Reporting from Taiwan... where Tidal is not available... Apple Music comes in at 150NT = $5.00 US dollars... Great video...!!! I subscribe to Apple Music out of Hi-Res necessity and Spotify to discover new music, etc. I grew up in the 50's and 60's when AM radio was the thing, so this streaming scene never ceases to blow my mind...!!!
Taiwanese music is why I have Spotify. I'm British, living in the UK, but I'm a big fan of Taiwan as a county, and I have always bought local CDs when I visit (Taiwanese language preferred over Mandarin Chinese). Spotify helps fill the gaps when I can't be there.
I only know FM radio but I grew up when cassettes were replaced by CDs shortly before MP3 players replaced CDs. Tbh, I start thinking that MP3 was the begin of the peak of quality of listening and streaming is the downfall. I'm thinking about switching back to buying music rather than streaming it. Not in MP3 but in FLAC. Only problem is the money.
I basically stopped paying subscriptions last year I was blown away by how much it actually adds up, iTunes, Spotify and all the rest, I mainly get CD, Vinyl now. I rather own my own music and collect if I want to spend extra and get a special edition or coloured vinyl I can and it worth it to me.
Is that economical? For the price of a CD album, is it almost the cost of a service subscription? I use AM with my Apple Premiere service. I figure 15 CDs is already an annual subscription? Just curious how much you are getting your CDs. I get it thought. I have hundreds of CDs from when the first launched. I thought I was clever ripping them at low quality to save disk space in 1990. Well, I'm not about to re-rip those...I just don't have the energy like I do today. I'm much older, but more patient....but not that patient. Remember Music Match?
i've no idea what devices are suited to a great selection of free digital content - digital / internet radio (only?) devices? or is it here at YT? - and i'd quite like to add more to my options for listening, beyond CD. i quite like vinyl, but it's a collector's field not a listeners one, predominantly.
Similar for us too. Qobuz is my main service, and my wife and I also have Apple Music. She solely uses Apple Music and I use it for my car’s CarPlay and to fill in the gaps that are in the Qobuz library. But when I’m in front of my system, if I’m not playing CDs or LPs, it’s mainly Qobuz via Roon.
Dude. The number one reason I have Apple Music is so I can listen to “spatial audio” but through the Apple TV and a true Dolby atmos 7.2.4 setup… it’s a whole new experience listening to something that was created for surround sound. Don’t get me wrong, there are some artists who have had their 2ch songs mixed to atmos and it’s horrible, but when you get true atmos tracks it’s mesmerizing to hear things floating all around you and almost a voice of god effect
Spatial Audio for headphones is a horrible gimmick. If you have a true surround sound set up at home that’s atmos capable and an Apple TV. You won’t be disappointed in the slightest. I especially find that new electronic music artists have started pushing the envelope in atmos. I’m also not a huge fan of Billie Eilish but she was one of the first artists to incorporate atmos and some of her songs were produced really well in atmos so they are good to test out your system if you haven’t tried it yet
@@feeltheburntk9893I keep coming back to You Should See me in a Crown to listen to on headphones and test out equalizers. Her brothers Fineas did such a great job producing. I listened to that track in some AP Max’s and I LOVED how the bass seems to move around you. It was so well done.
same here, and it's even a little "cheaper" when already having the regular prime subscription (at least here in germany). i'm totally fine with their selection of tracks and quality, software was once really unstable but they seem to have fixed it and it works on all my devices :)
I subscribe to both Apple and Tidal, for largely the same reasons as John describes in the video. I am fortunate to receive discounts on both, as I work in education. Each runs me $5 per month, with the bonus that Apple Music includes the TV+ streaming service. So, I essentially pay the cost of one streaming service for two music services and a streaming video service. Not bad. Current use case is Apple Music for multi-room music via HomePod, CarPlay use, and syncing music to my Apple Watch for exercise. I use Tidal connect to deliver FLAC files directly to my streamer and DAC in my two-channel system.
@@18yearsoldnot do you have a .edu email address? I just typed mine in to the verification system and it worked for both Apple and Tidal. I am staff too.
I feel like the iTunes Match service is a largely unknown add-on that is fantastic for those of us who had obscure CD collections or are particular about wanting access to a certain mastering or mix. This is one of the (many) reasons I stay in the Apple ecosystem.
Just a warning about iTunes Match, years ago I matched and uploaded several gigabytes of pirated music from my youth and it was absolutely great but I left my subscription lapse for awhile. I lost everything after and worse than that my hard drive of music died. It keeps you tethered for life if you are serious about protecting your library.
Same. I have my personal burned music from over a decade ago synced on iTunes (now Apple Music) including songs that are otherwise not available on any streaming services. Plus I much prefer Hi-Res Lossless music on Apple Music.
Same, iTunes Music Match was a savior for me after the demise of Google Play Music. Going to Apple Music ended up being a no-brainer since iTunes Music Match is included.
I love this as well! I’m a wannabe-producer, and I can simply integrate my own creations in my Apple Music library. Add them once from my Mac, and they’re available on all my devices.
Apple Music is great. Instead of whining in the courts, if companies like Spotify actually implemented the FREE APIs that Apple gives developers to make their music products work seamlessly, they'd find they'd have more customers. But no, they decided to get all hostile. There was a time where I'd use Spotify before Apple Music, but the latter has come a long way and Spotify's recent behaviour is embarrassing. The fact they've convinced politicians that they're the 'good guys' is even more disturbing.
thank you for mentioning the DJ mixes! their catalog keeps increasing which is incredibly impressive. they also have live recordings of DJ sets from current and previous electronic music festivals as well, which is really great too if you like keeping up with that stuff. now if only they could get the entirety of the Global Underground / Renaissance / old Ministry of Sound mixes on there too! oh and also Northern Exposure by Digweed and Sasha.
