Soundiiz

[BruceP]

OK, so I'm in my living room having a pure, uninterrupted listening session this evening.

It's another one of those "epiphany" moments and I wanted to share with the forum.

You all know about those times when you make a change and all your favorite music seems new again. I think that's a goal we all seek as it's a way of recognising new, substantive progress in our experience of music in our homes.

Tonight I've made it an experiment to listen to all of my favorite music on Spotify. I've been a Qobuz subscriber for some time and I've been very satisfied. But. On this forum there seems to be a consensus that Spotify is the most musical of the streaming services. I decided to give it a try and do what this forum is all about: listen and report.

My experiment this evening is unequivocal: Spotify is more musical than Qobuz. What a fine evening I'm having as a result. I am listening to favorites old and new, from Ella to Koop, and the whole thing is like wow.

The experiment was made possible by a web service called Soundiiz https://soundiiz.com/ which is a miraculous thing that lets you transfer your favourites, playlists, albums, artists, etc. from your previously-favourite streaming service, to Spotify (or to some other streaming service but why would you bother?). There is a cost for sign-up to the service, 4.5 euros for a month. It took me about 15 minutes to transfer all my favourites, albums, tracks, artists etc from Qobuz to Spotify.

So all your favourites on your streaming provider, are available to you, instantly, on any other streaming provider. This is really fantastic because it means we can not be locked in to a streaming supplier just because we make favourites, playlists etc with them for a time. We can change for something better if we like and take our music libraries with us.

I think this is an awesome capability and I can't say how happy I am about it since it has enabled me to make the direct tunedem comparison of Spotify vs Qobuz on a Friday evening. For example, Maori Blues from Dave Brubeck's Time Further Out, i've heard it maybe a thousand times and it's a beautiful document. Well tonight it's a completely different experience as I'm actually visualising the musicians playing together, not just hearing the sound they are producing. There is a difference and I think that difference is what we talk about when we say changing this or that part of our system has made an improvement in our connection with the music. What's surprised me tonight is that changing streaming providers (a software change) has produced an improvement as substantial as a change in hardware (preamp, speakers, and other "system" upgrades.).

Why should that be a surprise though, given we subscribe to the "source first" philosophy? Well, for me it is a bit of a discovery that "source" also includes your streaming provider, not just the hardware you use to make sound in your listening room.

Just wanted to share this as I would not have embarked on this experiment were it not for the many previous improvements that I've gathered from others' contributions to this forum.

Thanks and happy listening,

BruceP

[springwood64]

Thanks for the tip! I wish I'd discovered soundiiz too, having moved between a couple of providers (Deezer and Qobuz) before settling on Spotify.

[ThomasOK]

Very cool report, BruceP. I'm glad you discovered the musicality that Spotify does indeed provide. I don't have much in the way of playlists saved but soundbiz is a good tip that I will share with customers. Have fun!

[lejonklou]

Thanks from me too!

Never heard about soundiiz, could probably have used it when I closed my Qobuz account.