[vivekdewanta]

Spotify and YouTube Music are two popular streaming platforms, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Here's a comparison to help you decide which might be better for you:

Content: Both platforms offer extensive libraries of songs, albums, playlists, and podcasts. However, YouTube Music may have a slight edge due to its integration with the vast content available on YouTube, including live performances, covers, remixes, and music videos.
User Interface: Spotify is often praised for its clean and user-friendly interface, making it easy to discover new music and create playlists. YouTube Music has improved its interface over time but might feel cluttered to some users due to its integration with YouTube's video content.
Audio Quality: Both platforms offer similar audio quality for their premium subscriptions. However, Spotify has been in the game longer and may have slightly better sound optimization and streaming quality.
Discovery and Recommendations: Spotify is known for its robust recommendation algorithms, offering personalized playlists like Discover Weekly and Release Radar. YouTube Music also provides personalized recommendations but may not be as refined as Spotify's algorithms.
Social Features: Spotify allows users to follow friends, see what they're listening to, and share playlists easily. YouTube Music offers similar features, but its social integration might not be as prominent.
Offline Listening: Both platforms offer offline listening capabilities with their premium subscriptions, allowing users to download songs and playlists for listening without an internet connection.
Price: Pricing may vary depending on your region, but generally, both platforms offer similar pricing tiers for their premium subscriptions. However, Spotify often runs promotions and discounts for new users, so it's worth checking for deals.
Ultimately, the choice between Spotify and YouTube Music comes down to personal preference and what features are most important to you. If you value a clean interface, robust recommendation algorithms, and social features, Spotify might be the better choice. On the other hand, if you enjoy watching music videos, live performances, and covers, and prefer a platform with a vast array of content, then YouTube Music could be the way to go.

[sagarpadaki]

Youtube Music quality is poor even with a DAC. The main reason is that the Music gets the content from the Video and the Video uploaded is highly compressed. The YT music is not a dedicated music app. It is rather taking the videos and stripping the audio from the video and streaming it on the music platform.

Apple music has the best quality. When you listen to a same song on YT music and Apple music with highest quality setting, the difference is stark. More so with a DAC.

[Kosfactor]

Streaming Only now - Youtube Music. The family plan and the recommendations algorithm is very good. The google assistant can recognize Tamil , Malayalam , Kannada music etc without much difficulty.

Another interesting aspect is the Community playlists with all sorts of things - remasters, songs recorded by specific sound engineers, artists and even playlists named after their vehicle for instance.

There are playlists for recording engineers \ producers like Steve Albini, Quincy Jones, Eddie Kramer to name a few and of course our very own - H Sridhar.

There are community playlists that celebrates things like 'gated reverb' a specific sound effect that was used in music production during a certain period of time etc.

So to me YT music is very nice.

[Thatautoguy46]

I've been using Wynk for almost two years now. The premium plan is included with unlimited Airtel recharge plans, so no ads and free downloads. One advantage I found over Spotify is the bass. The songs sound really good with increased bass on Wynk when compared to Spotify while using headphones or earphones at even lesser sound say at 30-40% of volume.
The only drawback is the number of songs on Wynk as compared to Spotify. Wynk has less songs, while Spotify has wide category of songs and podcasts.

[OptimusPrime1]

I've observed a growing trend of people migrating from Spotify to YouTube Music.Personally, I'm considering making the switch myself. Besides the extensive music library, one appealing aspect for me is the ad-free access to YouTube, which I find myself using more and more these days. Your insights have definitely given me more to think about.Thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

Youtube Music quality is poor even with a DAC. The main reason is that the Music gets the content from the Video and the Video uploaded is highly compressed. The YT music is not a dedicated music app. It is rather taking the videos and stripping the audio from the video and streaming it on the music platform.

Apple music has the best quality. When you listen to a same song on YT music and Apple music with highest quality setting, the difference is stark. More so with a DAC.

Absolutely!
It's true that YouTube Music may not always meet the audio quality expectations, especially when listening to music with DACs
With a bitrate of 256 kbps using the AAC format, the sound quality leaves much to be desired.

Apple Music's maximum audio quality of 256 kbps with AAC and the option for lossless audio, including Hi-Resolution Lossless is a nice combo indeed and I think it costs nearly the same as Spotify.
However, when it comes to automated playlists, I find YouTube Music or Spotify more appealing than Apple Music. It's amusing how Apple Music seems to recommend only pop music to me, regardless of the genre I've been listening to. It's become a bit of a running joke for me.

So to deal with this issue, I usually listen to music on Spotify, but occasionally, I download FLAC files to enjoy high-resolution audio.

[Sensible_Speed]

Apple Music for me. I used Spotify in college for the student discount. But, last year, my whole outlook on music was shook when I was gifted a pair of new airpods. For context, Apple offers 6 months free Apple Music subscription with a new pair of airpods. I knew Apple music had a huge official library; I just didn't know how much I was missing.

Let me start off by saying, I am a HUUUUGE classic rock fan. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Cream, Hendrix- this is pretty much always playing in my head. When I listened to the same songs on Apple Music, I was shocked to hear notes I never picked up on Spotify! I even heard the tracks back to back on both services to make sure I wasn't reading into something that didn't exist. Spoiler: It does! Apple Music quality blows Spotify out of this planet. The price for regular subscription is similar too! With a DAC and a good pair of monitors, you will be in aural heaven with Apple Music. To rub salt in Spotify's wound, they fired people who control stuff like the curation algorithm. So now, Spotify suggestions are d** sh**! They still don't have hi-res audio despite promising it over a year ago.

