For over five years now, I have been testing various Music Streaming services to find out what worked best for me. I have tried just about every service, except Apple Music because I don’t really use Apple products except my Laptop. So, I will leave Apple out of this. Everyone has different criteria for streaming services, so I will go into great depth and detail to list what makes each service great or not so great. With Spotify continually making controversial decisions, many people might be looking for another service. I personally don’t like Spotify, not only because they continually don’t pay artists in a timely manner or what the streams are worth, but because they LIE about the quality of their streaming and they do not have a lot of the independent artists I listen to, and consistently lose licensed content. There are so many reasons to drop Spotify, especially with other Scrobbling Apps available if you like your monthly and yearly “Wrapped” or “Recap”. I will also explain the scrobbling apps, for us data and tracking nerds!

I will end the article with the best service (in my opinion) and the service I currently use.

Spotify: Rating 4/10

I used Spotify off and on for about eight years. Initially, I loved this Streaming App. The app had all of the content I listened to, even some obscure European music I listened to then. The quality, compared to Radio and Pandora was mind-blowing in the beginning. It had immense dynamic range and seemed to have a FLAC listening experience even while on Mobile Data. The “Offline Mode” was a must have. I live in Colorado and our cell service and Mobile Data is incredibly spotty while traveling. Offline Mode allowed me to per-download full albums in high-quality and listen to them wherever I went. Life was good with Spotify, and then they started pulling shady corporate business practices. Artists began complaining about how little they made from Spotify compared to other platforms. I noticed a decline in quality shortly after these allegations came out. Then, I became a huge fan of Devin Townsend when the album Z2 came out. Spotify notoriously dropped Devin Townsend albums, then got them back, and then dropped them again. This was extremely frustrating, especially at $20 a month for the App. Nothing was more frustrating than the lack of ability to stream brand new albums on-the-go, however. A new album would release, I would go on the Desktop version of the App, and pre-save the album so it would download as soon as it was available. Then, I would get in the car for a trip and the album would never load on the mobile app. I did this probably a hundred times, before giving up entirely on the App. The other reason I switched from Spotify to the next App on the list (Amazon Music), is the streaming quality was never as good as advertised. Another feature that was not worth the money was the “Family Plan”, which didn’t work as intended for my family. Maybe Spotify has improved on these features since then.

To test the quality, I simply plugged my Beyerdynamic Headphones into my Sony Hi-Res Amp, and played three of my favorite songs on Amazon, YouTube, Spotify, and Tidal. The songs were “Okapi” by Novelists, “Kingdom” by Devin Townsend, and Choke by The Warning. These songs have completely different ranges and span a huge range from different tuning, levels of layering, and vocals. Spotify was the absolute worst performer on this test. I couldn’t hear any of the quieter details, especially the intro on “Okapi”, and the flam (multiple snare hits with ghost notes) on the songs. The bass was too quiet, even after using the equalizer and boosting everything. The sound was flat, muddy, and even had distortion at louder volumes. I tried multiple mediums to test Spotify and try to get the best sound out of it, but nothing seemed to matter. It doesn’t perform as well as expected for me. Many people say it has the best quality, but to me, it’s the worst besides the Radio.

This absolutely sealed the coffin on Spotify. They claim to have the best streaming quality around, but based on the music I listen to, it falls incredibly flat. Once I tried other apps, I realized Spotify was not as good of quality as advertised.

Amazon Music: Rating 5/10

Amazon Music is a service my family and I received through our Prime membership. I was looking for an app other than Spotify that had a massive selection and worked on-the-go. I decided to try Amazon Music. Immediately, I was impressed by their selection, their suggestions for music, the ease of use of the App, and the high quality of the music on Desktop and the App. I found it to be better than Spotify right away. It was faster, crashed less, used less memory on Desktop, and had a much better fuller sound on their Metal tracks. It was working great for a year and a half, but then I noticed some glaring issues. Upon update, it lost my account login, my playlists, and changed the user agreement. I could no longer use my own account, and had to use my mom’s account. I tried to recover my account, but it required a new family plan. This was extremely upsetting, as we were not warned beforehand that this would occur. The countless hours I spent making playlists and collaborating with my family and friends was gone. The account was not recoverable, so Amazon lost my business. On top of that, Amazon’s “Offline Music mode” was incredibly inconsistent. It would randomly delete all my downloaded data without telling me. Then, I would get in the car and nothing would play offline. Every week I had to re-download a playlist or two. This was annoying and a wrongful advertisement of a great feature. Like most apps I’ve used since Smartphones became a thing, Amazon Music became worse and worse over time and was hard for my other family members to use.