AU$129 for a year in Australia. A couple more reasons that make Apple Music attractive to me is: I'm invested in the ecosystem so it works on all my devices, even old dusty ones. Primarily, I like supporting the artists so if there's a way I can enjoy their music and they get paid as well then we're all happy, and I hear Apple pays the artists (relatively) well. And because I'm cynical and I don't like corporations messing with my stuff, I also buy CDs (through Record Shops or Artist's web sites) and maintain and curate my own music collection. It isn't a perfect system and it's sometimes a battle to listen to my preferred music everywhere, but that's really a first world problem.
I understand the stream services, but I much prefer to own a cd or record. Stream services can just pull the plug on your favourite artist or change how they provide the stream. I’ve picked up quite a few cds from charity shop costing from as little as 50p to a £1.
I understand your viewpoint, but having the streaming service also give one so much better exposure to music that you have never heard before, if I find something I really like, then I will try an get the cd, although that is getting more difficult it seams. I use both Tidal and Qobuz with Roon at home, if in the car I usually use Apple Music playlists ripped to my phone or Qobuz mobile. It is true that Qobuz is missing some artist, also in the more mainstream music.
Here in Philippines, it is only around $3 per month. Currently using TH-cam Music due to its bigger library. Thinking of switching to Apple Music soon.
Question: I've never heard you talk about Amazon Music HD. Why? Is it not a great service (streaming quality/library)? Or is it not available where you are?
One of the main reasons I choose Apple Music over other streaming services is that music you own that is not on their service is uploaded to the cloud for streaming from anywhere you happen to be. So rare live albums our esoteric imports that you now are there right along all the other Apple Music far in the cloud when you are logged into your account.
My first streaming subscription was Primephonic, which was primarily classical. But in 2021 Apple bought and merged Primephonic into Apple Music. I have Tidal and Qobuz now, but Apple Music has the greatest collection of them all from the defunct TelArc label, which is where you go for spectacular dynamic range experience. I might drop Tidal because it annoyingly pushes hip-hop and rap as it's "recommendations" to me.
Yes. I went for Apple because of the classical music. Streaming from an iPad Pro via Topping DAC into my Yamaha amp. Sounds great. Greater than expected.
Unfortunately, Apple music classical, unlike the regular apple music, will not let you download music on your smartphone and does not let you stream to chromecast.
@@DarkoAudio - Apple music has the more comprehensive library of regional songs in india which betters spotify. It is also cheap at less than 2$ per month for the family plan while coming with lossless and atmos. In fact, it has a whole bunch of songs remastered in Atmos and one should really try it through a surround sound system. Sounds Phenomenal!
Sound quality aside, Spotify is largely superior in how it handles playlists. Not only is the UI far better, it also allows for creating folders. That, for me at least, is a huge advantage.
I use Apple Musics Family plan. We pay 15€ a month in Germany and use it with five people so effectively 3€ per person. I don’t own any CDs and my parents sold all of their CDs as well so this is the next best thing for us (because we all use iPhones). We also use Sonos speakers, and being able to use Airplay to those is very convenient. Lastly the AirPods Max already support wireless lossless audio when it’s being used with the Apple Vision Pro, so it’s probably just a matter of time until you can have wireless lossless audio with an iPhone as well, and having a streaming service that offers lossless audio is going to be very nice.
Amazon HD > Apple Music Amazon HD has a lot of great DJ mixes even old Moving Shadow DNB mixes. Tons of Trance mixes that can't be found on Spotify even. Amazon HD has Atmos, 360 sound, music videos and high res/Ultra HD.
I subscribe to both of them. I prefer Apple Music if I had to drop one. The interface for the Amazon Music app is the worst one I have used. I do like their Amazon Connect feature with the Wiim (especially using Alexa), which is why I keep it around, but would drop it if Apple had something similar. Part of preference for Apple Music is the Apple One program and its integration into Apple ecosystems and Siri . If I did not use Apple products, I think I would be closer to where you are, though.
Don’t know if you will read this, absolutely love your informative and insightful reviews. Can you please do a tour of your record collection, I am sure I am not your only viewer that appreciates your taste in music and have discovered new artists from the small snippets we occasionally hear or covers flashed on screen
Great explanation. Most of the same reasons I use Apple Music. I would add that a LOT of the content is actually 24/44.1 or 24/48. It’s just labeled as “Lossless” rather than “Hi-Res”. I’m sure people will have differing views on what counts as hi-res, but it’s means that in my experience probably more than 50% of the content is 24bit.
5,99 EUR her in Austria for me.... thankfully still writing on my Dr. thesis at the technical university of Vienna and Apple having a heart for students :)
I've been using Amazon Music's Hi-rez audio (in a PC with a sound card that can do 24/192)...it seems amazing to my ears. Why is Amz never part of the discussion?
Apple music is pretty solid imo, it introduced me to the world of hi res audio, and the fact that I only pay 5,99 USD for it as a college student and get a complementary Apple TV+ subscription makes keeping the subscription a no brainer
Absolutely agree John. Apple for me has the best library and UI. But I really like Tidal Connect and MQA. Tomorrow I‘ll get an HDMI extractor, hoping to get bit perfect out fo the Apple TV 4K, as the TV is upsampling everthing to 48 khz. I love navigating Apple Music on the Apple TV 4K over the big TV Screen.Great video, kepp going! 😊
Apple Music has matured…and I enjoy using it. I pretty much dropped other services. The integration into my hi-if system, their massive Library, streaming quality, addition of my own rips, DJ Mixes etc are all reasons why it is a go to platform.
As a Canadian, we don’t have much data available in our phone plans usually and Apple Music just happens to use MUCH MORE data than Spotify even with data saver settings. Just my two cents
I am a solid Apple Music user since day one. Then I subscribed to Tidal Hifi to compare. Dropped Tidal, didn’t even bother listening anymore even when there was time left in the subscription. The way Apple Music automatically streams the highest resolution is the special sauce. Cheers!
