# What's the best service for streaming classical music?



## Guest

I would like to hear some conversation on this from TC members. My iTunes library has become so large and unwieldy that I am finally considering changing my listening format. 

They stopped making the iPod classic a couple years ago so any new devices won't be able to carry more that a few dozen hours of music. It seems that owning a music library is becoming antiquated. But if I am going get with the program I want to find the right service to sign on to. 

During the free trial for Spotify, I found that it had gaps between tracks - that is not good for classical music where movements must often connect seamlessly. Also it was very limited in it's classical selection. For instance I searched for Olga Scheps and they had only one of her six studio albums available. 

So what do you think is the best streaming service for classical music and why?


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## echmain

If you want specific music on demand, the catalog on Apple Music is enormous.

If you're fine with more of a radio style station, Pandora is still excellent. They have a "Classical Complete Performances" channel so all movements of a piece are presented. And Pandora is super cheap at only $5/month.

But don't forget free streaming of various public radio stations. Minnesota Public Radio has a good channel and they even have a dedicated app for it.


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## Mandryka

Jerome said:


> I would like to hear some conversation on this from TC members. My iTunes library has become so large and unwieldy that I am finally considering changing my listening format.
> 
> They stopped making the iPod classic a couple years ago so any new devices won't be able to carry more that a few dozen hours of music. It seems that owning a music library is becoming antiquated. But if I am going get with the program I want to find the right service to sign on to.
> 
> During the free trial for Spotify, I found that it had gaps between tracks - that is not good for classical music where movements must often connect seamlessly. Also it was very limited in it's classical selection. For instance I searched for Olga Scheps and they had only one of her six studio albums available.
> 
> So what do you think is the best streaming service for classical music and why?


Spotify has an option to play gaplessly. Some playback equipment inserts gaps (Chromecast is never gapless, I don't know anything about Apple kit.)

Spotify has the largest classical catalogue. I can play four of Olga Scheps's studio albums on spotify here in the UK.

Spotify is reliable.

Spotify's sound is not as good as googleplay or qobuz. But their catalogues are smaller (though there are somethings they have which Spotify doesn't, for me important things.)


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## strunzk

Spotify has really surprised me in terms of the specific recordings it has. I recommend it.


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## Bradius

www.classicalarchives.com

About $80/year for unlimited listening to an astonishing amount of Classical music. 
Has a free 2 weeks trial if you just want to try it out. 
I've had it for three years and I love it!


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## StlukesguildOhio

Who the frick is Olga Scheps? How is Olga Scheps in any way, shape, or form a measure of how much classical music is available on Spotify? Personally I have a huge CD collection and have no interest in switching to a digital library. I've had Spotify for several years and am ever amazed at the amount of music available. Where I used to purchase 20+ CDs per month now it is 1 or 2... the absolute finest of what I have been able to access and listen to streaming on Spotify.


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## Bulldog

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Who the frick is Olga Scheps? How is Olga Scheps in any way, shape, or form a measure of how much classical music is available on Spotify?


How much music is available is not a big deal; it's the availability of recordings that the prospective subscriber is interested in that counts. Jerome appears to be interested in Olga Scheps recordings, so he naturally checks it out. By the way, Scheps is an excellent pianist who I find preferable to many other pianists with a discography.

Concerning Spotify, I've never been to that site. I'm a happy camper with Naxos Music Library.


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## GioCar

I am quite happy with the classical music subscription provided by Qobuz. 
High quality streaming, very good search and browsing facilities and a wide enough catalogue.

I've never tried spotify but I've read It's a bit awkward for classical music, and the streaming quality isn't as good as Qobuz's (relevant of course only if you listen with an appropriate hifi system)

Any Tidal's user here?