Amazon’s music quality to my ears is superior to Spotify, but not enough to go back to it.

Upon research, I did find that Amazon does pay their artists a bit better than Spotify. But, ultimately you’re just funding Jeff Bezos’ personal and business ventures as well as shady dealings with China, where they sell all the data that the App collects to the highest bidder like most apps out there and ultimately funds the Chinese Communist Party, which isn’t something I wish to do.

Spotify: Pays artists an estimated range of $0.003 to $0.005 per stream. 

Amazon Music: Pays artists an estimated range of $0.004 to $0.00402 per stream. 

Soundcloud: 8/10

Soundcloud is great at streaming on Desktop. Upon testing the app, I cannot find an “Offline Mode”, unless it is for your own music that you own. Offline mode is only available on the Go+ version of the app. Soundcloud has a massive catalog of music, however. There is infinite level of discovering unsigned and underground music. It is a huge range of music from big names to independent basement artists in any genre or sub genre you can think of. I enjoy the huge range of music. There was even a Devin Townsend ambient album on there that I forgot existed. To stream music at a basic level is $4.99 per month. For high quality music, it is $10.99 per month. That is $2 to $10 cheaper than competing streaming services.

The high quality is god level, to be honest. It is just as good as Tidal for quality, which really surprised me. I tested “Kingdom” by Devin Townsend on Soundcloud vs Tidal back to back, honing in on parts of the song. On first listen, it sounds nearly identical. Plenty of punch and layers and clarity at high volume. But Soundcloud did something I thought no App could do, and that’s make it sound “live”. The reverb is way more audible on Soundcloud, giving the sound a more “anthemic” and epic effect. To be honest, I like the version of Kingdom on here much more than Tidal. Tidal sounds TOO distorted on this song, like there’s still too much distortion at high volume. Let me try another song and see if it has the same effect.

Okay, the “fullness” and full dynamic range definitely depends on the song. Some songs I listen to sound better on Soundcloud. Some songs sound better on Tidal. It is definitely a subjective preference. But I still prefer Tidal’s dynamic range. It provides a HUGE boost to the bast on Rock songs, especially The Warning when I want to hear the full range of Alejandra’s bass at full volume, Tidal is incomparable. For Metal listeners, I definitely recommend trying both apps. For EDM listeners, Tidal’s bass is unlike anything else I have ever experienced. It is a religious experience hearing the bass quality on Tidal. I listen to Hayla and The Chainsmokers regularity, and it just sounds so starkly better on Tidal than any other app.

Soundcloud is unassuming, a light weight juggernaut. The app seems so basic. It is so incredibly easy to use. You can find literally anything you’re looking for in seconds. I also enjoyed the tag based search. You can search based on anything from a mood, to a color, to a subject, to a region. It is miraculous how much bang you get for your buck on this app. I did not expect to like this App at all, but Soundcloud is my next choice after Tidal for a Streaming service. This app is simply amazing. Go+ is worth every penny. I highly recommend the free trial.

YouTube Music: 4/10

YouTube is one of the biggest websites of all time, especially after Google Monopolized it and but billions into optimizing the site and App and boosting content. I use YouTube Premium and YouTube every single day of my life since it all begin. I am a music video junkie (one of my next topics on this blog) and I love YouTube. So I was eager to try their “premium” music service. The quality on YouTube Premium Videos seemed pretty good. I can always tell when the audio is super compressed, which is a common complaint among YouTube users. Sometimes the music sounds ultra flat, distorted, and honestly garbled from CD or other Streaming Services that offer FLAC quality. I expected YouTube Music to be better quality than the videos. I ended up being very disappointed. YouTube Music provides the same quality as Music Videos, as far as I can tell. The App is overly complex. You can’t tell if it wants to play the video or the song. The artist names are not always correct on more obscure songs. It takes A LOT of Bandwidth and lags on WiFi, even worse on 4g or 5g Data. There’s so much I don’t like about this App. The family plan costs the same as Tidal’s, but I don’t think it’s worth the money. It’s not user friendly in anyway. It is hard to make playlists and time consuming, even if you’ve had a YouTube account for as long as I have. There’s nothing intuitive about the App. I really dislike the layout of it. It is small, clunky, and way too touchy. While the selection is great, even including exclusive live performances, I don’t think it’s worth $13.99 a month. You’re welcome to try it for yourself, but I didn’t care for this App at all.