Apple Music is also €10 in Belgium, it doesn't matter wether you pay once per month or once per year. Apple One is €20. I agree with all your points and it's also the reason that to me personally, it's the best complete package.
I was faithful to Apple during their pay-per-track years, to the (i)Tune of around £5000. Then, when I got a Bluesound streamer, I began an affair with Tidal. The resultant leap in audio quality caused me to divorce Apple. I sealed the deal when Tidal lifted her skirts to reveal Tidal Connect, hence bypassing Bluesound’s own software. So now, just using my phone as a remote control, I stream from Bluesound to a Cyrus One amp, then through to LS50 Meta speakers. A recently acquired Rel subwoofer, carefully dialled in, completes my line-up for now, and the surprise bonus was that when I bought a Sony smart tv, it found my Cyrus amp via Bluetooth! For now, I’m in hifi heaven. PS, I found many of these components on your TH-cam channel and I find your advice and recommendations invaluable. 🙏
I find the sound quality of Apple Music directly into the amp via usb generally very good and (generally) superior to vinyl and Cd - of course depending on the source as highlighted in a previous video. For whatever reason I find the stereo separation greater and the sound a little more detailed and engaging. As a result I’ve gone off of Cd which I now find a bit dull and unengaging though I’ve got a pretty reasonable Rotel CD player. I find I can listen to Apple Music at a low volume and enjoy the listening experience whereas vinyl or cd I need to playing significantly loud for it to him me.
Saying weird meaning sane, because deezer have the same library as Spotify if I’m not mistaken, and you have flac streaming, and you know what, having used deezer Spotify and Apple Music, deezer have the best algorithm for suggesting music in Flow
@@18yearsoldnotdoes it take you on a musical journey, i.e. introduce you to many more musicians you might like? Spotify took me further than I thought I’d ever get (Japanese ambient music, and I think that is nit the right term for this ethereal genre)
$10.99 here in the states. Definitely worth it to me. I have HomePods throughout my place so the ability to effortlessly stream lossless audio to them in perfect sync makes it worth it. I also hook up to my cars focal sound system with usb to take advantage of the lossless.
I left Spotify behind a year ago because they still lack lossless. Moved to Apple Music. Very happy with it in all aspects but one : sometimes tracks skip a fraction of a second somewhere in the first 10 seconds of a song. If there’s any solution to this then I’m interested to hear. Thanks.
What a good, thorough explanation. Thank you! (So I know even better, why I love Qobuz, but still stick to Apple, especially since Classical, which is really, really great!)
Here in Philippines Apple music for 6 family members monthly subscription is only 3.83 dollars.. We are very blessed to have apple music at a low cost..
Hi John. I have tested long time all (except Apple), and finally I have only kept Amazon. Easy to intégrate in my system, very stable in the car in remote areas, and a bit cheaper. But the day Spotify go into Cd quality I Will reconsider my choice.
In Canada, you get 3 months free as of right now (Mar 27,2024) and the monthly rate thereafter is $10.99. I do believe they charge tax on that service depending on which province you're located in, so for me it'd be $12.41CAD/month.
i guess that is why Apple named it Spatial audio, it just simply provides more space by maximizing its stereo capability but Dolby surround is kicking it by its name itself :) Good explanation btw on why Apple Music vs other audio apps
I'm wondering why you haven't been talking about Apple music's biggest let-down: the missing way to get the stream into your Hifi system ? You need to own an Apple TV. No high class streamer can do it as the Connect functionality is missing. Would have been well worth mentioning.
I use an older Mac Mini using HDMI to my HiFi system which then goes to my TV. It's basically the monitor for the Mini and I can use the Visualizer from Apple Music.
I am all in with Roon. And since Roon ARC, there is no reason not to use it everywhere (at home or while on the road). So no worries about the missing Qobuz connect.
As someone who performs and has recorded my own music, I’ll put up with janky workarounds since Qobuz pays artists WAY more than Apple (and even Tidal) for every stream 👍🏼
Australia here, I pay yearly and pay $129 per year, around $85 USD or just $7 USD per month. Good deal. My other streamer is TH-cam Premium because I'm a heavy consumer of live drum and bass mixes
I use Apple Music, one of the reason I use it over Spotify is I can play music at the same time in different devices with a single account. My wife can keep listening to music with the Apple TV at home, my kids their own music at their bedroom with a HomePod while I am listening my own music in the car.
In the video it says it can play hi-res lossless from Apple Music. When I activate this in settings it says I need an external dac. Am I doing something wrong?
Qobus is off the table here and plenty other non US / EU market is simply the fact that they just do not offer the service here , Tidal is less so guilty of the availability of the service but are guilty of significant lack of local contents
Apple Music works for me. I'm not an audio purist by any definition, so the songs I can't find in Apple Music I'll find them in TH-cam Music instead. Plus, the family subscription has been $4.50/mo in Chile for the past 5 years or so. It's going up this year but it's still hella cheap in this region. With Apple One, you get a family subscription for all their services for $12/mo. So my reasons are the price, their classical catalog, and the DJ mixes (which I discovered just a few months ago).
Here in Indonesia, Apple Music costs around Rp 55000 (3,53 USD) for the regular plan, Rp 35000 (2,24 USD) for students, and Rp 85000 (5,45 USD) for family. I (or we, to be precise) subscribed to the family one and share it with my friends.
Do yourself a favour and update your system with height speakers for Dolby Atmos one day. No comparison to the playback on headphones which can‘t do a native playback justice. Like judging stereo music on a mono system.
So, starting April 10th, Tidal is consolidating its higher tiers, transitioning to a single charge structure akin to Apple's model. Additional charges will only apply for users who utilize Tidal with different DJ softwares like Serato etc.
The Eversolo DMP-A6 runs Qobuz natively in Hi-Res. I get up to 192/24 over coax digital out into my trusted M2Tech Young DAC (which I find a tad more musically enoyable than the Eversolo’s own DAC).
