[eclein]

I'm sitting here all afternoon listening to music via MOG on my Squeezebox and it sounds pretty darn good. I use my Squeezebox through a tubed DAC/Pre and listen nearfield with small 3 way stand mounted monitors and I'm wondering if I should continue buying CD's or enter medium preferred by you??
 Thoughts comments, please keep it clean as this could be an influential topic for my kids and yours.....

[TomS]

After living off Pandora for background music for a long time, I've started using the premium version Spotify, with feeds from Last FM for seeding "likes" as Pandora does. With the recommendation/suggestion functionality it brings, I can always find great new (to me) music suited to my tastes. It stays on most of the time now unless I'm sitting in the sweet spot for critical listening, usually vinyl for me these days. From a sound quality standpoint I find it's good enough to still enjoy good music, despite not being up to even CD standards. Same thing for various internet radio streams. That works for me, though others just can't tolerate it. YMMV of course.

[Rclark]

 If it's convenient for you then use it.

 Cause that's all it'll be right now and for the forseeable future, the convenient option. Who cares what anyone thinks. You already know it's not the same fidelity. It can't be.

 If you want audiophile level, obviously it's on vinyl or disc or possibly hirez file. But you can't lay on your couch in a hungry man country fried steak coma with an Ipad, you actually have to get up to change the material.

 Me, I'm still relatively sprightly and have my hearing, I prefer the best method possible for SQ. I can find new bands and then easily buy their cd.


 ... that said, the day (or should I say, decade) that streaming music surpasses cd and vinyl, I'm totally in. Until then MEH

[eclein]

I currently use two music and one video service and my biggest reason is not the convenience although it is definitely more convenient but the constant ability to try listening to bands, albums, I'd never buy without hearing them first.

I'm easily finding new and unique bands, artists, even whole genres of music I never new existed. I enjoy Electronic music from time to time and didn't realize until very recently how many categories its split up into....I had to really identify my preference and style of music that made up that preference to find the category within Electronic music and pick one of the twenty or so to try. I had no idea the breakdown was so extent.

 I try new music much, much more because its easy to just move on if I don't like it. In fact I give myself more time now to warm up to the new stuff then I would have in the past for sure.
 I use MOG and Sony's Music Unlimited for music and Netflix for video streaming and Blu-rays.
I rely on far more internet use then I ever thought I would, so much so I need to keep track so I don't go over my monthly limit....shocked me how much.....

[WC]

I think music streaming services are great for checking out new music. I check out all the new releases on MOG every week. I like a lot more than I thought I would. Sound quality is good. If I didn't have MOG I wouldn't be exposed to as much new music. I still am buying CDs, but only after being sure that I like the album first.

[Peter J]

I rely on far more internet use then I ever thought I would, so much so I need to keep track so I don't go over my monthly limit....shocked me how much.....

I didn't even know we had a bandwidth limit until we exceeded it recently! Largely because of streaming video, I imagine, but it does raise a concern as I ponder streaming music more going forward.

Can you give me an idea as to your real world usage and how much bandwidth it uses?  Something like, it's on 8 hrs. a day and uses 3 megs. Do you ration or limit usage to conserve bandwidth?

[TONEPUB]

Agreed with the others that use this for scouting new stuff.  I use Rhapsody, only because it integrates easily into my Sooloos music server.  I go through and pick the albums I want to investigate, and buy the ones I really like.  While I'm buying more music than ever, I'm now buying all stuff with no regrets, having heard it a few times.  Best $15 a month I spend.

[eclein]

Agreed with the others that use this for scouting new stuff.  I..... . I go through and pick the albums I want to investigate, and buy the ones I really like.  While I'm buying more music than ever, I'm now buying all stuff with no regrets, having heard it a few times.  Best $15 a month I spend.

+1

[eclein]

Can you give me an idea as to your real world usage and how much bandwidth it uses?  Something like, it's on 8 hrs. a day and uses 3 megs. Do you ration or limit usage to conserve bandwidth?

I stream movies off and on all day most days, use the music services maybe 1/3 as much.....and my monthly allotment is 200 GB which I have gone over once and now I monitor off and on during the month via an online usage graph/counter my cable provider gives access to. I'm usually around 136 GB/mo. since I went over and realized how much I was using. It shocked me how much I used and my provider said its mostly the Netflix use that really runs it up. I was using Netflix at that time probably a good 12 hours a day. I'm disabled so I'm home most days and consume media for entertainment.

