[Yesterdaysnews]

What’s your favourite and why?

I use Apple Music with lossless enabled. I have found after testing in high end speakers, Apple Music offers the best quality by quite a margin, followed by Spotify and Youtube. Haven’t tested Amazon Music.

Ease of use. “Hey Siri, play …” world really well for most songs and artists.

Easy to create playlists on Apple Music.

Has a really BIG collection of music.

Curated Apple Playlists are quite good.

Good information and write up of artists, songs and albums.

Spatial audio offers great quality and concert like experience.

The biggest drawback is loosing all your playlists if your subscription expires even for a day!

[GTO]

We can allow this fresh discussion as the older thread was from 2019, and a whole lot has changed since (music world & tech world, both).

My only two platforms:

- YouTube Music. Amazing algorithms. Play one song and the similar songs that follow just take you places! YouTube Music forms 60% of my streaming music time. YouTube Music has a far more extensive library than Spotify and - in Hindi music - has a lot of smaller artists who aren't present on Spotify. I also love alternate / cover / remix versions of popular songs & there is a lot more of this stuff on YouTube than Spotify. Like 10X more.

- Spotify. Balance 40% of my music streaming time. Only for English music, primarily House, Dance, Electronic & Alternative / Indie.

It's a unique situation in music streaming Vs TV shows. The same music is available across multiple platforms, unlike on TV streaming where say, Netflix & Hotstar have their own exclusive shows.

[Yesterdaysnews]

Originally Posted by GTO

It's a unique situation in music streaming Vs TV shows. The same music is available across multiple platforms, unlike on TV streaming where say, Netflix & Hotstar have their own exclusive shows.

That’s a very interesting point GTO! There are no exclusive albums or artists on a single platform! I think what sets each other apart are quality and curated playlists.

YouTube music does lack quality. Try the same song on YouTube Music Lossless, Spotify and Apple Music. You will be able to differentiate. Minor on stock speakers, but quite discernible on upgraded speakers and set ups. A good way to try would also be with headphones!

Creating a station with a particular song on Apple Music will throw up excellent same genre same feel songs.

I don’t know about remixed versions, but Apple Music does have a very extensive collection of Tamil, Telugu, Hindi music as well as a surprisingly vast collection of Indian classical music. Quite rare not to find a song/artist on Apple Music.

[binand]

Voted for Spotify, primarily because it is the only one I subscribe to.

* Not on the Apple ecosystem.
* Not too keen on giving even more info to Google either.
* Not much of a clue about Amazon's collection.

My wife subscribes to Wynk which is not on the choices list - seems like it has a better collection of certain genres than all the foreign ones.

Originally Posted by GTO

It's a unique situation in music streaming Vs TV shows. The same music is available across multiple platforms, unlike on TV streaming where say, Netflix & Hotstar have their own exclusive shows.

The main difference I guess is that shows are watched usually once, so the one who licenses them would want to make sure they (the shows) are watched only on their platform - hence will insist on an exclusivity clause. Whereas music is repeatedly listened to, so non-exclusivity doesn't really harm and in fact, could avoid a race to the bottom.

[Ojas]

Despite being an Android user, my favorite music app is Apple Music. I listen to Telugu and Hindi film music, and occasionally some pop.

I tested Gaana, Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music. Apple Music came out as the clear winner with respect to quality of tracks. They sound full with good sound stage, and more importantly, that's very consistent with every track, which is not the case with other apps. All this experience was with lossy tracks. I wish my 5 series supported wired connections so I could enjoy lossless music on the go.

I use Spotify as well since some new tracks become available there sooner.

Originally Posted by Yesterdaysnews

Creating a station with a particular song on Apple Music will throw up excellent same genre same feel songs.

This is good to know!

[ashwinikalantri]

I use Spotify. I love its song radio feature, where it plays songs that you will tend to like if you like the primary song. I felt the song recommendation engine was better on Spotify.

I am no audiophile and am ok with what Spotify has to offer. Also, I last checked Apple Music a long time ago and chose Spotify for its hands off operation - just start playing and the app takes care of the music. Now I want to check what this hoopla is about Apple Music's quality and curation ability.

[raptor_diwan]

Without a doubt, YouTube remains my preferred and favored option.

I love how it totally gets my vibe in the moment and sets me up with just the right tunes for those road trips. Plus, the voice search is a game-changer – I can switch between interviews, music, and even some hilarious movie clips while cruising, all without needing to look at the screen.

Tried out a bunch of other platforms, but their song suggestions? Meh, not quite cutting it. YouTube's where it's at, especially with that budget-friendly 189 Family Pack for 6 users. No ads on both Youtube & YT Music. YouTube's got my vote, hands down.