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## Triplets

I am a Physical Media kind of guy, but I have been using Spotify for a couple of years. I use it primarily to screen CDs that I have read about. About 80% of the time it's available on Spotify. If I really like it then I buy the CD, if undecided I keep it as a playlist and relisten, etc. When I am doing paper work (actually, it's all computer work) at work I stream it from my phone to a Bluetooth speaker at a low level and that works very well. I also use it exclusively now for Popular Music, which I listen to much less often and for which my standards for sound reproduction are not high. It's also great when I baby sit my two small grandchildren for pulling up albums of kids songs and the like.
Sound quality is pretty good, and I am a picky audiophile. It is about equal to good FM reception and for many people that is all they need.
I really dislike their interface. It is particularly awful for Classical. It usually takes multiple attempts to find the CD. It works better for non Classical. The interface problems would prevent me from ever making this my main source of listening. As Mandy said, you can eliminate the gaps between movements in the settings.
I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned Tidal. Tidal costs twice what Spotify costs but I may switch. I've heard it also has a large selection and streams at CD Quality. Tidal is also adopting Meridian's new MQA format (see thread that I started under the 'Hi-Fi' section) and my dealer told me that Blue Sound ( a whole house streaming system, similar to Sonos except that it will do High Resolution recordings) products will be streaming Tidal in MQA starting in June. I already have Bluesound gear in my home so this would be a cheap way for me to experiement with MQA.
I haven't tried Apple streaming service but friends on another CM Forum rave about it. The little that I heard in an Apple Store seems to be sonically similar to Spotify. If you already have a large I tunes collection this may be a good starting place for you to try a service.


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## Becca

My relatively brief experience with Tidal is that it has almost the same catalog as Spotify i.e. I have not yet found something in Tidal that I couldn't find in Spotify and vice-versa. Also Tidal is no better at finding classical titles. The only advantage to it is the higher quality FLAC.


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## Antiquarian

If you are a member of a participating library, then a *Free* alternative to paying sites is *Hoopla*. You need only use your library card number, and then a huge number of titles are available to listen to online, and if you have a tablet device, offline. The only drawback that I can see is that you have a monthly limit to the number of titles you can download a month, and the downloads are temporary and expire after a set time.


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## Xenakiboy

For discovering classical music, I'd say YouTube because there is a huge collection (I know its partly illegal) and sometimes really obscure music long out of print. But for actually listening to it, I'd say CD with a good sound system. Then go and blast your favorite composer at full volume! :tiphat:


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## GioCar

^^^
I'm just trying to imagine your neighbours when you blast Jonchaies at full volume :lol:


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## Xenakiboy

GioCar said:


> ^^^
> I'm just trying to imagine your neighbours when you blast Jonchaies at full volume :lol:


Honestly, I've done that a dozen times (love EVERYTHING Xenakis) and the neighbors have never complained, guess I have it lucky. I blasted Kraanerg really loud today and 'Moses and Aaron' loud last night. LIVIN IT UP!!:lol: :devil:


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## Delicious Manager

I find Spotify excellent. It has a very large catalogue of classical works which is added to daily and reasonable 320Kbps sound for the paid version. This is fine for good quality PC speakers, but shows limitations on my 'serious listening' hi-fi system. Qobuz and Tidal have better sound (FLAC), but appalling search facilities - even outside the classical genre. They also cost twice as much as Spotify for the Hi-Fi versions.
I've tried them all. iTunes is the worst because of its poor sound quality and Spotify seems to be the best compromise of size of database, ease of use (searching) and sound.


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## Guest

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The consensus seems to be that I should rethink Spotify and maybe give it more of a shot and I will consider that.


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## TwoPhotons

If you like exploring more obscure works, take a look at Naxos Music Library as well; they have a larger classical library than Spotify. It is pretty darn expensive if you subscribe direct ($210/year for standard quality streaming), but if you get an account through IMSLP.org, that reduces to $22/year, which is more than 5 times cheaper than Spotify. Personally I use it in conjunction with Spotify - if I'm in the mood for some Karajan, Abbado etc. I'll go to Spotify, where the streaming quality is slightly better, but if I'm up for a "lucky dip" as it were, I'll see what's new at NML.


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## Bulldog

I love NML but find the standard quality streaming unacceptable, so I subscribe to the premium service. Hell, it's only money.


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## Mandryka

Bulldog said:


> I love NML but find the standard quality streaming unacceptable, so I subscribe to the premium service. Hell, it's only money.


How do you get the NML stream into your hifi?


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## Bulldog

Mandryka said:


> How do you get the NML stream into your hifi?


I have an ALTEC system attached to my computer.


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## MarkW

A teakettle works pretty well. Oh . . . I thought you said STEAMING.


