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Determining the best music streaming service for everyone is difficult. Most of the popular options available today are simple: a large and diverse music library that you can access on a map, organize into playlists, download for offline listening, and play on multiple devices. Most are available at similar prices. That being said, there are subtle but significant differences in features and philosophies between the two that can determine which one fits your life better. To help those considering trying out a new music app, we've spent the last few months simultaneously using the most popular music streaming services, testing their limits and seeing how they measure up to our input.
The most complete: Apple Music
No music streaming service is perfect, but for many, Apple Music should be close to everything they need. It has a library of over 100 million songs, all available in lossless streaming quality at no additional cost. The interface doesn't make it difficult to access your music library, providing a balance between helpful algorithmic recommendations and intelligently curated content from real people. It's one of the few music streaming services that lets you upload your own music files, and of course, it's tightly integrated with Apple devices.
Apple Music ALAC files have a minimum resolution of 16-bit/44.1kHz, equivalent to CD quality. A small but still significant selection can stream in high definition up to 24bit/192kHz. A significant number of albums are available in Dolby Atmos surround sound or "special audio" mixes.
Lossless streaming won't be a game changer for most casual listeners. You need a good set of wired headphones and an external DAC (or a good speaker system) to get the most out of it, and the upgrade isn't drastic enough to interest non-enthusiasts. Although the difference is slight, a lossless file will sound better than a more compressed file, especially in the way it extracts high-frequency sounds from characters, strings, etc.
Spatial audio, on the other hand, is more of a fun gimmick: yes, technically impressive, and sometimes really exciting, but in this case it makes the recording less natural.
Compared to other music streaming services, Apple Music's interface is quite functional. In general, it puts more emphasis on human curation than peers like Spotify or YouTube Music. It's not as big as it used to be, and the Listen Now tab can be a selection of random suggestions based on your recent listening history. Still, the service is packed with great editor-curated playlists. The default search page has several tabs of different genres, each containing relevant playlists, music videos and a generally accurate list of "Must Albums". Artist pages often highlight a band's major works, along with "deep" playlists, artists who likely inspired them, artists they influenced, etc. .
One of the main differentiators of Apple Music is streaming radio stations. There is a regular rotation of interview shows with artists, and they resemble the Internet. The main tabs are often used to highlight new releases, and you can find top ratings for different countries and cities. All this adds nuance to Apple Music, something that can help you find music, but prefers a personal approach.
Plus, it's easy to get an overview of your saved artists, albums, songs and playlists You can reliably search for tracks by song and have a great song viewer for an impromptu karaoke session. It's easy to create playlists and download albums for offline listening, and you can start a radio station from any track. While your imported music may not be available in lossless quality, the ability to download music is a boon for those with large iTunes libraries. Just remember that you are limited to 100,000 tracks that are not yet available in the app
If you like classical music, Apple recently released a dedicated Apple Music Classical app for this genre, which is included with most Apple Music plans. However, performing these tasks in a separate application is a bit of a hassle.
There are still some difficulties. Apple Music has apps for Android, Windows, and web browsers. At the time of writing, the Windows app was only available in buggy preview form, and there is no lossless streaming in the browser. It is best used with Apple devices. There's no (confusing) way to view your list of favorite songs in the mobile app. There's also no free tier or annual family plan, and the individual plan costs $1 more per month than some competitors
Free Tier : None
Personal plan : $11 per month or $109 per year
Family plan : $17 per month (up to 6 members)
Voice plan : $5 per month (can only be used with Siri)
Student package : $6 per month
Best for finding music: Spotify
Spotify relies much more heavily on algorithmic recommendations than Apple Music, but a wealth of user listening data over the years has allowed the service to refine its music recommendation engine. That's the main reason to consider it: No other service plays the music you love more accurately, or makes better suggestions for other songs you might like (although the user interface gets worse with each update). As the most popular music streaming app, it is also available on various devices.
Spotify is especially good for creating playlists. Discover Weekly is known for finding unreleased tracks and artists of your choice. "Release Radar" is equally amazing for highlighting new tracks from artists you follow and additional sounds. The Daily Mix playlist combines past favorites with deep cuts from artists in your library and similar songs that aren't them, then organizes them by mood and genre. Depending on what you're playing, you might wake up to a mix of upbeat electro, upbeat indie rock, and spacey hip-hop. While your selections can be more random, the new "niche mix" feature allows you to search by mood or genre and allows the app to create a relevant playlist. Follow the algorithm down your rabbit hole to find something easy You can enjoy it in few clicks.