I am using Apple Music in Bulgaria, and it cost me 13 euros,but this is apple one, which includes Apple Music,apple tv,arcade and extra 50gb of apple cloud. This is a very good deal!
The family Apple one plan that includes music, games, news, and icloud is the same price as the Tidal family plan. Spatial listening on a full high-end atmos system is pretty amazing.
I use Apple Music all the time. I find the sound quality to be very good (I don’t worry much about high rez), with an excellent interface. In the U.S. I believe it’s $10.99/month.
Apple Music for me. I’m in their ecosystem anyway so might as well use it. I enjoy the sound quality a lot while using my IEMs and DACs. Spatial Audio? I can take it or leave it but it can be novel at times.
Apple Music in my country (Philippines) is 75PHP = $1.34USD for student, 139PHP = $2.48USD for individual, and 219PHP = $3.91USD for family. I was on the verge of moving to Apple Music a couple months back after I upgraded to Apple One, but I just seem to like Spotify's algorithm more. Though surely it's because I've been a Spotify user since 2014.
Glad it’s not just me who thinks Spatial Audio is just stereo plus! Super Stereo is a great way to describe it… Apple Music is £10.99 a month in the UK.
I was Spotify premium for almost a decade. Tried Tidal; loved it, but missed the discovery aspect of the Spotify algorithm and the UI. I get YT Music with YT Premium, which I’m also enjoying. Going to give the Apple Music trial a go.
I use the Roon software to integrate my Tidal and Qobuz streaming services with the large library of CD's I have imported to disk. And since the release of Roon ARC I don't need Apple Music for mobility either.
Apple Music running on a Mac doesn't do automatic bitrate changes. Roon is much more powerful with DSP and better metadata. The Apple Remote app is archaic to use. I know Roon is expensive, but is worth it to me for the DSP alone.
Here in Shanghai, Apple music is 110rmb (£12 / $15) per year which is incredible value. Or 11rmb (£1.20 / $1.50) per month if you prefer to go the monthly route. Think it has to be priced at this level to compete with native streaming services like Kugou and QQ music.
Great Video John. Bring on Apple Connect! I agree with almost all that you said in this video. Streaming is both convenient and absolutely frustrating if you value quality and simplicity.
I use Tidal, I did try Apple Music but I couldn’t reliably get it to work from an iPad into a DAC, plus it seriously screwed up my iTunes music library.
And here we are another year has gone by and we still have nothing but a dial tone from Spotify for a HiFi tier. Wow!
I ditched Spotify in 2015. No interest with it
Confirmed not coming at all
And that’s all you are going to get. The masses don’t care about quality, it’s all about price.
@@mcjonnersource? 😮
Deezer has HiRes support, I'm back to CDs anyway
So Apple Music…it just works. 👍 Makes sense. That’s kinda Apple’s thing. Funny how so many other tech companies just don’t get that.
Oh wow metaljeausrocks is here I love it.
Too mad it doesn't have every song, my taste is too vast for Apple Music
The thing I don’t like about Apple Music is there is no true hand off, only Airplay. Every other service has a hand off, even on Apple devices.
Reporting from Taiwan... where Tidal is not available... Apple Music comes in at 150NT = $5.00 US dollars... Great video...!!! I subscribe to Apple Music out of Hi-Res necessity and Spotify to discover new music, etc. I grew up in the 50's and 60's when AM radio was the thing, so this streaming scene never ceases to blow my mind...!!!
Taiwanese music is why I have Spotify. I'm British, living in the UK, but I'm a big fan of Taiwan as a county, and I have always bought local CDs when I visit (Taiwanese language preferred over Mandarin Chinese). Spotify helps fill the gaps when I can't be there.
I only know FM radio but I grew up when cassettes were replaced by CDs shortly before MP3 players replaced CDs. Tbh, I start thinking that MP3 was the begin of the peak of quality of listening and streaming is the downfall. I'm thinking about switching back to buying music rather than streaming it. Not in MP3 but in FLAC. Only problem is the money.
The DJ Mixes has been a terrific addition and I appreciate being able to add tracks from the middle of those mixes out to another playlist
I basically stopped paying subscriptions last year I was blown away by how much it actually adds up, iTunes, Spotify and all the rest, I mainly get CD, Vinyl now. I rather own my own music and collect if I want to spend extra and get a special edition or coloured vinyl I can and it worth it to me.
Is that economical? For the price of a CD album, is it almost the cost of a service subscription? I use AM with my Apple Premiere service. I figure 15 CDs is already an annual subscription? Just curious how much you are getting your CDs.
I get it thought. I have hundreds of CDs from when the first launched. I thought I was clever ripping them at low quality to save disk space in 1990. Well, I'm not about to re-rip those...I just don't have the energy like I do today. I'm much older, but more patient....but not that patient. Remember Music Match?
Im a ollector too, but no way vinyl is cheaper. A single ep is like 20-30€. Cds maybe, because you can get many albums really cheap
im thinking of going back this way... i love my cds...listening to a full album...i dont like how digital has changed the way i listen to music...
@@Mr.Marblesnot to menton not being able to easily find new artists and make playlists. Physical is dead
i've no idea what devices are suited to a great selection of free digital content - digital / internet radio (only?) devices? or is it here at YT? - and i'd quite like to add more to my options for listening, beyond CD. i quite like vinyl, but it's a collector's field not a listeners one, predominantly.
Similar for us too. Qobuz is my main service, and my wife and I also have Apple Music. She solely uses Apple Music and I use it for my car’s CarPlay and to fill in the gaps that are in the Qobuz library. But when I’m in front of my system, if I’m not playing CDs or LPs, it’s mainly Qobuz via Roon.