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## ThomasW

I'm still in search of the perfect classical streaming service. I've tried out a few but no service is really good at the moment. I'm based in Germany. 

Spotify:
+ big catalogue including new releases, gapless works, free version, apps work well on all platforms
- bad metadata and search results, no booklets

Apple Music:
+ big catalogue including new releases, gapless works, metadata ok, good search, apps work well
- no Windows app (I use windows tablets), no booklets

ClassicsOnline
+ good metadata and search, good sound quality, gapless works, apps work well
- limited catalogue, not very pretty

Tidal
+ big catalogue including new releases (although I think not as big as Spotify and Apple), good sound quality, looks good, apps work well
- mediocre metadata and search results, no customized access to Classical, gapless doesn't work

Qobuz
+ big catalogue including new releases (at a level with Tidal), good sound quality, broad access to booklets, metadata and search ok (but still far from perfect)
- gapless doesn't work (even if there is a setting for it), player quite unhandy, no Windows 10 app

Idagio
+ almost perfect metadata, search works very good but a little unhandy
- very small catalogue so far

Currently I'm sticking with Qobuz which is overall the best option for me (booklets and sound are the strongest argument) although I'm often annoyed by the player and the not working gapless play.

In a perfect world a service with the platform support and catalogue of Spotify, the look and feel of Apple Music, the sound quality of Tidal, the booklet support of Qobuz and the metadata of Idagio would be it. But there is no such world.


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## Mandryka

ThomasW said:


> I'm still in search of the perfect classical streaming service. I've tried out a few but no service is really good at the moment. I'm based in Germany.
> 
> Spotify:
> + big catalogue including new releases, gapless works, free version, apps work well on all platforms
> - bad metadata and search results, no booklets
> 
> Apple Music:
> + big catalogue including new releases, gapless works, metadata ok, good search, apps work well
> - no Windows app (I use windows tablets), no booklets
> 
> ClassicsOnline
> + good metadata and search, good sound quality, gapless works, apps work well
> - limited catalogue, not very pretty
> 
> Tidal
> + big catalogue including new releases (although I think not as big as Spotify and Apple), good sound quality, looks good, apps work well
> - mediocre metadata and search results, no customized access to Classical, gapless doesn't work
> 
> Qobuz
> + big catalogue including new releases (at a level with Tidal), good sound quality, broad access to booklets, metadata and search ok (but still far from perfect)
> - gapless doesn't work (even if there is a setting for it), player quite unhandy, no Windows 10 app
> 
> Idagio
> + almost perfect metadata, search works very good but a little unhandy
> - very small catalogue so far
> 
> Currently I'm sticking with Qobuz which is overall the best option for me (booklets and sound are the strongest argument) although I'm often annoyed by the player and the not working gapless play.
> 
> In a perfect world a service with the platform support and catalogue of Spotify, the look and feel of Apple Music, the sound quality of Tidal, the booklet support of Qobuz and the metadata of Idagio would be it. But there is no such world.


My experience is different, bear in mind that I rarely listen to 19th century music, to orchestral music least of all. But for early and recent music the qobuz catalogue is not satisfactory and although spotify's metadata is not ideal, it is certainly usable. I had no problems with either the spotify or Qobuz app on an IPad.


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## josef

Delicious Manager said:


> I find Spotify excellent. It has a very large catalogue of classical works which is added to daily and reasonable 320Kbps sound for the paid version. This is fine for good quality PC speakers, but shows limitations on my 'serious listening' hi-fi system. Qobuz and Tidal have better sound (FLAC), but appalling search facilities - even outside the classical genre. They also cost twice as much as Spotify for the Hi-Fi versions.
> I've tried them all. *iTunes is the worst because of its poor sound quality* and Spotify seems to be the best compromise of size of database, ease of use (searching) and sound.


it's actually apple music, not iTunes.. what makes you think apple music is the worst quality?


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## Dalron

josef said:


> it's actually apple music, not iTunes.. what makes you think apple music is the worst quality?


You brought up something I've been meaning to question. I don't have any Apple devices and on my Windows 10 PC, it's called iTunes. As a matter of fact, the latest version is downloading as I write this. I'm wondering if it's known as Apple Music on Apple devices but iTunes on others.

