I am big fan of Spotify and used it for years so have a nice collection of playlists.

Currently on the Amazon Music HD trial & I love the sound quality but hate the app. Although this maybe just me and not being used to it yet.

Anybody know why Spotify has held back with a HD version of their service?

May have to pay more money to the artists perhaps, and they’d rather pay as little as possible.

There may be reluctance from studios with HD lossless formats if they’re not DRM protected. So offline downloads may need to be protected from copying. Not sure what Spotify do there. Even with streaming it’s probably a limited market given the vast majority listen on a phone. Many kids just use the crappy speaker on the phone.

Amazon may be trying to find things that distinguish their service as they’re not going to compete with Spotify just on the regular music (though I use it as I’m already paying for Prime and get no ads. Less content but enough that I don’t want to pay for a Spotify sub on top of everything else).

Have a look into Tidal for higher quality streams.

Mmmmm what does Tidal offer over Amazon HD(apart from paying multi millionaires a top up inbetween touring 😮)

Double the price of Amazon, Spotify seems to have nearly everything I searched for and the family pack is perfect for the three of us at home.

Wife or son will not be bothered about the quality. Wife still think it is a waste of money paying for the HD movie option🤔

Issue I’ve had with Spotify is I’m a whole album guy, I don’t really do random tracks or playlists from this and that, and I find due to rights issues sometimes one or two tracks on an album are missing because of who they’re credited to.

Though mostly I still buy CDs, rip to FLAC and stream from my NAS (and for good enough for phone, MP3 versions on OneDrive and I use Cloud Player to stream/download from there).

Deezer also do HD music for the same price as Tidal. They are Europe based too.

@deadkenny I previously used google play music and now use Apple Music – both are fine for full albums, very rarely find a track missing.

May have to pay more money to the artists perhaps, and they’d rather pay as little as possible.

Possibly, Spotify are in negotiations with the various record companies, and they’re trying to cut the royalties they pay even more; seeing as the amount is already risible, they might as well come out and say they’re going to stream music and pay nothing at all, it’ll amount to the same.
Spotify don’t even pay the artists, they pay an amount to each record company, who then divvy it out among the various artists; and I’ll bet the companies take a cut for ‘administrative’ purposes as well.
Spotify only benefits the already extremely popular, if an Indy or folk artist has an album on Spotify, and one track gets a million and a half streams, but the rest get ignored, then that’s about £1000-1500, not even a living wage, but major artists might get every track being streamed a million or so times, that’s £10,000: the whole system is totally skewed in favour of the already wealthy.
That Indy or folk artist, selling cd’s at gigs, might sell ten or twenty at each gig, maybe 1000 or so over a ten date tour, at £10 a pop, that’s £10-20,000 in their pockets, minus other expenses.
Spotify’s entire business model is unethical, the sooner they go bust, the better.

if an Indy or folk artist has an album on Spotify, and one track gets a million and a half streams, but the rest get ignored, then that’s about £1000-1500, not even a living wage, but major artists might get every track being streamed a million or so times, that’s £10,000

Can I ask you for a source of this information?

How noticeable is the HD on Amazon, do you need an expensive hifi? I just pump Spotify through a pair of sonos 5 in the living room.

To me its a massive improvement, we have Denon Heos in the living room and it sounds really good. Although some of the more angry types of music sound better on non HD IMO.

But as a reformed semi pro stoner who now occasionally uses a dry herb vaporiser and listens to music….
I can now hear the same parts with my Bose wireless earbuds as I could after puffing the dry herb 🙂

Santa hopefully bringing me new over ear phones.

Quality is ace but I’m going to stick with Spotify.

The daily and weekly auto playlists are really good. Maybe that’s because I’ve used notify for so long and it knows what I like that these are finding so much new music to listen to.

For me streaming is amazing for finding new stuff is never of heard

Wife still think it is a waste of money paying for the HD movie option

Listen to your wife, she seems like the sensible one in the relationship. Once quality of recording becomes your defining motivation, you are on a downward spiral to becoming an audio-phile rather than a music fan, and that way leads to warm beer, a comb-over and cardigans, and no one wants that.

Qobuz also do HD streaming. There’s a good selection of material too.

Lol at nickc 😂😂😂

Think she may be on the female version already.

Driving back from London yesterday listening to Fuckbuttons on the decent in car entertainment system (using Amazon HD) and son thought it sounded awesome. Got in the house to find the wife listening and singing along to LEO SAYER.WTF

And I remember there was a thread on here about him so maybe it’s me try to be cool.

And to add in incase Krypton57 appears and slates my parenting skills again he thinks the band are called the Buttons 😃

I’m sure with any equipment I own Spotify is as good as I need or can detect at 320kb/s.

I’d be amazed if anyone could tell it from a cd in a moving vehicle

Spotify may not have best model but they were able to get a good deal as they effectively replaced the bit torrents. They didn’t really replace cd sales.

I’m sure with any equipment I own Spotify is as good as I need or can detect at 320kb/s.

I’d be amazed if anyone could tell it from a cd in a moving vehicle

Not sure I agree, even with my wireless Bose ear buds I think I can notice a difference. and I agree about the moving car, despite the car being quiet and having quality ICE SYSTEM ULTRA HD is not going to be noticed. Especially by an 8 year old who normally listens to Parry Grip 🙂