Qobuz is the best, number 2 is Tidal and Apple comes 3rd
Qobuz simply sounds better. And that's all that matters to me. @@chichanleon123
Dude. The number one reason I have Apple Music is so I can listen to “spatial audio” but through the Apple TV and a true Dolby atmos 7.2.4 setup… it’s a whole new experience listening to something that was created for surround sound. Don’t get me wrong, there are some artists who have had their 2ch songs mixed to atmos and it’s horrible, but when you get true atmos tracks it’s mesmerizing to hear things floating all around you and almost a voice of god effect
Spatial Audio for headphones is a horrible gimmick. If you have a true surround sound set up at home that’s atmos capable and an Apple TV. You won’t be disappointed in the slightest. I especially find that new electronic music artists have started pushing the envelope in atmos. I’m also not a huge fan of Billie Eilish but she was one of the first artists to incorporate atmos and some of her songs were produced really well in atmos so they are good to test out your system if you haven’t tried it yet
@@feeltheburntk9893I keep coming back to You Should See me in a Crown to listen to on headphones and test out equalizers. Her brothers Fineas did such a great job producing. I listened to that track in some AP Max’s and I LOVED how the bass seems to move around you. It was so well done.
I use Amazon music, it has the digital versions of vinyl I've already bought and hi res files once auto is selected. Love it.
same here, and it's even a little "cheaper" when already having the regular prime subscription (at least here in germany). i'm totally fine with their selection of tracks and quality, software was once really unstable but they seem to have fixed it and it works on all my devices :)
I subscribe to both Apple and Tidal, for largely the same reasons as John describes in the video. I am fortunate to receive discounts on both, as I work in education. Each runs me $5 per month, with the bonus that Apple Music includes the TV+ streaming service. So, I essentially pay the cost of one streaming service for two music services and a streaming video service. Not bad. Current use case is Apple Music for multi-room music via HomePod, CarPlay use, and syncing music to my Apple Watch for exercise. I use Tidal connect to deliver FLAC files directly to my streamer and DAC in my two-channel system.
I just use tidal for everything. In my car and everywhere MQA is superior
I have discount for Tidal and I have Qobuz as well for Roon. I use Apple Music as well (Apple one plan).
I work in education too but UNiDAYS did this scan on my email and says I’m not eligible because I’m staff… how did you get around it?
@@18yearsoldnot do you have a .edu email address? I just typed mine in to the verification system and it worked for both Apple and Tidal. I am staff too.
In India Apple Music is 1.19$ (USD) for Individual plan and 1.80$ USD for Family Plan
Wow! That is quite impressive!
It's scaled due to monthly wage factors which are low in India. @@SpyderTracks
In India only Apple Music streams Hi-res audio. Tidal doesn’t want to come here and God alone knows when Spotify will roll out its Hi-res audio.
In China it is cheaper. I subscribed the family plan and it is 2.39 USD. Divided by 6. it is 0.39 USD per person per month
Indian consumers also heavily consume regional language content. Availability of tracks is a major decider.
I feel like the iTunes Match service is a largely unknown add-on that is fantastic for those of us who had obscure CD collections or are particular about wanting access to a certain mastering or mix. This is one of the (many) reasons I stay in the Apple ecosystem.
Just a warning about iTunes Match, years ago I matched and uploaded several gigabytes of pirated music from my youth and it was absolutely great but I left my subscription lapse for awhile. I lost everything after and worse than that my hard drive of music died. It keeps you tethered for life if you are serious about protecting your library.
Same. I have my personal burned music from over a decade ago synced on iTunes (now Apple Music) including songs that are otherwise not available on any streaming services. Plus I much prefer Hi-Res Lossless music on Apple Music.
I really hope that this service will never go away it's so useful and yet so cheap
Same, iTunes Music Match was a savior for me after the demise of Google Play Music. Going to Apple Music ended up being a no-brainer since iTunes Music Match is included.
Another good reason is the cloud upload for songs not in my region.Better than Spotify where the songs have to be on your device.
I love this as well! I’m a wannabe-producer, and I can simply integrate my own creations in my Apple Music library. Add them once from my Mac, and they’re available on all my devices.
Apple Music is great. Instead of whining in the courts, if companies like Spotify actually implemented the FREE APIs that Apple gives developers to make their music products work seamlessly, they'd find they'd have more customers. But no, they decided to get all hostile. There was a time where I'd use Spotify before Apple Music, but the latter has come a long way and Spotify's recent behaviour is embarrassing. The fact they've convinced politicians that they're the 'good guys' is even more disturbing.
thank you for mentioning the DJ mixes! their catalog keeps increasing which is incredibly impressive. they also have live recordings of DJ sets from current and previous electronic music festivals as well, which is really great too if you like keeping up with that stuff. now if only they could get the entirety of the Global Underground / Renaissance / old Ministry of Sound mixes on there too! oh and also Northern Exposure by Digweed and Sasha.
AU$129 for a year in Australia. A couple more reasons that make Apple Music attractive to me is: I'm invested in the ecosystem so it works on all my devices, even old dusty ones. Primarily, I like supporting the artists so if there's a way I can enjoy their music and they get paid as well then we're all happy, and I hear Apple pays the artists (relatively) well. And because I'm cynical and I don't like corporations messing with my stuff, I also buy CDs (through Record Shops or Artist's web sites) and maintain and curate my own music collection. It isn't a perfect system and it's sometimes a battle to listen to my preferred music everywhere, but that's really a first world problem.
I understand the stream services, but I much prefer to own a cd or record. Stream services can just pull the plug on your favourite artist or change how they provide the stream. I’ve picked up quite a few cds from charity shop costing from as little as 50p to a £1.
I understand your viewpoint, but having the streaming service also give one so much better exposure to music that you have never heard before, if I find something I really like, then I will try an get the cd, although that is getting more difficult it seams.
I use both Tidal and Qobuz with Roon at home, if in the car I usually use Apple Music playlists ripped to my phone or Qobuz mobile.
It is true that Qobuz is missing some artist, also in the more mainstream music.
Here in Philippines, it is only around $3 per month. Currently using TH-cam Music due to its bigger library. Thinking of switching to Apple Music soon.
