# Which Internet Streaming Music Services Do You Use?



## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

Many folks on this forum link to music on YouTube, which has the very considerable advantage of being free. But the sound quality of YouTube and the organization of it leave much to be desired.

I subscribe to a streaming site called Classical Archives which is inexpensive and very well organized.

http://www.classicalarchives.com

The downside of this site is that the recordings featured are not always ideal.

What other classical music streaming service should a lover of the classics consider?


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Sounds nice...


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

I use Spotify and find it very useful. Their classical catalogue is quite large, the recordings are usually of excellent quality, and the only things I've been unable to find are pieces that have not been recorded very often, particularly 21st century pieces. FYI the free version of Spotify is only a radio on an iphone or something, but on a computer it will play any track you want on demand with ads playing in between. Paying for a subscription eliminates the ads on a computer and gives you ad-free on-demand play on an iphone etc.

Of course the main advantage of Spotify (low cost subscription) translates to the main disadvantage (low rates paid to artists) but if you want to support an artist you can always shell out the extra $ for a CD or donation.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

I'm curious... my material is on spotify (at least some of my royalties are listed as coming from spotify) but I personally cannot access it because to do so requires an active Facebook account here in Germany and, Ludit that I am, I have no interest in Facebook. So my question is... when you type in the name of an artist or song that you wish to hear, does the album from which the tune is taken together with sources from where you might purchase it from also appear, please?

This is a serious question but naturally, "KRoad" is a screen name only and not my name (which also naturally) I use for my music, which as I say earns my money on spotify at rate of something like .001 per play.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

Spotify
YouTube
Naxos Music Library


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I use MOG and Last.fm. MOG is best for listening to full cd's with high quality sound. I like last.fm as it has a very good program for using similar artists to the one you are interested in. Better selections than Slacker, Pandora, or MOG when you want to find new artists similar to the one you are interested in. And btw, I used Spotify. I was not satisfied with their sound quality. Much better sound with MOG if sound quality if important to you.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

http://classicalwebcast.com/usa.htm


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I use the Rhapsody streaming service and will often buy mp3 albums from them rather than iTunes. They can be frustrating because their idea of genre labeling is hit or miss (mostly miss) and their search engine takes horrible to a whole new level. But the selection is astronomical, not just for classical but for pop, rock, electronica, ambient techno zydeco, or whatever you can imagine.


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## opus55 (Nov 9, 2010)

I use Spotify (without paid subscription) on home and work computers. I'm very satisfied with the service and my main use is to explore alternate recordings which I cannot possibly purchase all. If I like it enough then I go ahead and purchase the CD.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Does Turntable.fm count? That's my favorite.


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## Bradius (Dec 11, 2012)

I use Classical Archives. The selection is just astonishing at the price is quite reasonable. You can buy the MP3 from their site. If you want the CD, they'll direct you to that too. I love them!


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

KRoad said:


> I'm curious... my material is on spotify (at least some of my royalties are listed as coming from spotify) but I personally cannot access it because to do so requires an active Facebook account here in Germany and, Ludit that I am, I have no interest in Facebook. So my question is... when you type in the name of an artist or song that you wish to hear, does the album from which the tune is taken together with sources from where you might purchase it from also appear, please?
> 
> This is a serious question but naturally, "KRoad" is a screen name only and not my name (which also naturally) I use for my music, which as I say earns my money on spotify at rate of something like .001 per play.


Spotify users, please? This is a genuine question... help an ageing guy out.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

There are few online stations on I tunes like Classical King FM or via Media Player like BBC3 i listen too most often...


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

I use Spotify, and i dont know how i would manage without it.


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

To clarify, I am referring to sites where a listener can select a specific piece and hopefully also listen to different recordings for that piece. That is the great advantage of Classical Archives, but the selecion of recordings is not of the highest calibre. 

I tried Naxos Music Library last year for quite some time. With Naxos you can select a work for listening, but all of the recordings will only be Naxos. Also it has an annoying search function that is very slow, and when playing a CD, it seems to sometimes get "hung" after one track is played. In other words, the technology is not polished.

So we have so far, correct me if I am wrong:

Classical Archives
Spotify
Naxos Music Library

Any others?


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## lorelei (Jan 14, 2013)

Spotify, youtube. Both are very useful and have their own purposes


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

KRoad said:


> Spotify users, please? This is a genuine question... help an ageing guy out.


I also have no interest in Facebook. I just joined Spotify for free. No Facebook account was required.

I just tried a few selections and remembering I am just trying it for the first time, I see a link to the album, but not a link to purchase. Give it a try, its free and Facebook not required.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

KRoad, I did not need Facebook to sign up for Spotify. I do have Facebook, but have no desire to broadcast my obsessive CM listening habits to everybody I know. You should probably read the sign up page more closely. Spotify makes the FB signup option more prominent because they want your info.

Truckload, yes, Naxos Music Library is glitchy. Spotify has unbearably annoying ads. I use both for free and I get more than I pay for. I use both to audition albums & I save a ton of dough in exchange for the nuisances.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

I remember downloading spotify and something wasnt right...It was bugged...


