Anyone else use it?

I’ve been with Apple Music for ages, I jumped onto the 3 month trial when they launched Beats 1 etc, wasn’t planning on changing, but…

Son got an Xbox for Christmas, starting playing it, some games allow you to use your Groove account for in-game music, great – took a 2 week trial, didn’t do much with it, then they offered me a 1 month trial, followed by 3 months free at about the same time I looked at my bank statements and saw Netflix £9, NowTV £7, Apple Music £10 and lord knows what else – I ‘suddenly’ spend a lot of money on subscription services.

Anyway, so I dived in, copied my playlists from Apple Music, downloaded the App – s’all good.

In my classic way, once I’d done all that, I decided to research – it in hindsight – it seems that Groove is one of the worse for bitrate, their quality is pretty poor, which was odd to me, as if anything it’s much better than Apple Music to my ears, I compared it back to back – I can hear little bits of this and that on Groove that I can’t on Music – the Bongo bits on “Sympathy for the Devil” for example great on Groove, almost missing from Music – using the Aux lead in my car, sounds great on Groove, flat as a pancake on Music.

Am I just crap at hearing, or have I broken Apple Music somehow, or is Groove actually okay?

No idea, but reminded me the first time I heard “Sympathy for the Devil” was on a vinyl LP I found at a car boot! Beggars Banquest and the 60s pressing of “Let It Bleed” – where I first heard You Can’t Always Get..
What a find.

Sorry, nothing to do with your thread, but I’m bored shitless.

Maybe the compression or encoding system used by Groove is better than Apple What is the bitrate for Groove and Apple? With modern broadband and 4G speeds bitrates shouldn’t be an issue when streaming stuff over the net. So possibly the lower bitrate of Groove is still high enough for a good quality sound and its the better encoding system that allows for the better sounds quality?

jairaj – Member

Maybe the compression or encoding system used by Groove is better than Apple What is the bitrate for Groove and Apple? With modern broadband and 4G speeds bitrates shouldn’t be an issue when streaming stuff over the net. So possibly the lower bitrate of Groove is still high enough for a good quality sound and its the better encoding system that allows for the better sounds quality?

I’d have to bow to your superior knowledge there – tbh I download any tracks I want to hear anyway, i’ve got more storage than I’ll ever use.

Back to back though, you hear more of what’s going on with Groove, I just wish they sorted out their UI – in the early days of Apple Music it was all too easy to download the Shitty Live / Acapella / House Remix version of something by mistake – or worse the karaoke version, but they seemed to fix that – Groove, not so much.

reading the blather it sounds like groove uses WMA for files you don’t own and their resolution is 192kbps. WMA appears comparable to Apple’s AAC format for loss. Apple Music AACs are 256kbps.They’re pretty similar.

HiFi – or modest fi is all in the ears of the listener. Have you tried some different cables though?

I looked at my bank statements and saw Netflix £9, NowTV £7, Apple Music £10 and lord knows what else – I ‘suddenly’ spend a lot of money on subscription services.

‘S why I don’t have anything to do with any of those services.
With a shade under 200Gb of music in my iTunes library, 57.5 days of continuous play, frankly it’ll be a while before I run out of music.
And I’m continually adding new stuff anyway.

I have to limit my subscription services. I’ve got MS Office, Adobe Photographer for software, and Netflix/Amazon for TV. I consider the last two good value since it’s so much cheaper than satellite, and I also use them all over the place in hotels.

But Prime is on my wife’s account and I won’t sign up myself, and I can’t bring myself to sign up for any music services as it’s just gettin too expensive.

and I can’t bring myself to sign up for any music services as it’s just gettin too expensive.

Cumulatively, I can see all the subscription services adding up to a significant amount but I think Google Play Music is a bargain as it costs waaaaay less than CD per month