Question: I've never heard you talk about Amazon Music HD. Why? Is it not a great service (streaming quality/library)? Or is it not available where you are?
I guess the ideal way to go is Spotify for discovering music to then buy (AND OWN) them in a preferred tangible medium. CD for me
TH-cam music is the best for discovering music imo , I found Spotify doesn't have everything
One of the main reasons I choose Apple Music over other streaming services is that music you own that is not on their service is uploaded to the cloud for streaming from anywhere you happen to be. So rare live albums our esoteric imports that you now are there right along all the other Apple Music far in the cloud when you are logged into your account.
My first streaming subscription was Primephonic, which was primarily classical. But in 2021 Apple bought and merged Primephonic into Apple Music. I have Tidal and Qobuz now, but Apple Music has the greatest collection of them all from the defunct TelArc label, which is where you go for spectacular dynamic range experience. I might drop Tidal because it annoyingly pushes hip-hop and rap as it's "recommendations" to me.
Actually, that is a REALLY good point that I missed: Apple Classical comes as part of the Apple Music subscription fee.
Yes. I went for Apple because of the classical music. Streaming from an iPad Pro via Topping DAC into my Yamaha amp. Sounds great. Greater than expected.
Unfortunately, Apple music classical, unlike the regular apple music, will not let you download music on your smartphone and does not let you stream to chromecast.
@@DarkoAudio - Apple music has the more comprehensive library of regional songs in india which betters spotify. It is also cheap at less than 2$ per month for the family plan while coming with lossless and atmos. In fact, it has a whole bunch of songs remastered in Atmos and one should really try it through a surround sound system. Sounds Phenomenal!
Sound quality aside, Spotify is largely superior in how it handles playlists. Not only is the UI far better, it also allows for creating folders. That, for me at least, is a huge advantage.
im using an ipad mostly for music streaming: the spotify ui is horrible (try quickly skipping through a song), the apple music ui is waaaay better.
Spotify UI is so ugly and clunky
You actually can create folders for playlists in Apple Musik too. But as far as I know only in MacOS.
I have tonnes of playlist folders in my Apple Music library.
You guys are funny. Apple Music has a 10x worse UI. It’s basically iTunes from 2003.
I use Apple Musics Family plan. We pay 15€ a month in Germany and use it with five people so effectively 3€ per person. I don’t own any CDs and my parents sold all of their CDs as well so this is the next best thing for us (because we all use iPhones). We also use Sonos speakers, and being able to use Airplay to those is very convenient. Lastly the AirPods Max already support wireless lossless audio when it’s being used with the Apple Vision Pro, so it’s probably just a matter of time until you can have wireless lossless audio with an iPhone as well, and having a streaming service that offers lossless audio is going to be very nice.
10.99€ in France 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷. Thank you and take care!!!
Amazon HD > Apple Music Amazon HD has a lot of great DJ mixes even old Moving Shadow DNB mixes. Tons of Trance mixes that can't be found on Spotify even. Amazon HD has Atmos, 360 sound, music videos and high res/Ultra HD.
I subscribe to both of them. I prefer Apple Music if I had to drop one. The interface for the Amazon Music app is the worst one I have used. I do like their Amazon Connect feature with the Wiim (especially using Alexa), which is why I keep it around, but would drop it if Apple had something similar. Part of preference for Apple Music is the Apple One program and its integration into Apple ecosystems and Siri . If I did not use Apple products, I think I would be closer to where you are, though.
Don’t know if you will read this, absolutely love your informative and insightful reviews. Can you please do a tour of your record collection, I am sure I am not your only viewer that appreciates your taste in music and have discovered new artists from the small snippets we occasionally hear or covers flashed on screen
Great explanation. Most of the same reasons I use Apple Music. I would add that a LOT of the content is actually 24/44.1 or 24/48. It’s just labeled as “Lossless” rather than “Hi-Res”. I’m sure people will have differing views on what counts as hi-res, but it’s means that in my experience probably more than 50% of the content is 24bit.
5,99 EUR her in Austria for me.... thankfully still writing on my Dr. thesis at the technical university of Vienna and Apple having a heart for students :)
Long time Head-fier here from Kerala, India. Proud subscriber for ₹99/ month individual plan. Long live lossless music streaming. Cheers!
I've been using Amazon Music's Hi-rez audio (in a PC with a sound card that can do 24/192)...it seems amazing to my ears. Why is Amz never part of the discussion?
not the biggest song library tbf...
In Apple Music there is no option to sort on songs that have lyrics.
In Malaysia, it costs RM16.90, which is equivalent to 3.6 USD
Can get RM8.90 if you're student or registered your email as student❤
Apple music is pretty solid imo, it introduced me to the world of hi res audio, and the fact that I only pay 5,99 USD for it as a college student and get a complementary Apple TV+ subscription makes keeping the subscription a no brainer
Absolutely agree John. Apple for me has the best library and UI. But I really like Tidal Connect and MQA. Tomorrow I‘ll get an HDMI extractor, hoping to get bit perfect out fo the Apple TV 4K, as the TV is upsampling everthing to 48 khz. I love navigating Apple Music on the Apple TV 4K over the big TV Screen.Great video, kepp going! 😊
Apple Music has matured…and I enjoy using it. I pretty much dropped other services. The integration into my hi-if system, their massive Library, streaming quality, addition of my own rips, DJ Mixes etc are all reasons why it is a go to platform.
AppleTV no longer resamples the audio out, after years of begging.
Cannot wait for Qobuz connect! :)
want to buy some patience hey?
I couldn’t either. They said June. Gave up waiting and switched to Tidal.
In Malaysia it cost RM16.90 per month for individual equivalent to US3.61.
As a Canadian, we don’t have much data available in our phone plans usually and Apple Music just happens to use MUCH MORE data than Spotify even with data saver settings. Just my two cents
I am a solid Apple Music user since day one. Then I subscribed to Tidal Hifi to compare. Dropped Tidal, didn’t even bother listening anymore even when there was time left in the subscription. The way Apple Music automatically streams the highest resolution is the special sauce. Cheers!