Apple Music does have a few drawbacks. It doesn't work very well on non-apple devices. DACs are hamstrung by the snail-like bandwidth on offer with lightning ports, so hi-res isn't an option unless you listen on your ipad or computer. Spatial Audio is a gimmick for most tracks. Otherwise, I'm very happy with it.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

I have a slightly weird take on this!

I'm a rare Apple Music user - on Android. Reason: Apple Music can stream high-res lossless, and android can stream lossless to both the headphones and buds for when I don't want to carry around the amplifier and wired headset.

Tried many platforms and couldn't find a better combination for streaming audio quality - spotify doesn't even come close.

Perhaps the only service from Apple I think is worth it, other than the Apple watch (having heard stories of it saving lives in emergency situations).

[anjan_c2007]

YouTube any day for me. Its menu covers all sorts of music from all countries, maybe excluding the ones where its banned or non-existent. Its repertoire is massive and unparalleled.

The only disadvantages are that since the music streamed is in a video format, it can't be minimised. And when you are low on data and/or battery, it consumes more bytes and power respectively.

[Venkatesh.C]

Apple Music: Lossless / HI-Res Lossless the sound quality difference is very much perceptible vis-a-vis the rest of the crowd
YouTube : for old song(up to 90s) playlists. They anyway have poor recording quality and Apple Music is not going to make any difference.

[Cool Piscean]

Amazon music..... I prefer amazon music in car as its integrated with Adrenox. The convenience of shuffling through various playlist by voice command while driving is the biggest plus point. Secondly I get ad free music with Amazon music.

[Fr0nx23]

I listen to music occasionally. I use Amazon Music. I have prime subscription so no brainer. And it works best in android auto. Agree that Spotify is best when it comes to curation of playlists. For this reason, I have kept default source on my Alexa echo dot is Spotify cause it has better playlists. But on any other device, the ads are unbearable without a subscription.

[rosh_aveo1.4]

Apple music...one for the quality but more for automation in the iPhone where I set up which music should it play when I connect to it to my car Bluetooth or CarPlay. I tried to check this automation for other streaming services but I can't seem to have a control on the other apps unlike the Apple Music where I can specifically say which album or station it should play. So I just enter the car and drive off, no need to fiddle with the music. I can always mute it if I don't need it.

[Zinger_Winger]

Youtube Music for me. The Youtube Premium plan, which removes ads from videos also includes Youtube Music and considering access to the unlimited stores of data that Alphabet INC., has I have never been able to not find anything that I wanted to find. Two birds, one stone and quite VFM.

[Rocketscience]

For a person who has all his music library offline, I use Apple Music, the price is competitive, the UI is fine, I am not much into discovering or listening to unknown songs so never got into those features. I mostly discover new songs organically or from Youtube.

Sound Quality with AAC is great and I find it better than the others most of the times, lossless is a great addition to have but frankly even with my more than decent home theater, I couldn't hear a smidge of a difference and I stick to lossy.

Dolby Atmos is again a great to have on paper but it is a hit or miss, since it mostly depends on how the song is mixed and most of the times it sounds much worse and unbalanced than the normal 2 channel mix but other times it sounds way better because of much less sound compression (not related to codec compression as Dolby Atmos is lossy here AFAIK), since all of the songs released today have their master compressed to infinity in view of loudness wars, every instrument sounds about as loud as the other and even with the best of speakers the actual instrument separation and realism is severely missing but that's how it is worldwide (search loudness wars if you want to dig deeper), with some Atmos mixed songs when done right, the sound is no doubt way superior and you can enjoy the song much more and is a trailer of if all songs were mixed like this which they indeed were before early 2000s, they can sound so much better, many of the 90s songs sound better for precisely this reason, that combined with mostly real instruments used in that era they sound way more dynamic and real. Basically those mixes had the actual loudness of every instrument corresponding to their loudness in real life example a tabla will sound less loud than a 100 piece orchestra at full power and so on, that dynamic range made it possible to discern each and every instrument and greatly improved the realism and enjoyment, while most but the lowest end TV speakers could handle that perfectly, today we are surrounded with weak speakers in our phones, TV, laptops and this is a major part of the reason for loudness wars and why we get served with much inferior mixes, they have to appeal to the lowest denominators and actually sound not good but at least audible in those speakers.

Coming to Apple's definitions of actual 360 degree surround sound with Atmos (That is its real purpose according to them and the positives I mentioned are just the great side effects), leaving aside 1 song - Boom by Tiesto, I have never felt the surround sound part of it and it at its best sounds like a better, non loudness wars affected 2 channel mix and at its worst a royal mess, it should be used on an album to album basis and be turned off if it is worse, sadly I highly recommend not keeping it on indefinitely as many albums sound way worse.
The surround sound part of it is a huge gimmick and it can't recreate the surround sound effect of a real movie theater or a home theater using headphones.

[PearlJam]

I always prefer Internet Radio over streaming, because, it gives a sense of randomness and diversity to the song selection. So TuneIn Radio (not mentioned in the list) is my go to app, and I have many favourite stations there. Yes, there are a few ads, but they are extremely minimum.