Anyway, having tested Spotify, iTunes and Google Music over the last three months, iTunes is third in quality and streaming, the latter starts and stops and is a real pain as is the iTunes interface on Windows.


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## Scopitone

Dalron said:


> You brought up something I've been meaning to question. I don't have any Apple devices and on my Windows 10 PC, it's called iTunes. As a matter of fact, the latest version is downloading as I write this. I'm wondering if it's known as Apple Music on Apple devices but iTunes on others.
> 
> Anyway, having tested Spotify, iTunes and Google Music over the last three months, iTunes is third in quality and streaming, the latter starts and stops and is a real pain as is the iTunes interface on Windows.


iTunes is the playback software (and download store).

Apple Music is the streaming music subscription service, which can be accessed through iTunes on a Windows or Mac desktop - or else via apps on iOS and Android devices.


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## Gouldanian

I recommend CBC radio...


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## ST4

Youtube........... :devil: :devil: :devil:


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## Triplets

ClassicsOnline is biting the dust


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## Lenny

When ClassicOnline works on my Linux desktop, I'll switch over immediately. In a meanwhile, I'm quite happy with Spotify. Good collection of CM.


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## pcnog11

I used Apple TV to stream it over the Radio app. Huge classical radio selection. Especially, I enjoy those European stations and it seems that their classical musical taste are somewhat different from North America.


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## rodrigaj

It has been almost 2 years since this thread has been active. 

As a new subscriber, I thought I would restart this thread.

IDAGIO is now being offered in the USA. I am currently trying it out having finally given up on TIDAL. TIDAL began truncating track titles in their classical library rendering their service unusable. I switched to Spotify Premium and am satisfied with their library, their metadata / search is not good, but useable, unfortunately they only offer 320kbps quality.

IDAGIO is much better but it does have its quirks. Here is a brief review I did at the Computer Audiophile forum:
*****************************
I signed up for the 14 day free trial and have been playing around with the desktop app and the iOS app. My playback is via Airplay to the uRendu Shareport app. I was able to listen for 4 hours without any skips, stops or stutters.



For me, Idagio is a keeper. Well worth the $10 per month for redbook access. If you are a classical music lover and have been frustrated by searches on other streaming services, you owe it to yourself to try Idagio. The effort that has gone into tagging their classical library leaves nothing wanting. Every possible combination of correlatable tags is presented in a manner that is intuitive.



Having said that, there are a few quirks:

1. Album artwork does not always "travel" with tracks. So for example, using Mozart KV504 will yield complete "recordings" by conductor, ensemble, etc... but they will all have a generic picture of Mozart as the artwork.
2. Nomenclature is odd. A complete symphony will be called a "recording". Albums can be "albums" or they can be "curated lists". For example, Tetzlaff's recent J.S. Bach Sonatas & Partitas (Odine) is saved as a "curated list" while Hahn's recent J.S. Bach's (Decca) is saved under "albums". Both travel with the album cover art.
3. There is no queue that I have been able to find. Tap on a track and the "curated list" or "album" begins to play. The track that is playing is not highlighted, Idagio has a small bar indicator along the left side that moves down the list as tracks are sequenced. It's not obvious at all.
4. The playback bar is white. But in the ios app the "album" playback screen is also white. Near the end of the track the playback bar tends to disappear. There was no way of changing the gui skin that I could find. Tapping on the horizontal bar along the bottom brings up the track, cover art and playback bar with a colored background that fixes this, but this is not an obvious alternative view. 

Once you begin to understand the logic of Idagio's system all of the pieces fall into place and you are left marveling at the tagging effort which makes comparative assessment of your favorite composers by your favorite ensembles and conductors an absolute breeze.

And...sound quality is outstanding. What's not to like - a few quirks but overall a fine effort. 