That being said, there are still plenty of male-curated playlists to explore. Regularly updated charts like Rap Caviar, New Music Friday, and Viva Latino may not be specifically for you, but they are curated and programmed with current trends in mind by knowledgeable people. Different playlists that are updated less often depending on the genre, era and atmosphere create the same impression. Here is the human touch; They're not as strict as Apple Music, so what you prefer depends on your willingness to let the algorithm rule you.
Spotify's interface isn't bad, but some recent changes have made it more difficult to use. The Home tab contains a number of suggestions based on your current listening history. For example, when I was looking for this guide, I was going through a huge yacht rock phase, so my home page was filled with playlists like Soft Rock Classics, All Out 70's, and Totally Stress Free. It wasn't like that, but the point is that the service will change and adapt significantly as your listening habits change.
Sorting and searching your own library is relatively easy, and a playlist with all your favorite songs will be prominently displayed in the playlists section. There is a convenient lyrics viewer for singing along. Search generally works well, allowing you to find music by title, lyrics, artist, or even context, such as "learning" or "studio."
Creating and sharing a playlist is very easy. Artist pages aren't as comprehensive as Apple Music, but they do include a list of upcoming tour dates along with links to tickets from sites like Sankak, AXS, and Ticketmaster. The Search tab has pages dedicated to different genres and moods, from jazz and R&B to In the Car and League of Legends. You can start a radio station from any track, but this can lead to repetitive songs over time.
Spotify has made a big foray into podcasts and audiobooks in recent years, landing exclusive deals (for better and for worse) with several popular shows in the process. Some may find it simple, but it makes the interface cluttered. At the top of the Home tab, you'll see a row labeled Your Shows, which includes not only shows you're subscribed to, but also shows you've recently streamed. Apple Music and many others skip podcasts altogether, making them less annoying if you want your Music app to focus solely on music.
On the mobile app, you can filter the home screen for music, podcasts, and audiobooks, but Spotify recently redesigned them to resemble a TikTok-style feed with giant autoplay suggestion cards. This may sound like a novelty, but scrolling through an endless stream of one or two sentences at a time is not an efficient way to find content. Likewise, the AI-powered DJ tool on offer is technically impressive, but it also tends to jump clumsily from genre to genre. You're talking about an app that may be paying too much attention to its algorithmic capabilities.
Spotify does not offer lossless streaming, instead offering the Ogg Vorbis format at a relatively low bitrate of 320kbps. Web browser playback uses AAC and the maximum bit rate is 256 Kbps. The company announced the CD-quality "hifi" layer more than two years ago and says it's still in the works, but it's unclear how they'll work or how much they'll cost. . .
Spotify offers a more powerful free tier than most of its competitors. You'll have to contend with ads, an even lower 160kbps bitrate, and restrictions on track skipping and on-demand playback, but you can still listen to multiple custom playlists and enjoy a large portion of the library. This may be sufficient for occasional background checks.
Although it doesn't really matter to your listening experience, Spotify is particularly terrible when it comes to paying artists. Some musicians have even started agitating for fairer wages and greater transparency. Music streaming isn't ideal for artists, especially independent artists, but Spotify is a great example of what's wrong with the current system.
Free Tier : Yes
Single plan : $10 per month ($99 12-month subscription gift card)
Duo Package : $12 per month (2 members)
Family plan : $16 per month (up to 6 members)
Student package : $5 per month
Best for dark music: YouTube Music
From an interface or streaming quality perspective, there's no reason to choose YouTube Music over Apple Music or Spotify Still, Google's music service has some unique selling points that may be worth your time. Perhaps most interestingly, it comes with a YouTube Premium subscription. $12 per month or $120 per year, it also removes YouTube ads, allows videos to be downloaded for offline viewing, and allows background playback. If you're a regular YouTube user and have a full music service on top of that, these features alone are a huge plus.
Even without YouTube's ad-free benefits, YouTube Music enjoys tight integration with the video platform. YouTube hosts a lot of content not available on other leading music streaming services and integrates it into your music library If you like crazy live performances, deep underground hip-hop, gritty soundtracks, no-nonsense nightmare mixes, or Aphex Twin remixes made entirely of Super Mario 64 sound, this is for you. .
If you sign in to YouTube Music with the same account you use for YouTube, the music you like is already there and helps recommend the service. Of course, this integration makes YouTube Music the best choice for music videos that you can access with just one click.
However, because it handles so much hardware, YouTube Music's interface can feel sparse and overwhelming. Scrolling down the homepage, you'll see current tracks, popular music, curated and community-created playlists, favorites, radio stations, music videos, algorithmic custom mixes, new releases, and chart mixes. When searching for an artist, community playlists and covers may appear among more traditional results It tends to mix singles with full albums and does not display albums in chronological order. Basically, content hosted on YouTube doesn't fit your library as well as standard content.