Apple Music is also €10 in Belgium, it doesn't matter wether you pay once per month or once per year. Apple One is €20. I agree with all your points and it's also the reason that to me personally, it's the best complete package.
Hi John - caught the M66 in your Tidal Connect options. Does this mean that a NAD M66 review is coming!?
I was faithful to Apple during their pay-per-track years, to the (i)Tune of around £5000. Then, when I got a Bluesound streamer, I began an affair with Tidal. The resultant leap in audio quality caused me to divorce Apple. I sealed the deal when Tidal lifted her skirts to reveal Tidal Connect, hence bypassing Bluesound’s own software. So now, just using my phone as a remote control, I stream from Bluesound to a Cyrus One amp, then through to LS50 Meta speakers. A recently acquired Rel subwoofer, carefully dialled in, completes my line-up for now, and the surprise bonus was that when I bought a Sony smart tv, it found my Cyrus amp via Bluetooth! For now, I’m in hifi heaven. PS, I found many of these components on your TH-cam channel and I find your advice and recommendations invaluable.
🙏
I find the sound quality of Apple Music directly into the amp via usb generally very good and (generally) superior to vinyl and Cd - of course depending on the source as highlighted in a previous video. For whatever reason I find the stereo separation greater and the sound a little more detailed and engaging. As a result I’ve gone off of Cd which I now find a bit dull and unengaging though I’ve got a pretty reasonable Rotel CD player. I find I can listen to Apple Music at a low volume and enjoy the listening experience whereas vinyl or cd I need to playing significantly loud for it to him me.
I am a Deezer Hi-Fi user. Yes, I'm one of the weird ones. If Deezer ever went away, I would consider Apple Music. Maybe. I was not happy with Tidal.
Deezer!!!!!
What was the particular source of your dissatisfaction with Tidal?
Saying weird meaning sane, because deezer have the same library as Spotify if I’m not mistaken, and you have flac streaming, and you know what, having used deezer Spotify and Apple Music, deezer have the best algorithm for suggesting music in Flow
Love Deezer flac sounds great dare I say it the hi res I’ve tried with Tidal and Qobuz sounds a bit flat just my opinion
The main reason for me to stay with Tidal is the excellent suggested new albums and tracks based on your music library
I will never switch off Spotify until the competition implements something similar to Spotify connect. That alone is keeping me with Spotify.
Tidal connect
@@18yearsoldnotdoes it take you on a musical journey, i.e. introduce you to many more musicians you might like? Spotify took me further than I thought I’d ever get (Japanese ambient music, and I think that is nit the right term for this ethereal genre)
Spotify simply sounds dreadful.
$10.99 here in the states. Definitely worth it to me. I have HomePods throughout my place so the ability to effortlessly stream lossless audio to them in perfect sync makes it worth it. I also hook up to my cars focal sound system with usb to take advantage of the lossless.
I left Spotify behind a year ago because they still lack lossless. Moved to Apple Music. Very happy with it in all aspects but one : sometimes tracks skip a fraction of a second somewhere in the first 10 seconds of a song. If there’s any solution to this then I’m interested to hear. Thanks.
Same
This is a bug that has been around forever.
What a good, thorough explanation. Thank you! (So I know even better, why I love Qobuz, but still stick to Apple, especially since Classical, which is really, really great!)
Here in Philippines Apple music for 6 family members monthly subscription is only 3.83 dollars.. We are very blessed to have apple music at a low cost..
Hi John. I have tested long time all (except Apple), and finally I have only kept Amazon. Easy to intégrate in my system, very stable in the car in remote areas, and a bit cheaper. But the day Spotify go into Cd quality I Will reconsider my choice.
In Canada, you get 3 months free as of right now (Mar 27,2024) and the monthly rate thereafter is $10.99. I do believe they charge tax on that service depending on which province you're located in, so for me it'd be $12.41CAD/month.
i guess that is why Apple named it Spatial audio, it just simply provides more space by maximizing its stereo capability but Dolby surround is kicking it by its name itself :)
Good explanation btw on why Apple Music vs other audio apps
In Croatia Apple Music is 6,49€ individual 9,29€ family plan. I have it set up with Dragonfly Black and Shure Aonic 4, very pleased!
I'm wondering why you haven't been talking about Apple music's biggest
let-down: the missing way to get the stream into your Hifi system ? You need to own an Apple TV. No high class streamer can do it as the Connect functionality is missing. Would have been well worth mentioning.
Not correct. Eversolo and Fiio both allow you to install Apple Music on their device. Perhaps there are some others too.
Or you can take an old iPad I got for 60$ and go usb into your dac. Bingo a 60$ streamer. iPad > usb > Belcanto dac.
I use an older Mac Mini using HDMI to my HiFi system which then goes to my TV. It's basically the monitor for the Mini and I can use the Visualizer from Apple Music.
I am all in with Roon. And since Roon ARC, there is no reason not to use it everywhere (at home or while on the road). So no worries about the missing Qobuz connect.
Reporting from Indonesia, Apple Music costs Rp. 55.000 (3.5 USD) per month for individual and Rp.85.000 (5 USD) for family of 6.
As someone who performs and has recorded my own music, I’ll put up with janky workarounds since Qobuz pays artists WAY more than Apple (and even Tidal) for every stream 👍🏼
Australia here, I pay yearly and pay $129 per year, around $85 USD or just $7 USD per month. Good deal. My other streamer is TH-cam Premium because I'm a heavy consumer of live drum and bass mixes
I use Apple Music, one of the reason I use it over Spotify is I can play music at the same time in different devices with a single account. My wife can keep listening to music with the Apple TV at home, my kids their own music at their bedroom with a HomePod while I am listening my own music in the car.
