Most ARE NOT Lossless! What's the best music streaming service?

There's a LOT of options for steaming music. MANY claim to have lossless options, BUT that may not be reaching your ears! Which streaming service is best for avoiding these problems?

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00:00 - Intro
00:48 - Library size
01:41 - UX
03:59 - Recommendation algorithm
05:15 - Sound quality
09:51 - Conclusion

[hellothere]

I like the little “Lossless” symbol in apple music. It’s a nice placebo that makes me feel like I’m not missing any information even though I know for a fact that I couldn’t tell the difference between an ALAC and an AAC file if I gun were pointed to my head.

[charlestonmarks]

As an album listener, Qobuz is really great. The true lossless and things like album info, articles, curated playlists on topics really make it stand out to me. It certainly isn't for the person who likes to put on a station though that's for sure. Luckily they are adding new tracks daily, and after switching from Amazon HD, I am certainly not looking back.

[Discreflections]

Considering YouTube Music is included with a YouTube Premium subscription I always wonder why many YouTube creators, whom most likely have said subscription, ignore it when talking about music streaming services, like it or not.

[TT-iuuq]

I used to daily drive Deezer because of a discount with carrier that basically made it free. I felt like DMS never actually used Deezer, after watching your review. First Recommended songs, Deezer has feature called flow based on your library that plays very good songs that you might like, I discovered 100+ songs because of that feature Its amazing. Second I am now using Tidal and the Deezer library is much much bigger with a lot of underground bands that I cannot find on tidal. I would say that Deezer has more obscure music than Spotify(my GF has Spotify rarely some Brazilian songs are not found there). The only problem with Deezer are the bugs that happened quite a lot. Leaving your review about Deezer without mentioning Flow has lead me to believe you never actually used it.

[gabrielsirilan]

As an electronic fan, DJ Mixes being treated as first-class citizens has led me to using Apple Music. It feels surreal that having a DJ set with proper IDs on a streaming service other than YouTube and Apple Music is not a thing

On another note, the short essays on albums and the "Essential Albums" feature have contributed to refining my taste and appreciation for all kinds of music.

[AlexReusch]

Qobuz has the best editorial service. It's like a music magazine. Regarding sound quality, Qobuz does have more high-res titles (above CD quality) than the rest, but what is more important is, that they have simply the best masters.Their standard CD-quality titles in general just sound better.

[koendecrock]

Qobuz is my only choice here. The sound quality to me seems the purest. I also love that they are the only service that also offers purchasing individual songs and albums in a variety of formats, from CD quality to 192 KHz. And it should be noted that they already exist for quite a long time here in Europe, but are quite new in the US, so the limited library might be due to them not having secured all the streaming rights yet in the US. A few years ago at least the library here in Europe was way bigger than the one in the US: Finally, Qobuz is also great for Jazz and Classical music, and integrates perfectly with Roon.

[leonhardtilly]

For me Deezer (a European streaming service) is the best choice because I listen to music but also a lot of Audiobooks and Deezer hast the biggest library of Audiobooks (in German). And I really like the "Flow" algorithm that plays music you liked and stuff you might like with very accurate commendations. It needs a bit time to get on spot, but if you give it a bit of time, you never need to make playlists again cause you select your mood in the Flow and it just works.

[rugvedkate]

Being a android user i've used apple music(on a mac and android phone), spotify, youtube music and amazon music, the clear choice for me has been, for recommendations and library - youtube music (no one can come even close) and apple music for sound quality and UI (yes the animations were important for me:) ).

[TooSmalley]

Spotify has the best playlist, radio, and music recommendations system by a wide margin IMHO. Those keep me coming back to Spotify again and again. Apple Music would be second BUT they don't list songs you liked for some absolutely bizarre reason.

[Johan-qyyb]

I think majority of people who consume music do so though their mobile devices. And perhaps what most people don't know is that if you play it via bluetooth, via any of these services from say an Iphone, you'll get it in AAC, which is 264kbs, similar to Spotifys quality. You'd need a wired headphone to be able to make use of those bitrates. And even if you did use a wire, you still get capped at a certain level due to the dongle from apple. So you'd need an additional external dac in order to get that lossless format.

[PartyMusic]

Update: TIDAL gets a green check for everything now.

[anshau]

Apple came to Windows 11 with it's native Apple Music app (so far in a beta version) that has lossless playback. It's weird that you didn't mention that in this relatively fresh video.

[haraldbinder]

Great overview! From my experience, Qobuz offers the best sound quality overall and the largest catalog of classical music, if that's your preferred category. But I had to cut down on subscriptions, so I am currently only using Tidal and Deezer (on Android devices). Between those two, Tidal offers slightly better sound, best user interface, and excellent playlists. Deezer also has a few features I love, such as a choice of radio stations (french radios "Fip" and "Station Simone" are wonderful), a built-in equalizer, and "adapt sound" settings to compensate personal hearing deficiencies.

[keithjohnson]

Why is YouTube Music virtually ignored? Are people still salty about the conversion from Google Play Music and losing the ability to create curated libraries from uploaded and purchased music? For streaming the user interface is excellent and since it draws from the entire Google ecosystem, searches and YouTube views included, the suggestions are on point and include what I may be interested in listening to regardless of genre. Additionally, the automatic downloads of my likes and personal and suggested playlists to my mobile devices are very appreciated and useful.

[AlucardNoir]

I think that pointing out the limitations of the systems one is going to play music on is one of the most important things this video does.

[AudioReviewsDownunder]

I've been a Tidal user for a while, been quite happy with it, although I agree about the artists getting thrown into the same listing if their names happen to be the same, I've had issues with that occasionally myself, but mostly Tidal has been great..
I also listen to Lorn myself by the way, love the dark electro vibe, also Dead Fader and Forest Swords, I'd highly recommend if you like Lorn..

[jdrukman]

The Apple Music recommendation system is pretty good, not sure what was happening when you were using it. I looked up Hendrix right now and the “you might also like” row was cream, the doors, Pink Floyd… all classic rock, no pop. Their “radio mode” got a lot better recently as well.

[sexdefender]

a little surprised pricing was never talked about. I use tidal because it offers 50% off for students and 40% off for first responders. very competitive pricing all around, but this is the best i've seen it for what you're getting

[Drake]

I used Spotify and Apple Music together for some months now on my iPhone 13 Pro Max with the Airpods Pro 2. I have to say that Spotify has the advantage in the UI/UX, Apple Music has the advantage in audio quality. I've had both services on the HipHop preset because I like my metal music a bit more punchy. On Apple Music it really hugged my ears and didn't feel "shy" like Spotify does. While on Apple Music the Mix already reached his supersayajin form, Spotify's mix is still developing. I chose Spotify for the easier use and friends integration, making it so absurdly easy to create playlists for myself and other people.