Bandcamp 8/10

TLDR: Bandcamp is a choice App to support your favorite artists 100% with no Middle man, but you have to pay $10 an album to do so. If you truly care about giving real artists your money, USE BANDCAMP. Great App, Great quality, infinite possibilities and interactions with the artists themselves PLUS exclusives!

Bandcamp is a rare gem in the streaming industry. It allows for 85% or more proceeds to go to the Artist, but the honest truth is, this does not apply to Streaming.. You have to buy the digital versions of songs or albums to pay artists, and that applies to the entire industry. So don’t be fooled and think streaming on Bandcamp is any better for the artist, because it simply doesn’t pay. If you buy the albums or individual songs and then stream them, then they get paid. But Bandcamp does not pay the artist for streams without buying the album or song.

BUT, the download quality and Streaming through the App is absolutely incredible. I found it to be almost equal with Tidal, especially since you get access to FLAC files even through the App upon buying those versions.. It sounds absolutely fantastic. The selection is immense, especially for Rock, Metal, Indie, and Avant Garde. Taking into the account of being able to purchase albums and stream, knowing 85% goes to the artist, I LOVE the idea of this app. Is the App the best? No. The browser version is so much easier to use. So, if you’re on Desktop it’s fantastic. And if you want to track music for a Spotify Wrapped experience, there’s no way to do that with Bandcamp. BUT, I think having Bandcamp in addition to Tidal is a wonderful way to insure your artists are getting paid what they deserve.

Tidal 9/10

TLDR: I love Tidal more than any App ever made. It pays artists more per Stream. It’s seamless, easy to use, user friendly, family plan,, and offline mode actually works. The quality of streaming is truly unbelievable. It’s FLAC quality and dynamic range are unmatched. Tidal is mostly American owned by Block INC, and Norwegian owned with no shady dealings.

I have never been more blown away by a streaming service. Tidal is my end all be all Music Streaming App. It is the most intuitive music App I have ever used. It knows what I want to listen to and helps me build infinite playlists with ease. It’s selection is expansive. Anything you can think of, even Sea EDM, Indie, Shoegaze, and so much Metal and Classical music. It also allows users to upload their own music, which is great for sharing. It keeps a monthly track of your listening habits and makes a graphic every month. It works with Last FM to get a comprehensive stat based look at what you listen to. I can’t really find anything wrong with it, besides some small clarity issues on some songs. There’s a bit of distortion on loud streaming, and I have no idea why.. Other than that, you can hear every layer so well.

Progressive Metal sounds unbelievably good on Tidal, as well as old music. Old Music sounds better on Tidal than on Disc, because the volume is boosted and a little compressed so you don’t have to blow your speakers out on the louder parts. Every aspect of the App is optimized. It is fast, but the Desktop app is a memory HOG. It streams at such a high quality, it will bog your computer. It is not good for playing while gaming. I recommend listening on headphones on your phone while you game. It will crash your PC if you try to run new games with high intensity processor use. But I don’t care. I love this App anyway. It just sounds fantastic on everything; The car, your phone, home theater system, desktop speakers, it sounds EXACTLY the same no matter what you’re using to stream it on.

So, Tidal is my favorite Streaming service thus far, and I don’t think that’ll change anytime soon. But you ultimately have to find what service works the best for you. Give Bandcamp and Tidal a shot!

More importantly, go buy merch and physical copies from your favorite artist to support them in the maximum way possible. Streaming alone will never be enough to sustain the variety of new music.

1M Stream = $4,000 = 115 T-shirts sold

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(data from 2023) https://labelgrid.com/blog/royalties/spotify-pay-per-stream/

What are you using to listen to music?