Spotify in the USA

[Pano]

Spotify is in the US now. I'd like to try, but you need an invite. Anyone want to invite me? (send a PM)

I'm a long time Internet radio user - from MusicMatch radio at the turn of the century thru Launchcast , Shoutcast and Pandora, as well as many streaming broadcast stations. I've done both paid and free.
Since Spotify has a 320K Vorbis stream for paid members, that is enticing. But I'd like to check their library - mostly jazz and classical - before paying.

Thoughts?

[Atilla]

Hey Pano, PM sent. See if it works ok.

I've got quite a few invites left, so just post in this thread if you want one.

[Atilla]

Otherwise I've used Spotify for quite a bit, I've been paying for about an year and a half as well and I'm extremely happy with it. It has a lot of things I've trouble finding otherwise and is very convenient. Hi-quality Vorbis is just amazing too.

There is a lot of Jazz, but I hear libraries are a bit country-dependent, so it might be different in the USA. But in general the library is expanding all the time and it's getting pretty rich by now. It's worth 2 beers a month over here, so it definitely delivers quite a lot, compared to its cost

[Pano]

PM reply sent.

[Pano]

OK, just 10 minutes with Spotify and I'm convinced. Even the free version sounds much better than Pandora. Bandwidth usage is low and as a number of reviews stated, it starts very fast.
The selection is great in both classical and jazz. I'm listening to Ravel at the moment, plenty to choose from.

Leave it to the Swedes to engineer a better music service. Thanks Atilla for the invite.

[Atilla]

Seriously, this service has changed a lot of things around here, all for the better

*Atilla who still misses "Johnatan from Spotify"

[Pano]

I can imagine.

After spending a day with the free service, I'm pretty impressed. One major flaw, tho. The adverts are LOUD! If I turn off the volume leveling they are insanely loud. Mostly because I listen to classical and jazz that are recorded at -18dB (or lower) average level. The adverts must be a full 10dB hotter, maybe more. And they are never for any music I'd listen to.

Going to the pay service would fix that, of course. But it's relatively expensive, compared to the pay services I'm used to. $10 a month for Premium? I can get a Netflix movie streaming account for $2 less. And Pandora One only costs me $3 a month.

It's a great service, but the pricing is going to keep a lot of folks away from the paid accounts.

[CopperTop]

Originally Posted by Pano

But it's relatively expensive, compared to the pay services I'm used to. $10 a month for Premium? I can get a Netflix movie streaming account for $2 less. And Pandora One only costs me $3 a month.

It's amazing how our perceptions of value change, isn't it? A library of all the recordings in the world in great quality are not worth even $10 a month these days.

Yet I am perplexed by the way people are prepared to pay £0.79 per track from iTunes without batting an eyelid. I know such people, and I find they are simply not open to the idea of streaming vs. 'buying' the music. Yet these same people are the ones who do possess the gizmos that are capable of streaming all the time, or storing tracks which are playable 'offline' from the streaming services like Spotify.

Paying £0.79 for a track would cause me extreme pain, but £10 per month for Spotify (with the high quality streaming option) seems like a bargain to me. In the end, the music industry probably makes the same amount of money from me (I probably didn't even used to buy a CD per month) but I get all the music in the world to choose from. Seems like a win-win.

[CopperTop]

Originally Posted by Pano

One major flaw, tho. The adverts are LOUD! If I turn off the volume leveling they are insanely loud.

The volume levelling seems to be a bit controversial. I initially assumed it was volume normalisation per track, i.e. fixing the maximum level of each track at full scale, but I would swear that it is acting as volume compression and destroying the dynamics. An acquaintance concluded the same thing independently from me, and I have seen arguments about it on the interweb. Could be easily proved I suppose.

Anyway, I never turn on the volume levelling.

[Audiofanatic]

Originally Posted by Pano

I can imagine.

After spending a day with the free service, I'm pretty impressed. One major flaw, tho. The adverts are LOUD! If I turn off the volume leveling they are insanely loud. Mostly because I listen to classical and jazz that are recorded at -18dB (or lower) average level. The adverts must be a full 10dB hotter, maybe more. And they are never for any music I'd listen to.

Going to the pay service would fix that, of course. But it's relatively expensive, compared to the pay services I'm used to. $10 a month for Premium? I can get a Netflix movie streaming account for $2 less. And Pandora One only costs me $3 a month.

It's a great service, but the pricing is going to keep a lot of folks away from the paid accounts.

I agree with Pano.

The ad's are to loud ! And it is not so cheap!

Best,

Audiofanatic