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## vertigo (Jan 9, 2013)

www.deezer.com


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Truckload said:


> To clarify, I am referring to sites where a listener can select a specific piece and hopefully also listen to different recordings for that piece. That is the great advantage of Classical Archives, but the selecion of recordings is not of the highest calibre.
> 
> I tried Naxos Music Library last year for quite some time. With Naxos you can select a work for listening, but all of the recordings will only be Naxos. Also it has an annoying search function that is very slow, and when playing a CD, it seems to sometimes get "hung" after one track is played. In other words, the technology is not polished.
> 
> ...


MOG 
Last.fm


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Truckload said:


> I also have no interest in Facebook. I just joined Spotify for free. No Facebook account was required.
> 
> I just tried a few selections and remembering I am just trying it for the first time, I see a link to the album, but not a link to purchase. Give it a try, its free and Facebook not required.


Thanks (and Hausmusik, too). I did try a few months ago. I emailed them asking them if I could join without FB and they replied (with words to the effect of), "no", together with a questionnaire as to whether the quality of their reply was to my satisfaction. Maybe this only applies to Euro-users, maybe not. I'll give it another go. Thanks again for your replies.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

KRoad said:


> Thanks (and Hausmusik, too). I did try a few months ago. I emailed them asking them if I could join without FB and they replied (with words to the effect of), "no", together with a questionnaire as to whether the quality of their reply was to my satisfaction. Maybe this only applies to Euro-users, maybe not. I'll give it another go. Thanks again for your replies.


KRoad, sure. I am sorry my advice was not accurate. It is pretty absurd they require you to be a Facebook user to join in Europe.

Why don't you create a dummy Facebook account under an assumed name with a dummy email account and just use that? It is worth it, Spotify is a pretty excellent resource.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I guess I lost the battle of convincing others that MOG is better than Spotify. Better sound quality while still having a massive collection. (over 14 millions tracks)


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

Neo, are you a paid subscriber? Is there a free option? Is it free only on a trial basis? Is there a daily limit to streaming for free users?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Free for 14 days. Not sure if it is free with Computer Applications only. I pay $5 a month for use with Squeezebox Touch. Spotify would've cost $10 for the same application. I feel it is worth it as I have spent a lot more on cd's in the past. And might I suggest get the Roku (with HDMI chord) if you have a tv with good speakers. It has both MOG and Spotify applications. You can get it as cheap as $50. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=electronics&field-keywords=roku


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Btw it is 16 Million songs now. They are increasing their track count really quick. https://mog.com/


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

Neo - I'm curious what you play MOG through because I subscribed for a while but in comparing the sound quality of MOG vs Spotify I think Spotify premium wins hands down. There is a high frequency tinnyness to MOG much like Windows media files sound like that I do not experience with Spotify. In other words I hear stream compression on MOG that I do not on Spotify. The $9.99 a month fee gets me the highest bit rate and also the ability to use my moblie devices like my phone HTC One-X and my Nook HD+ tablet. That level also allows you to download entire playlists to your mobile device for offline listening. I also did a pretty extensive database comparison and Spotify had a much larger library when I did artist or composer searches. I also think the user interface on Spotify is better and easier to use and navigate.

Now I also will say that I use optical out from my PC to my Yamaha surround sound but when I listen to music I play only in stereo on my B&W DM-640 speakers or at night, while the wife is trying to sleep, my Sennheiser HD 590 stereo headphones.

If MOG would improve their sound and if they would add labels that Spotify cannot get (Chandos, Hyperion, Erato, Teldec etc) I would subscribe to both services. 

I wish that some company would start up a classical only service. I tried Classical Archives but 90% of the time the stream would stall out and buffer and that was quite annoying. I wrote the owner and he just brushed me off. He probably gets enough suckers to join that he doesn't care that he can't retain them.

Naxos stream is good but only allows you one track at a time and is quite limited and almost everything they have is available on Spotify anyway.

Kevin


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

How long ago did you test out MOG? It is not even close in sound quality. I would've stayed with Spotify if I was happy with the sound. Unfortunately, I wasn't. But I'm picky I guess. I played MOG on the big tv and my mom agreed with me that it was CD quality. So I don't know how you got the idea MOG compressed their music. But it is the clearest stream I've heard. And I did Spotify Premium as well. Might want to give MOG another try. MOG has Chandos!


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## Truckload (Feb 15, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> MOG
> Last.fm


I just signed up for MOG and gave it a try. VERY good sound quality. Free. No Facebook required. Album selection limited but decent. Organization leaves much to be desired, but OK. I will try Last.fm next.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

I logged into MOG with FB. It was been buffering some Penderecki now for over an hour, hasn't yet begun to play.

EDIT:

SLIGHT NEGATIVE: OK, I had to disable flashblocker on Firefox to stream. I am not happy about that because I like to be able to manually approve every use of flash. So this is a big negative for MOG.

PLUS: Nice catalog. Superior search capability and interface to Spotify.