However, the sheer number of suggestions makes YouTube Music good for showing you new music you might like, and its "Discover Mix" works almost like Spotify's Discover Weekly. With a few buttons at the top of the app, you can filter home page suggestions based on different moods: relax, exercise, energize, travel, or focus. You can start a radio station from any song, although we also found that it brought back more of our favorite tracks than we wanted. You can upload up to 100,000 of your own music files, which are available even if you are not a paying customer (but this does not affect the service's recommendations).
YouTube Music doesn't offer lossless streaming and reaches a relatively low bitrate of 256 Kbps, so it's not for audiophiles. There's no dedicated desktop app, and while there's an ad-supported tier, playback pauses whenever you exit the app on a phone, hitting a bitrate of around 128 Kbps. Your entire playlist is limited to a maximum of 5000 songs Podcast support is on the way, although it's not clear what that will look like at the time of writing. Google also has a long history of moving its own products, including its service predecessors; We can understand if this makes you nervous in the long run, although the company seems to want to improve YouTube Music today.
free level : yes
Custom plan : $10/month or $100/year; এছাড়াও $12/মাস বা $120/বছরে YouTube প্রিমিয়াম সাবস্ক্রিপশনের অংশ হিসাবে উপলব্ধ
পারিবারিক পরিকল্পনা : $15/মাস (6 সদস্য পর্যন্ত)
ছাত্র প্যাকেজ : $5/মাস
আরেকটি ভাল বিকল্প: অ্যামাজন মিউজিক আনলিমিটেড
আপনি যদি একই অ্যাপে পডকাস্ট এবং লসলেস স্ট্রিমিং চান তবে অ্যামাজন মিউজিক আনলিমিটেড অ্যাপল মিউজিক এবং স্পটিফাইয়ের একটি কঠিন বিকল্প। অ্যাপল মিউজিকের মতো, এটি "আল্ট্রা এইচডি" (24-বিট/192kHz) এ উপলব্ধ FLAC ফাইলগুলির একটি ছোট কিন্তু ক্রমবর্ধমান নির্বাচন সহ, কোনও অতিরিক্ত খরচ ছাড়াই 100 মিলিয়নের বেশি সিডি-মানের গান অফার করে। Dolby Atmos বা Sony's 360 Reality Audio-তেও বেশ কিছু ট্র্যাক মিশ্রিত করা হয়েছে। Spotify-এর মতো, এর ক্যাটালগে বিভিন্ন ধরনের অ-সংগীত বিষয়বস্তু রয়েছে। বেশিরভাগ প্রধান পডকাস্ট নেটওয়ার্ক প্রতিনিধিত্ব করা হয়, এবং বেশ কয়েকটি শো বিজ্ঞাপন-মুক্ত উপস্থাপন করা হয়।
আপনি যদি ইতিমধ্যেই একজন Amazon প্রাইম গ্রাহক হয়ে থাকেন, তাহলে আপনি প্রতি মাসে $9 বা বছরে $89 এর জন্য উপলব্ধ একটি কাস্টম প্ল্যান সহ প্রতিযোগিতার চেয়ে কম দামে মিউজিক আনলিমিটেড পেতে পারেন। এটি একটি বিশাল ডিসকাউন্ট নয়, কিন্তু প্রতি বছর $10 বা $20 কম কোন ছোট কৃতিত্ব নয় যখন মিউজিক স্ট্রিমিং পরিষেবাগুলির মধ্যে বিস্তৃত পার্থক্য এত ছোট। অবশ্যই, মিউজিক আনলিমিটেড অ্যামাজনের অ্যালেক্সা ডিভাইসেও সেরা কাজ করে।
