thanks neeko... I was wondering about the different streaming bit rates. I gave Spotify a try when it first came out, and this thread made me go back and take another look---I just listened to the entire 19 album by Adele on my main system and it was surprisingly shrill--not terrible. I don't have the CD to compare with. So, out of curiousity I just selected Sean Hayes' Flowering Spade album on Spotify to compare with my AIFFs in iTunes....
So, with three songs from Sean Hayes' Flowering Spade as my test of how the free 160kbps sounds vs AIFF (not fair I know but I just wanted to hear the difference): with the AIFF I hear ALL of the vibrato in his voice, the nuances of the finger picking the guitar strings and I the echo of the guitar cavity on the
Cool Hand song, a song in my Demo playlist that I am very familiar with. I wasn't surprised.
I know that the Spotify 320kbps will sound much better than the 160. but I just wanted to hear
how different. Sure, I can convert my AIFFs to both bitrates in iTunes and compare but I am too lazy. This was an easy test. All I had to do is unmount my external HD with my AIFF itunes so Spotify pulled the song off its database. Right after playing one song a loud spotify commercial about some Popular music bands unrelated to my selections.
I use Pandora quite a bit for background music while working, it exposes me to new and new-to-me old songs with its station format. Spotify doesn't seem to work as well in that regard even though its total song library is multiples beyond Pandora. If you know an album you want to audition, then Spotify is great for that! not sure if I'll go for the Premium.
I will give the current free trial of the Premium level soon. hmm, did I do that already? can't remember.