*************************

This is the response I got back from IDAGIO:

Hi there,

thanks so much for giving IDAGIO a try and for your extensive feedback.
We highly appreciate your input and agree that your suggestions are important in order to improve IDAGIO.
Just some feedback on the points you mention:

1. Many of the tracks in our catalogue are currently connected to recordings. Since a recording might not have been released as an album necessarily, there are no artworks related to recordings. We are planning to integrate albums better in the future though and hope to be able to relate more tracks to albums and therefore also artworks.
2. Albums appearing as playlists is indeed pretty confusing - I guess that you mainly see this on the Discover page, which is simply a technical thing that our backend team is trying to solve at the moment. We hope to be able to streamline this in the near future.
3. You are right, a queue or waitlist has not been developed yet. However it is definitely plan to add this to our service in the future and I have marked your interest in this, so we can get back to you once we have more news about it.
4. I have passed this on to our iOS developers since it sounds like a bug or error in our app design. Thank you for sharing this with us!

I hope those answers give you some ideas on what to expect from IDAGIO in the future. If you have any further ideas, questions or feedback, feel free to get in touch with us anytime.

Happy listening and best regards
Lukas
********************************

Hopefully, this reply generates new interest in keeping this thread on classical music streaming services alive.

I have some further questions that I sent to IDAGIO regarding gapless playback and will report back when I hear from them. At this point, I am not certain if gapless playblack is working properly or if it is supported by their iOS App or if I am having network problems, so I will hold off on commenting on gapless support.


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## fliege

Idagio have started to list albums in search results, which is new and a good thing, but they still have a small catalogue. I've just searched for three soloists I commonly listen to and each case there are only three or four albums, none of which are ones I was looking for. I know Idagio doesn't bill itself as an album-based site, but I'd rather not switch from Spotify to Idagio if most things I search for are missing. 

Since this thread was started we've seen some services come and go, but a new one is Primephonic. As I recall it has a greater range of albums than Idagio but the interface was a bit odd and there is no Andriod App. Quite possibly the interface has improved since I last looked a few months ago.


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## rodrigaj

IDAGIO does not support gapless playback.

This is the reply I received from Lukas (IDAGIO):

_Many thanks for your message and the feedback.
You are right, AirPlay supports gapless playback but unfortunately, IDAGIO does not yet at this point.
We realise that gapless playback is an essential part of listening to classical music and are planning to work on this feature. However, the integration of this feature requires quite some technical effort, which is why we do not yet have a specific date for its release.
We hope to make this feature available as soon as possible and are happy to get directly in touch with you, if there are any news related to this.

In order to reduce the gaps, we recommend to download as many tracks as possible in lossless quality and stream them via AirPlay.

Best regards
Lukas_


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## rodrigaj

Anyone else try Primephonic? Judging from a review I read, the search function leaves much to be desired.

The lack of gapless playback in IDAGIO was a deal breaker for me. A music streaming service dedicated to classical music that does not support gapless playback makes no sense to me. IDAGIO has been around since 2015 so while I appreciate the technical difficulties alluded to, it can't be argued it is a top priority for them.


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## fliege

There is a free 14 day trial for Primephonic, so you should try if you're interested. Last time I tried it was somewhat unpolished and annoying to use but that could have changed. 

What I don't recommend for classical is Google Music. I tried it for a bit because of an annoyance with the Spotify desktop client. I noticed loads of mistakes in Google's Naxos titles: for many albums tracks were missing their full names and were only titled things like "2. Adagio" or similar. The name of the piece itself wasn't there. It took several weeks for Google to recognise that the problem was at their end. They then would not commit to fixing it.


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## rodrigaj

fliege said:


> There is a free 14 day trial for Primephonic, so you should try if you're interested. Last time I tried it was somewhat unpolished and annoying to use but that could have changed.
> 
> What I don't recommend for classical is Google Music. I tried it for a bit because of an annoyance with the Spotify desktop client. I noticed loads of mistakes in Google's Naxos titles: for many albums tracks were missing their full names and were only titled things like "2. Adagio" or similar. The name of the piece itself wasn't there. It took several weeks for Google to recognise that the problem was at their end. They then would not commit to fixing it.


That problem you describe with the album tracks is the main reason I quit TIDAL. Good to know that Google Music is doing the same thing.

I'll probably try Primephonic but right now after my experience with IDAGIO am taking a break. It takes effort to try software, learn its various components, email support, etc. Some people don't mind that but I do.


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## rodrigaj

I'm curious: How important is gapless music to you?

I was told that I may be overreacting to IDAGIO's lack of gapless support.

