth to stream music, much better

Unfortunately the Emotiva UMC 200 can accept only bluetooth.
Listening to Engelbert singing Walk through this world on Apple. Tried it on Spotify also. More body to the music in Apple, at least to me!

 

[sam9s]

if your AVR/Amp does not have inbuilt UPnP feature, then add a medium like Raspberry Pi or WD TV Live Media player that will serve as a medium to cast/scream your music to your AVR/Amp ....

 

[amitk777]

I have an Ipad from which I stream to an Apple TV.

The quality is good however, the Ipad app continuously crashes, skips songs. There has not been even one instance where I was able to completely play an album.

Well that is what all Beta releases are for, overall I am very pleased that Apple music is in India.

-Amit