[Mikeinsacramento]

I stream Slacker 10-12 hours per day.  Pretty much everything I've bought over the last 4 years has been found there.

[wushuliu]

I'm sitting here all afternoon listening to music via MOG on my Squeezebox and it sounds pretty darn good. I use my Squeezebox through a tubed DAC/Pre and listen nearfield with small 3 way stand mounted monitors and I'm wondering if I should continue buying CD's or enter medium preferred by you??
 Thoughts comments, please keep it clean as this could be an influential topic for my kids and yours.....

Yup. MOG has the best streaming SQ bar none. I know part of it is the 320 bit rate (thought some albums are 256 I believe), but there's also something they must do as far as algorithm or processing because to me all their tracks sound near-analog: no harshness or obvious compression, dead quiet background. Does not sounsd like typical mp3 at all. If anything just a little too smooth and of course lack ultimate audiophile transparency - but I would take MOG over standard cd player any day and I have a pretty revealing setup. I don't know how they do it but apparently the creator of MOG is an ardent audiophile, and it shows.

[IonMoon]

I use Spotify. Spotify now has I believe over 90% of their enormous catalogue at 320 for premium subscribers. And this is available even streaming to my iphone. Keep in mind, it is NOT available on the free version (or at least not as extensively) so don't listen to the free version and then complain about the quality.

I am currently between systems- dh ordered new speakers and sold previous set, using cheap speakers in interim. Once we have a proper system set up, I will be running a blind test for him. I am fairly sure *I* would not notice a difference.

It is not about convenience- although I do enjoy vegging on the couch controlling the system with the iPad It is about the vast array of music I have access to. We have stumbled upon bands we otherwise might never have discovered. And control. And variety. I can listen to what I want, when I want in any order. I can move effortlessly between different cds and artists and genres.

We went on a road trip and had a blast listening to any song we could imagine. We ran across *one* I believe that was not available. And we certainly could not tell the difference between spotify and a cd on our car system.

For everyday listening the quality is sufficient for me- I am typically listening while doing other things. Dh is the "critical listener."

But just as every meal we eat is not gourmet, the music we listen to needn't always be ideal in order to be enjoyable.

Will Spotify replace our cd/sacd collection? We don't expect it to. But it is worth every penny we pay for it.

[eclein]

They will all probably do whatever they can to pump up the quality of the sound as that will soon become a part of the whole strategy to market themselves above each other. The catalog of music they off will become the most important factor and I wonder how the artists ultimately get paid when someone plays 1/2 a song, a 1/4 song etc... They must sell or license the use of their entire catalog at some flat rate on a renewable basis.

Does anybody know the nuts and bolts of how these services work??? I'm so far removed from the scene I really only have a general idea how they might be working it all out.

[eclein]

11 yes, 1 no and 1 never.......interesting spread, we need more votes, more input.
 I think this is clearly where we are headed....but is it a good thing or bad thing for the artists??? 

[stlrman]

Eclein, you can google to get this information.
My wife did, artists get a percentage of a penny for each song played /full album etc.
I think the amount of money does vary per artist and song or full album played.
I think Spotify /mog are real game changers for the consumer and bands.
I have not bought a cd since I started listening. This is an awesome way for new bands to get found. They will sell more tickets when on tour.

[Elizabeth]

I didn't even know we had a bandwidth limit until we exceeded it recently! Largely because of streaming video, I imagine, but it does raise a concern as I ponder streaming music more going forward.

Can you give me an idea as to your real world usage and how much bandwidth it uses?  Something like, it's on 8 hrs. a day and uses 3 megs. Do you ration or limit usage to conserve bandwidth?

Audio streaming is NOTHING compared to video. so if you are only streaming audio I doubt you will exceed bandwidth.
Video on the other hand can take tons of bandwidth...

And no I do not use a paid for music service.
I have tried Pandora, but I do not use it regularly (as I have no connection twixt Laptop and stereo..
All I actually need is a cable....)

[johsti]

Use mog daily and love it.  If I didn't have mog, I'd use spotify.  Both are excellent, but I am used to mog and preferred it when I compared the two.

Mog allows you to discover new and old music and when I find music I really enjoy, I'll purchase it on vinyl or cd.  The radio function on mog is pretty good, but not as good as pandora.