But here's the thing, when I was listening to IDAGIO several nights ago:
It totally destroyed the music listening environment for me. It ruined it for me during the Mendelssohn / Faust "Discover" session and again during listening to a Curated Playlist by music critic Seckerson (when Bernstein's American in Paris ended). 

It's funny how we can be sensitive about seemingly trivial things.

My wife can go to a movie and not be bothered by the folks sneaking peeks at their phones. It drives me crazy, to where I stopped going to movie theatres.


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## Kiki

Saw you mentioned gapless playback, or rather the lack of it, several times. Let me just say that the lack of gapless playback on any player/streamer/service is not a trivial disability. I totally agree it is a deal breaker. Not only for listening to operas, for which the reason is obvious, but also for orchestral works as well. Think Le Sacre du printemps, Schumann's 4th symphony, or Beethoven's 6th, just to name a few popular works. Any artificial gap between "tracks" will destroy the music.


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## rodrigaj

Kiki - Thanks for your feedback.

You provide further proof that gapless playback should be a priority for any streaming service. I have a Klemperer LP where the Second Movement of Beethoven's Third Symphony is broken up and continued on the second side. Horrible. That's the feeling I get without gapless playback

Opera is definitely not the only genre where gapless is important (e.g., Dark Side of the Moon [Pink Floyd]).

In any case, I now know the first question I will ask when I consider a new streaming service - do you support gapless playback? I had assumed that a service that purports to be solely for classical music (IDAGIO) would naturally be gapless. Wrong.


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## MarkW

Pressure washing has pretty much replaced steam cleaning nowadays . . . what? Oh, never mind.


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## Bulldog

Kiki said:


> Saw you mentioned gapless playback, or rather the lack of it, several times. Let me just say that the lack of gapless playback on any player/streamer/service is not a trivial disability. I totally agree it is a deal breaker. Not only for listening to operas, for which the reason is obvious, but also for orchestral works as well. Think Le Sacre du printemps, Schumann's 4th symphony, or Beethoven's 6th, just to name a few popular works. Any artificial gap between "tracks" will destroy the music.


I can't agree. It's just a moment in time, no big deal for me.


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## rodrigaj

Bulldog said:


> I can't agree. It's just a moment in time, no big deal for me.


What streaming service do you subscribe/listen to?


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## Mandryka

Bulldog said:


> I can't agree. It's just a moment in time, no big deal for me.


Mostly you're right. But I think it can make some music unlistenable. I can't listen to The Paganini Variations or The Diabelli Variations with an equal gap between each variation. Or the Waldstein with a gap between the second and third movements.


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## rodrigaj

I began my 14 day free trial with PRIMEPHONIC today, after I verified that their iOS App supports gapless streaming.

I'm going Airplay > ultraRendu > PS Audio DAC. They don't have a desktop app that I could find, but they do have a Chrome browser page that is accessible only after you have already signed up via their iOS app. That was weird - you can't sign up for their service from your desktop computer.

The platinum plan goes for $14.99/mo or $149/year. That makes it competitive with Digital Concert Hall (BPO) and I believe Qobuz, if Qobuz ever comes to the USA. Qobuz has various pricing tiers depending on bit rates and whether you want to own and download albums at a discount.

For $14.99/mo you get up to 24bit streaming, so high resolution is there if that matters to you.

My problem is that the only way I have figured out how to get the music stream to my speakers is via Airplay. Unfortunately, Airplay throttles the bit rate to 16bits. I have queried PRIMEPHONIC support to see how they successfully stream 24bit hires files.

In any case, the sound quality is superb and I had no stuttering, stops or other anomalies during my brief first trial.

I listened to Isabelle Fausts' Oktett album of Schubert's music on Harmonia Mundi which contains his Octet in F major D. 803 and minuets D. 89 no. 3 (transcribed for octet) and no. 5 (transcribed for octet). This is a wonderful album of music I had never heard before.

I have not had time to play around with the iOS app, so I'll be reporting back after a while when I have had a chance to better acquaint myself with its attributes and quirks.


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## haydnguy

I was a bit surprised that Apple didn't have an Android app for their music service. I know that's not the "Apple Way" but there are a huge number of music listeners out there that use Android and they are just losing money by not opening it up. They have supposedly signed agreements with classical labels which is why I wish they would open it up to Android users. It's not enough, however, for me to switch from Android.