In the video it says it can play hi-res lossless from Apple Music. When I activate this in settings it says I need an external dac. Am I doing something wrong?
DAD ROCK? thanks I feel so old now :)
Is Steely Dan considered Dad ROCK ?
@@goobfilmcast4239without question
@@goobfilmcast4239 Grandpa rock I'm afraid. Dad Rock is now the 90's music not the 70's.
Vinyl and Qobuz for me. No need for "everything all the time". The thrill of finding the gems....
Yep Qobuz quality is way better than Apple
The spatial audio on a surround sound system doesn't seen to suffer the BT bandwidth quality issues.
Frank Oceans “Blonder Radio” is my favorite DJ mix
In El Salvador it goes for $3.50 with the student subscription and $5.99 without it
When is Spotify going to catch up? Is lossless on the way?
Qobus is off the table here and plenty other non US / EU market is simply the fact that they just do not offer the service here , Tidal is less so guilty of the availability of the service but are guilty of significant lack of local contents
I am a native English speaker and understood about 1/2 of what he is talking about. Nice. I'm gonna need a dictionary :)
Apple Music works for me. I'm not an audio purist by any definition, so the songs I can't find in Apple Music I'll find them in TH-cam Music instead. Plus, the family subscription has been $4.50/mo in Chile for the past 5 years or so. It's going up this year but it's still hella cheap in this region. With Apple One, you get a family subscription for all their services for $12/mo.
So my reasons are the price, their classical catalog, and the DJ mixes (which I discovered just a few months ago).
Here in Indonesia, Apple Music costs around Rp 55000 (3,53 USD) for the regular plan, Rp 35000 (2,24 USD) for students, and Rp 85000 (5,45 USD) for family. I (or we, to be precise) subscribed to the family one and share it with my friends.
Can anyone tell me what tv is that? 7:19
Do yourself a favour and update your system with height speakers for Dolby Atmos one day. No comparison to the playback on headphones which can‘t do a native playback justice. Like judging stereo music on a mono system.
So, starting April 10th, Tidal is consolidating its higher tiers, transitioning to a single charge structure akin to Apple's model. Additional charges will only apply for users who utilize Tidal with different DJ softwares like Serato etc.
The Eversolo DMP-A6 runs Qobuz natively in Hi-Res. I get up to 192/24 over coax digital out into my trusted M2Tech Young DAC (which I find a tad more musically enoyable than the Eversolo’s own DAC).
In Poland 5€ for individual plan, 8€ for family plan and 2,7€ for students.
I am using Apple Music in Bulgaria, and it cost me 13 euros,but this is apple one, which includes Apple Music,apple tv,arcade and extra 50gb of apple cloud. This is a very good deal!
The family Apple one plan that includes music, games, news, and icloud is the same price as the Tidal family plan. Spatial listening on a full high-end atmos system is pretty amazing.
I use Apple Music all the time. I find the sound quality to be very good (I don’t worry much about high rez), with an excellent interface. In the U.S. I believe it’s $10.99/month.
In the U.S as well, I pay 5.99 because I am a student!: )
I’m in the US & just switched to an Individual plan on Apple for $10.99/month. Top notch job on on your productions 🙌🏼👏🏼🎯
can you hear a difference between AppleTV as a music source and the FiiO?
where is my amazon music?
Around 7.5€/month for family plan in Romania. And 5€ for individual plan.
Apple Music for me. I’m in their ecosystem anyway so might as well use it. I enjoy the sound quality a lot while using my IEMs and DACs. Spatial Audio? I can take it or leave it but it can be novel at times.
Have you tried Spatial Audio from an Apple TV on a surround system with atmos speakers? For me that’s reason enough for paying for Apple Music.
Apple Music in my country (Philippines) is 75PHP = $1.34USD for student, 139PHP = $2.48USD for individual, and 219PHP = $3.91USD for family. I was on the verge of moving to Apple Music a couple months back after I upgraded to Apple One, but I just seem to like Spotify's algorithm more. Though surely it's because I've been a Spotify user since 2014.
Glad it’s not just me who thinks Spatial Audio is just stereo plus! Super Stereo is a great way to describe it… Apple Music is £10.99 a month in the UK.
I was Spotify premium for almost a decade. Tried Tidal; loved it, but missed the discovery aspect of the Spotify algorithm and the UI. I get YT Music with YT Premium, which I’m also enjoying. Going to give the Apple Music trial a go.
In Turkey it is 39 TRY like 1.2 usd really cheap and nearly can find all songs
In India, it’s little more then 2 USD per month for a family sub (upto 6 people). It’s ridiculously cheap compared to Europe and America
Quick question- Tidal TV app and the music videos they show, is the audio high res still? Or does the audio quality drop on the videos?
I think not above cd Quality
I use the Roon software to integrate my Tidal and Qobuz streaming services with the large library of CD's I have imported to disk. And since the release of Roon ARC I don't need Apple Music for mobility either.
Apple Music running on a Mac doesn't do automatic bitrate changes. Roon is much more powerful with DSP and better metadata. The Apple Remote app is archaic to use. I know Roon is expensive, but is worth it to me for the DSP alone.
What about amazon. Hi res cheaper
Oh how I love that See Mi Yah record.
Im just curious why max volume of apple music and spotify as i recall are not as loud as youtube music tho?
Here in Shanghai, Apple music is 110rmb (£12 / $15) per year which is incredible value. Or 11rmb (£1.20 / $1.50) per month if you prefer to go the monthly route. Think it has to be priced at this level to compete with native streaming services like Kugou and QQ music.
Great Video John. Bring on Apple Connect! I agree with almost all that you said in this video. Streaming is both convenient and absolutely frustrating if you value quality and simplicity.
I use Tidal, I did try Apple Music but I couldn’t reliably get it to work from an iPad into a DAC, plus it seriously screwed up my iTunes music library.
Thanks for the video. I have Apple, Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify. Some are for playlist, some for quality, some for ease of streaming.