মিউজিক আনলিমিটেড এর ইন্টারফেস তার সমবয়সীদের মতই, তবে এর কিছু ত্রুটি রয়েছে। আপনার শোনার ইতিহাসের সাথে মেলে না এমন পডকাস্ট প্রচার করার ক্ষেত্রে অ্যামাজন স্পটিফাইয়ের চেয়ে বেশি আক্রমণাত্মক। রেডিও স্টেশন এবং অ্যালগরিদমিক প্লেলিস্টগুলি সারিতে থাকা গানগুলি দেখায় না৷ অনুসন্ধান পূর্ববর্তী বিকল্পগুলির মতো সুনির্দিষ্ট নয় এবং আপনি সরাসরি আপনার লাইব্রেরি পৃষ্ঠা থেকে সংরক্ষিত অ্যালবামগুলি অনুসন্ধান করতে পারবেন না৷ অ্যামাজন অ্যাপল বা স্পটিফাইয়ের চেয়ে আপনার পছন্দ হতে পারে এমন নতুন সঙ্গীত প্রকাশে কম সক্রিয়। তবুও, মিউজিক আনলিমিটেড সম্ভাব্য কম দামে একটি চিত্তাকর্ষক ক্যাটালগ অফার করে।
বিনামূল্যের স্তর : হ্যাঁ
ব্যক্তিগত পরিকল্পনা : $11/মাস; Amazon Prime এর সাথে $9/মাস বা $89/বছর
পারিবারিক পরিকল্পনা : $16/মাস বা $159/বছর (6 সদস্য পর্যন্ত)
একক ডিভাইস পরিকল্পনা : $5/মাস (একটি ইকো টিভি বা ফায়ার টিভির জন্য)
ছাত্র প্যাকেজ : $6/মাস
স্বীকৃতি
জোয়ার
টাইডাল সর্বোচ্চ শিল্পী রয়্যালটি, কোনো অতিরিক্ত খরচ ছাড়াই সিডি-গুণমান স্ট্রিমিং, বিনামূল্যের স্তর, 100 মিলিয়নেরও বেশি গানের একটি লাইব্রেরি এবং মানব নির্বাচন এবং বৈশিষ্ট্য-শৈলী বিষয়বস্তুতে গভীর দক্ষতা অফার করে। আপনি যদি একজন সঙ্গীতপ্রেমী হন এবং টেক ইন্ডাস্ট্রির জায়ান্টকে অতিরিক্ত মাসিক ফি প্রদান না করার জন্য দৃঢ়প্রতিজ্ঞ হন তবে এটি একটি ভাল বিকল্প। যাইহোক, অ্যাপগুলি অ্যাপল মিউজিকের মতো মসৃণ নয় এবং সর্বোচ্চ রেজোলিউশনের স্তরের প্রতি মাসে $20 খরচ হয়। এই উচ্চ-রেজোলিউশন ট্র্যাকগুলিও MQA-তে এনকোড করা হয়েছে, একটি আংশিক ক্ষতিকর বিন্যাস যা এখনও স্পষ্ট শোনাচ্ছে কিন্তু FLAC-এর মতো ওপেন সোর্স নয়৷
কোবুজ
কোবুজ অডিওফাইল চেনাশোনাগুলিতে একটি প্রিয়, বিশেষ করে যখন রুন মিউজিক প্লেয়ারের সাথে জুটিবদ্ধ হয়৷ জোয়ারের মতো, এটি আরও বিবেচিত সম্পাদকীয় পদ্ধতির জন্য অ্যালগরিদমিক আবিষ্কারকে হ্রাস করে। এটি 24-বিট/192kHz পর্যন্ত FLAC স্ট্রিম অফার করে এবং উচ্চ-রেজোলিউশন মাল্টি-অ্যালবাম ডাউনলোড কেনার জন্য একটি ডিজিটাল মিউজিক স্টোর অন্তর্ভুক্ত করে। শাস্ত্রীয় সঙ্গীতে তার বিশেষ মনোযোগ। তবে আপনি যদি অ্যাপল বা অ্যামাজন এড়াতে না চান তবে আপনি কম দামে একই মানের একটি স্ট্রিম পেতে পারেন। কেউ কেউ ইন্টারফেসটিকে খুব বেশি স্ব-উপকরণের উপর নির্ভরশীল এবং নতুন সঙ্গীত আবিষ্কারের জন্য খুব বেশি প্রচেষ্টা খুঁজে পেতে পারে।
deezer
Deezer-এর একটি আকর্ষণীয় ইন্টারফেস, একটি প্রতিযোগিতামূলক লাইব্রেরি, CD-মানের স্ট্রিমিং এবং একটি ডেস্কটপ কম্পিউটার থেকে পরিষেবাতে আপনার নিজস্ব MP3 আপলোড করার ক্ষমতা রয়েছে৷ আপনি যদি একটি স্বতন্ত্র পরিষেবা চান এবং নিজেকে একটি অডিওফাইল হিসাবে বিবেচনা না করেন তবে এটি অন্তত দেখার মূল্য। যাইহোক, তাদের পরামর্শ এবং প্লেলিস্ট সাধারণত তাদের প্রতিযোগীদের মত শক্তিশালী হয় না। অ্যাপল, অ্যামাজন, টাইডাল বা কোবুজের সাথে প্রতিযোগিতা করার জন্য এটিতে একটি উচ্চ রেজোলিউশন স্তরেরও অভাব রয়েছে।