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## rodrigaj

haydnguy said:


> I was a bit surprised that Apple didn't have an Android app for their music service. I know that's not the "Apple Way" but there are a huge number of music listeners out there that use Android and they are just losing money by not opening it up. They have supposedly signed agreements with classical labels which is why I wish they would open it up to Android users. It's not enough, however, for me to switch from Android.


Let me preface by saying that I have zero experience with Apple music. But I believe you access Apple music on Android through iTunes for Android. Again, I know nothing about the details but it came up in the computer audiophile forums one time and that is what I remember.

Here is a link that might help:
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/apple-music-for-android-what-to-know/


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## rodrigaj

I received a response from PRIMEPHONIC about the availability of a desktop app and about DLNA support and 24 bit streaming.

Because I don't want a computer in my listening room, Airplay (iPad)> ultraRendu (16 bit) is my only option.

Here is their response:
_
Thank you for your e-mail and interest in Primephonic.

At the moment, we do not yet have a desktop app. We are aware that this would be a feature that people would be interested in and is therefore definitely on our roadmap. I have made a note of your feedback and we hope to launch a desktop app in the near future.

As it turns out, direct streaming towards sound systems is not yet possible. We are working to make this possible for many sound systems, such as Sonos and Bluesound, in the near future. Ways to bypass this are Bluetooth and indeed AirPlay. To ensure the best quality stream, however, I would for the moment, until DLNA options come available, suggest a cabled connection to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) which is connected to the speaker system.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

Kind regards,
Marco
Primephonic Customer Support_


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## bachstreet boys

I discovered that if you in the Spotify desktop app click the arrow next to your name and click "Experimental features" you can now toggle the "Classical Works" feature. This enables a "works" tab on the artist pages of classical composers. 

Spotify still has very far to go regarding improving the metadata experience of classical music, but this might be a nice start.


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## bharbeke

I have 90-day access to Amazon Music Unlimited. What music, classical or otherwise, should I check out from them that is Amazon-exclusive or at least hard to find on Spotify and YouTube?


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## Ras

bharbeke said:


> I have 90-day access to Amazon Music Unlimited. What music, classical or otherwise, should I check out from them that is Amazon-exclusive or at least hard to find on Spotify and YouTube?


I don't know. Does amazon have the labels that still aren't on Spotify? - like Hyperion and Linn.


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## fliege

bachstreet boys said:


> I discovered that if you in the Spotify desktop app click the arrow next to your name and click "Experimental features" you can now toggle the "Classical Works" feature. This enables a "works" tab on the artist pages of classical composers.
> 
> Spotify still has very far to go regarding improving the metadata experience of classical music, but this might be a nice start.


Interesting, but it looks like only a subset of people get access to the experimental features. Very glad they're doing it, though.


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## zelenka

beware of IDAGIO paid shills disguised as innocent users, they already infiltrated reddit and now they are targeting TC since it's the biggest classical music forum


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## tmarshl

In the last year or so, I have gone completely digital (FLAC, DSD and Streaming). Sound quality is extremely important to me, and adds tremendous value to the listening experience. I have subscriptions to both Tidal and Qobuz (recently available in the US) and will evaluate them both over the next year before choosing one. My cataloging and playback software is Roon, which I highly recommend. I have also purchased a high-end reference headphone streaming system, consisting of Roon Nucleus, dCS Bartok DAC/Amp and Focal Utopia Headphones. The system is controlled by an iPad Pro.


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## guranbanan

I like Naxos Music Library a lot. It's catalogue is huge with lots of recordings from a lot of labels, not only Naxos, but Decca, Archiv, HMV, Harmonia Mundi among others. Nowadays their files are AAC-encoded which is a lot better than MP3. Their metadata is very detailed, including arrangers and performers per track. Sometimes they also let you view a scanned copy of the album booklet. The standard bitrate is 128k and premium is 320k (which with AAC is virtually indistinguable from lossless). Also, a lot of libraries subscribe to NML (at least in Sweden) so you might get access to it using your library card (I do).


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## Guest

I'm not sure if it's "the best" (whatever that means), but I like Qobuz.


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## LezLee

Well I've got one of these, cost me £35 and I love it! I just listen straight, don't like streaming.


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