BIG NEGATIVE: My "Free Music" meter is dwindling rapidly. Once this runs out, that'll be it for MOG as far as I am concerned. Paid plans start at $5/mo., that is $60/yr. I have no intention of paying for this service when I get Spotify and NML for free, so I don't see how MOG is going to win me over as a user.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

neoshredder said:


> How long ago did you test out MOG? It is not even close in sound quality. I would've stayed with Spotify if I was happy with the sound. Unfortunately, I wasn't. But I'm picky I guess. I played MOG on the big tv and my mom agreed with me that it was CD quality. So I don't know how you got the idea MOG compressed their music. But it is the clearest stream I've heard. And I did Spotify Premium as well. Might want to give MOG another try. MOG has Chandos!


I tried it for the 14 day free period and one month paid. I found I was using Spotify more when I would do composer or artist searches. That was a little over a year ago so I may give them another shot. Interesting that they now have Chandos because they did not when I subscribed before. If they have improved the sound quality that may be a game changer for me. Of course if I subscribed to their basic service and kept my premium service at Spotify I still would be paying only about the cost of purchasing one CD a month, which is insanely reasonable for that much access to music.

Kevin


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Truckload said:


> I just signed up for MOG and gave it a try. VERY good sound quality. Free. No Facebook required. Album selection limited but decent. Organization leaves much to be desired, but OK. I will try Last.fm next.


Organization for Classical Music is tricky. Sometimes the artist name is the conductor or ensemble. Sometimes the album title doesn't have the Composers name in it. So yeah the search engine needs some work but I know the tricks and have found almost everything I looked for.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I use Spotify, and I'm not in Facebook... I think I joined before Facebook was necessary, or something, really not sure how it is these days with Spotify and Facebook.


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## Zauberberg (Feb 21, 2012)

This thing of paying to not own your music is madness imo.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

You go to a concert, you are paying to hear, but not own. With these online places, you pay less (sometimes nothing) to hear a wider variety anytime you want. Of course it's not a live performance, but you get a lot more music.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

Zauberberg said:


> This thing of paying to not own your music is madness imo.


So then I assume that you don't stream TV or movies or even subscribe to any cable or satellite network? You don't own those either. For me Spotify or MOG is not a replacement of ownership but an enhancement to my listening. I used to listen to radio to hear new music and then I used live 365 streaming service but you still have to deal with commercials and also the inability to choose. You're a captive to the broadcaster in some way. With Spotify or MOG at least you can get it very inexpensively and have more music than you could ever in an entire lifetime afford right at the click of a few buttons. The downside is not being able to read the liner notes but online reviews can provide a good enough alternative. I'm afraid that like it or not most media will not be ownable in the future.

Kevin


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Even if you buy a CD, you may own the medium but definitely not the music. You have only certain very limited "rights" to that.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

Update on MOG....seems my free music meter constantly refreshes. Maybe this is the start of a beautiful friendship....


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## echmain (Jan 18, 2013)

Hausmusik said:


> SLIGHT NEGATIVE: OK, I had to disable flashblocker on Firefox to stream. I am not happy about that because I like to be able to manually approve every use of flash. So this is a big negative for MOG.


Maybe you already know this, but you can add MOG.com to your Flashblock White List. You only need to do it once.


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## vertigo (Jan 9, 2013)

GreenMamba said:


> You go to a concert, you are paying to hear, but not own. With these online places, you pay less (sometimes nothing) to hear a wider variety anytime you want. Of course it's not a live performance, but you get a lot more music.


Actually, with Deezer, you can download all the tracks too.


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## Zauberberg (Feb 21, 2012)

Kevin Pearson said:


> So then I assume that you don't stream TV or movies or even subscribe to any cable or satellite network?


I don't watch TV, so no.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I use Spotify and Mog. One thing I use them for is to test recordings--iTunes may be able to give me an idea of the quality of the recording, but it's just a minute-long sample and I'm picky about conductors rushing passages, etc. so I will often listen to a piece in its entirety on Spotify or Mog before buying the CD.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I do recommend turntable.fm to you all. Put some time into the Classical of Any Kind room, COAK. The interface with all the cartoon avatars is odd, but don't let that off put you, I don't know of any other site like it. You get to hear what others play, and play things yourself, something that is very fun when you have lots of people just sitting on the "floor" of the room, or just for the other "DJ's". You can also just listen on the "floor" if you don't want to play things. 

The best part is getting to meet all the other knowledgeable folks and sharing in REAL TIME. It is essentially the thing I am missing in my life often, people who actually will appreciate music I have to talk about.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

KRoad said:


> when you type in the name of an artist or song that you wish to hear, does the album from which the tune is taken together with sources from where you might purchase it from also appear, please?


There is no direct link to sales. That would definitely be an improvement. Since Spotify shows the artist, album title, and album cover, I've never had a problem locating the website (or Amazon sales link, etc.) of an artist I first heard on Spotify.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

Out of music on MOG. So that's probably it for me. Fun while it lasted though. Aesthetically much nicer interface than Spotify. Like that it works from the browser rather than a designated software program. Good sound quality. No ads. But I can't justify paying for what I get for free from other sources.


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