this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (37 children)

Dropbox, Spotify, and a VPN are worth it: fight me.

Sure, Spotify doesn't pay artists enough and I miss having Neil Young available for streaming, but what are the other options that work well in the car? I'm not going to go back to using discs or plugging in MP3 players to the aux port, and I don't mind paying the bands directly for merch/albums if I'm really a fan. Considering I mostly listen to vinyl at home, I'm not paying Spotify for music; I'm paying Spotify for the convenience of being able to not listen to terrestrial radio and to be able to listen to what I like in the car or at work without the need for Youtube.

And my personal Dropbox account that I also use for work is well worth 15$/mo for 2TB of storage. It's saved me so much grief to be able to back up phone photos, access my work files from any computer, keep records of my personal documents, etc., and the software is both more cost effective and better designed than Google Drive or OneDrive. PDF's of my RPG books/characters/maps? Dropbox. Grocery list text file? Dropbox. Place to stash tabs/sheet music that is easily kept organized without the need for a physical copy? Dropbox. Phone number of that parent who saw my partner's car get tagged in the parking lot at school? Wait, I think I have her phone number in an spreadsheet from when I coached her daughter in tee-ball...gimme a sec...yep, it's in my Dropbox. In a side note, Dropbox may have turned me into a digital hoarder.

But the rest of this subscription-based garbage can get bent.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I recently switched from Spotify to Deezer. They offer high fidelity audio streaming which is a very noticable difference. Also, they're a bit cheaper, and you can easily move all your songs/saved playlists to Deezer

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You need to be a certain kind of person to perceive audio quality difference. One, you need to be able to detect the difference. Two, you need to be able to appreciate the difference. And Three, which everyone seems to ignore, you need to have bought a sufficiently expensive device that can make the difference.

In short, if you have an $18 desktop speaker, get the FLAC outta here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Not really. It's noticeable over Bluetooth as well, if your device supports codecs with a high enough bitrate. Obviously Bluetooth is still lossy, but listening experience is way better. The headphones I'm wearing now use aptxHD, with a bitrate of 576kbps. Spotify only offers AAC, with a bitrate of 256kbps.

As far as who can appreciate the difference, I guess? But you don't need to be a concert pianist to appreciate audio. That said, I play many instruments, so maybe I'm biased.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do a blind test between 256kbps and 576kbps. I dare you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I'm not going to argue conjecture. I have over $10,000 in audio equipment and like I already said I play many instruments, so you're not even picking someone good to make generalizations about. Bluetooth codecs are always going to be subpar, but they're probably how most people listen to streaming services most of the time. Anything that is streaming from a PC except Bluetooth is a notable difference.

I just checked the headphones I'm wearing again, they're actually using aptx lossless with a bitrate of 1200kbps. The point is that Deezer offers the same services for less money and higher quality audio streaming.

Apparently, when Spotify does roll out hifi, it will probably be a higher paid tier. Until then, for me, Deezer is the far superior service.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That's a good tip; I hadn't heard of that one yet. Is their library as comprehensive as Spotify?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

It's almost identical.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I transferred about 10,000 songs and about 30 weren't found

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Deezer should spread out their services to more countries.

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