Been a happy Spotify subscriber for over a year but I’m tempted by the Deezer HQ service. Seems to offer HQ (1411kbps vs 320kbps) sound for the same price as Spotify. Catalogue size seems to be the same.

What’s putting me off is the fact Deezer don’t offer a free trial of the HQ service, only the standard def service. Almost like they don’t want people comparing isn’t it….

Plus to match the Spotify price I’d need to sign up for a year in advance, so I definitely want to try it first.

Anyone taken the plunge yet?

Brother in law uses it, there’s some random cover versions for some artists he listens to – similar to the ‘in the style of’ tracks that spotify has for artists which don’t appear on spotify.

I came away thinking its a bit crap.

FWIW, my opinion is only formed from a one time go, so YMMV

Can’t comment on the quality of the HQ service, but I’ve been very happy with my standard subscription, both in terms of quality and music choice.

Do you feel unhappy with Spotify’s quality? If you want to compare the quality it can be hard because the human brain will happily hear the one it wants to as better. The difference being so slight and some might say inaudible. Without being able to blind test the brain can be very fickle.

I just say this because my flatmate’s been doing lots of double-blind comparative testing between 320 and FLAC as a part of his dissertation and so many people who were staunchly against MP3 were simply unable to tell any difference whatsoever. I couldn’t hear a difference enough times to be statistically significant, I would say the 320kbps MP3 is certainly a very good encoder. YMMV.

I have a standard Deezer account and very happy with it . Lots of new music but lots of different choice also.
You can sync music to your mobile device so you can listen offline / flight mode for example. I prefer it over Spotify.

I’m not unhappy with Spotify but I can tell the difference between Spotify 320kbps and music on my NAS drive that’s ripped to FLAC.

I listen to music far more than I watch tv so I’d be happy to pay the difference if Deezer is as good as claimed. I’d just like to check it is before I sign up for a year!

I’ve been generally quite happy with my deezer too. Re. flight mode, it worked great on my flight out of town, then when I went to listen again on the way back I got this…

Spotify can store music offline but it’s very clunky and quite often doesn’t work. I’ve been on holiday a few times and, having spent a few hours setting up and downloading offline playlists, sat on the plane and found the songs won’t play for some reason. Expensive to download albums abroad!

Doh!