[dmplog]

I use Amazon Music, primarily because I have Prime membership. But, also due to the quality.
Offlate, my family was pestering me to use Spotify as their playlists were on spotify (free version). While I played their favorite songs back-to-back (first) from Spotify and then on Amazon Music. This is on my Kushaq's stock speaker set-up. The difference was night and day. The free version of Spotify was lame as compared with Amazon's music clarity. Plus Amazon is adfree.
While I understand the fascination of many folks with Spotify (I understand you can easily share your playlists with friends) and Youtube music, for me, I get same songs on amazon, adfree and better quality.

[Yesterdaysnews]

I think based on replies

YouTube - ease of use, more personal recommendations and access to “song mods” and remixes, larger library. Downside - Quality

Spotify - ease of use, sharing of playlists. Downside - free version ads and low quality.

Amazon music - comes bundles with prime, therefore ease of use.

Apple Music - highest quality. Quite a large library. Downside - no free version, playlists tend to get lost. Works best on Apple devices, Car play.

[MotoBlip]

I voted for YouTube Music because of its amazing recommendations and its ability to create custom playlists based on my preferences and listening history. Whenever I like or dislike a music video on the YouTube app, it automatically adjusts the recommendation algorithm. Similar songs are promoted, while dissimilar songs are avoided. I love this cohesion between the two apps.

In comparison, Spotify doesn't quite resonate with me, and the only other serious contender is Apple Music, where it takes the lead in several aspects:
- Music Quality: Apple Music's Lossless Hi-res stands out as superior. The difference is perceptible to me, no matter how slight it is.
- UI: Apple has always excelled here, offering smoother song-switching, better album art, and well-designed large buttons. It provides a really refined and appealing user experience.
- Lyrics: While some songs have lyrics, most regional songs don't. In this aspect, I find Apple Music to be better.

Despite these shortcomings, I'm willing to overlook them due to YouTube's extensive song collection and its undeniably superior recommendations.

[anandhsub]

I like Spotify for its playlists, and also because I can listen to podcasts and music on the same app.

Spotify is also the only app that is supported on my Garmin.

For songs that aren't on Spotify I use Youtube music ( Coke studio for eg.)


EDIT: I just realised this thread is in car entertainment, in which case I use youtube music almost as much as Spotify for Kid videos/ music.

[SoumenD]

Not really an audiophile but while driving need something playing. FM radio has too many ads, so stopped using that.

Voted for Amazon Music. As I have prime membership this comes in bundled. Initial few months selected songs in playlist but after that the AI has picked up my taste. It usually auto-selects songs of genre I normally listen to and keeps playing. Been pretty seamless experience all this while(probably 4+ years now). Additionally I get all the podcasts which I wish to hear as well here.

[Ghost131100]

I can’t vote yet but for me it would be Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube music.
Primarily I use YouTube music as I have alot of songs added into my iPhone directly and if I turn on the Apple Music option it’ll wipe most of them from my phone. YouTube music makes pretty good auto playlists.
YouTube music works quite well. The only drawback is making playlists as adding songs from downloads to playlists is very time consuming.
Apple Music i mainly use for streaming music at lossless or if I want to listen to the Dolby version of a specific song.
And last but not least Spotify, usually for me I use it for checking out the release radar or for looking for playlists.

[normaltusker]

Voted for Spotify.

The plain vanilla reason is their extensive library of pre-curated playlists. I mainly listen to Hindi 80s and 90s music and find Spotify adequate for that. I used to use Gaana earlier primarily for their own content - I was a big fan of Riya's Retro, 90s ki Cassette and Kahaanibaaz but they have now stopped creating these.

I have tried Apple Music and Youtube Music but was never satisfied with them.

Apple has a dearth of good content and they cater more to the English Music audience.

Youtube Music had put me off because their UI was very difficult to use. It wasn't as intuitive as I had expected of a music player.

[PaddleShifter]

I only have amazon music subscription (prime member) and using Spotify and JioSaavn free versions.

My music listening is 98% in car and maybe 2% at home. I do short distance trips thrice a week (2-3km one way). My long highway journey is limited to one trip every month or sometimes after three months or more. So paying for the music apps is a waste for me.

For Car: I use Apple CarPlay and music apps.

1. Amazon Music: I use it because spotify has too many ads for the short 2km journey I do thrice a week. The biggest con is that Siri is not compatible with Amazon Music so I need to save a large playlist beforehand for highway trips. For city trips, a short playlist of 5 songs is enough. Amazon music works well with Echo dot speaker having inbuilt Alexa so that is a bonus for listening at home.

2. Spotify: only during long highway journey when I need to give voice commands to Siri for playing a particular song.

3. Jiosaavn: tried it a few times. Not a fan to be honest.

I do not like to add aftermarket wiring so I use stock speakers in my car which are not good enough to differentiate the quality of music in various apps.