Streaming services for jazz and classical
Trying out some streaming services since some of the integrations with existing ones are, I find, unsatisfactory. Was using Deezer for a while, happy with the sound quality but the search always turns up piles of stuff in genres I never listen to; also, for classical, there is no "shuffle by album" capability so pieces get broken up in the middle. Tried Amazon music next, sound quality is good, but the search results are very hard to read. The grouping of results is just grouped lists rather than for example artist portraits and album tiles, and when you drill into a list its just a list instead of tiles. Since you often need the album cover to tell whether you are listening to Mozart or picked up something completely off topic in your search result, this makes it hard to pick through the list since the thumbnails are so tiny. Tried up for Idagio but I listen to jazz too. Was going to try Qobuz but their site is broken at the moment, and I see Primephonic is shut down. What to do?
-
Official comment
I am not a classical buff but on other UK hifi forums the consensus does seem to be Qobuz as the better streaming service for classical music. The Qobuz website is fully working for me this morning so could just have been a website maintenance issue.
I also gather that Apple are going to have a classical streaming service in the future but have no details about it or if they will allow integration with hardware such as that from Bluesound.
-
...for example when I search for "Oratorio" I'm looking for maybe some Monteverdi, not death metal.
What I'd love is a top level allow-list of genres that gets pushed into search queries so I don't have to pick through stuff; I'd also like albums that are contributed playlists to be separated from published albums, since they often turn up in the results (search for "Chopin" in Deezer and you will get "Piano for Driving/Studying/Reading/Baby/Picking your nose", I'm really looking for albums by actual publishers). And what I'd also love is being able to browse publisher catalogs, for example I love almost everything Wildboar puts together.
0 -
The Qobuz site may be up but their payments system is down, I can't register for an account at the moment even using a valid credit card. Oopsie.
I know about the Primephonic acquisition by Apple, but Apple Music is problematic because they are unlikely to ever let any other hardware vendor serve Apple Music content. This means I'm stuck with streaming it from my iMac to my Node 2i and trying to get Remote app on my iPad to work with that configuration, they've been orphaning that app since it facilitates people who play their already paid for music libraries rather than active subscriptions. I can't stream using Airplay to my Bluesound setup because 1. I refuse to stream stuff from my router to my phone to my router to my Bluesound setup and 2. my employer won't let me read work email on my devices unless I have a device profile that has a restriction that requires I enter the on screen code for the Node 2i to connect: since the Node 2i has no screen to put an an screen code this is impossible. Thanks, Apple.
0 -
Send an email to Qobuz, they always been very helpful in the past when I had login issues.
0 -
Yeah, it finally worked when I did it through the iOS app and an Apple subscription but not through the site, which is surprising because that way they have to give Apple a cut of the subscription. Their problem, though.
0 -
So, I now have trial subscriptions for Amazon Music, Qobuz, Deezer, and IDAGIO. Some things are clear:
- Amazon search result presentation is very crude. It takes extra clicks to get through a search result, and the listings are with tiny album thumbnails so can't be read
- Deezer and Qobuz have much better organized search result presentation, with almost identical "Artist/Album/Songs" breakdown
- Idagio does the same, but for my sample search "Kaare Norge" they only had two albums, everyone else has far more.
0 -
'they only had two albums'
Yea, it's a bit like TV streaming services - you want one particular movie or series but it's on the other service you don't/can't afford to subscribe to. Seems it's not possible to get it all in one place. I have noticed that Qobuz and Deezer are adding things all the time, they are getting better!
0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
7 comments