I’ve written a lot about ways of listening to music; in the current decade about liking YouTube Music but then about de-Googling. What’s new is that I’m spending most of my time with Plexamp and Qobuz. The trade-offs are complicated.
YouTube Music · I liked YTM because: ¶
It let me upload my existing ten thousand tracks or so, which include many oddities that aren’t on streamers.
It did a good job of discovering new artists for me.
The Android Auto integration lets me say “Play Patti Smith” and it just does the right thing.
But the artist discovery has more or less ran out of gas. I can’t remember the last time I heard something new that made me want more, and when I play “My Supermix”, it seems to always be the same couple of dozen songs, never anything good and new.
Also: Bad at classical.
I think I might keep on paying for YTM for the moment, because I really like to watch live concerts before I go to bed, and it seems like YTM subscribers never see any ads, which is worth something.
Plexamp · I wrote up what it does in that de-Googling link. Tl;dr: Runs a server on a Mac Mini at home and lets me punch through to it from anywhere in the world. I’ve been listening to it a lot, especially in the car, since YTM got boring. ¶
My back inventory of songs contains many jewels from CDs that I bought and loved in like 1989 or 2001 and subsequently forgot all about, and what a thrill when one of them lights up my day.
I still feel vaguely guilty that I’m not paying Plex anything, but on the other hand what I’m doing costs them peanuts.
But, I still want to hear new stuff.
Qobuz · I vaguely knew it was out there among the streamers, but I got an intense hands-on demonstration recently while shopping for new speakers; Phil at audiofi pulled up all my good-sound demo tracks with a couple of taps each, in what was apparently CD quality. Which opened my eyes. ¶
What I like about Qobuz:
It pays artists more per stream than any other service, by a wide margin.
It seems to have as much music as anyone else.
It’s album-oriented, and I appreciate artists curating their own music.
Classical music is a first-class citizen.
While it doesn’t have an algorithm that finds music it thinks I’ll like, it is actively curated and they highlight new music regularly, and pick a “record of the week”. This week’s, for example, is For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) by Japanese Breakfast. It’s extremely sweet stuff, maybe a little too low-key for me, but I still enjoyed it. They’re coming to town, I might go.
This isn’t the only weekly selection that I’ve enjoyed. Qobuz gives evidence of being built by people who love music.
What don’t I like about Qobuz? The Mac app is kinda dumb, I sometimes can’t figure out how to do what I want, and for the life of me I can’t get it to show a simple full-screen display about the current song. But the Android app works OK.
As for Qobuz’s claim to offer “Hi-Res” (i.e. better than CD) sound, meh. I’m not convinced that this is actually audible and if it in principle were, I suspect that either my ears or my stereo would be a more important limiting factor.
Records! · Yep, I still occasionally drop the needle on the vinyl on the turntable, and don’t think I’ll ever stop. ¶
And a reminder · If you really want to support artists, buy concert tickets. That thrill isn’t gone at all. ¶
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: David (Mar 27 2025, at 22:00)
I like Qobuz's music store for mainstream music that goes through the big distributors, but I only use it for purchases (no streaming). However, these days I buy the majority of my music on Bandcamp. The selection on Bandcamp is much more limited and usually you won't find well-known artists there (though there are exceptions!) and there isn't any particular recommendation engine, but you can discover and follow people you find with similar tastes and build up a pretty good, organic recommendation engine. It takes work, but that is part of the fun!
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From: Christof (Mar 28 2025, at 02:57)
I also use Qobuz as my main source of buying music.
I tend to buy hires version whenever possible. I mean, if I pay reasonable good money for my hi-fi system and headphones, why not put some money into the source material.
And yes: I am not going to hear a difference.
I mostly keep YouTube Music around because I have YouTube Premium for the family, and currently that means to also have YTM.
I use Plex mostly for watching videos, but also started using it for music.
I ended up paying for the Lifetime Plex Pass. I think that's a pretty good deal. (The price will nearly double on the 29th of April 2025).
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From: Ronald Pottol (Mar 28 2025, at 10:56)
It's a bit convoluted, but I still really love last.fm for being that radio station that plays great music without me having to pick it. You need paid ($30 a year), and paid Spotify (or it can use free youtube, I haven't figured out how to make it use my paid), it needs an active web page, so, it will stop if you run it from your phone's browser, I run last.fm on my desktop browser, controlling Spotify on my phone, and that works great. YouTube would give better variety, but you get youtube ads.
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From: Robert Sayre (Mar 28 2025, at 12:31)
Apple Music has really good lossless audio, and the Android app is excellent. I have never tried it in a car, though.
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From: Robert Sayre (Mar 29 2025, at 16:43)
Oh, I forgot to mention there is a whole separate "Apple Music Classical" app. Also available on Android, but also not sure how well that works in the car.
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