Does anyone sub to Spotify?

Based on App feature set, music being the priority and not podcasts and videos I’d rank them like this

Qobuz - the app is far better now than it’s ever been
No Qobuz Connect but you can use Chrome/Google Cast

Apple Music - I like the UI and works better now than it used to
Android users have the option of Google Cast.

Deezer - the latest UI is ok. I thinks it’s great at new music discovery. If you have a spare phone or tablet and install Deezer on that you can play music on it from you phone. A bit like Spotify Connect. Works well and this could allow you to connect it via USB to a suitable DAC. I tried this with an old iPad and sounded darn good. Only max of 16/44.1, but I’m ok with that.

Tidal - the apps introduction of videos has put me off
You have Tidal Connect

Spotify - podcasts are ok, the rest of the UI has gone down hill from what it used to be.
Spotify Connect is the king of the connects

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I might go Qobuz - Apple Music - Tidal

I might rate Tidal above Apple Music if they ever finish their transition to high resolution lossless. That said, I only use Qobuz and Tidal with Roon and Roon ARC.

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I don’t recommend Tidal for streaming on the go (on iPhone): it works fine with lossy, but I’ve had it hang a number of times when going for lossless. Not even a bandwidth issue.

However I’m a Tidal fan on the main: indeed it underpins my Roon “collection”.

Qobuz too, as they claim to have more hi-res than Tidal (and both should be superior to Spotify if one was to listen critically)… however I can’t verify on my system whether it is indeed a higher resolution over Tidal’s Redbook? It sounds great, to be sure, but I’m keen on Qobuz for the artist remuneration game.

Apple Music was a good all-rounder but one probably has to exclusively use their device, which in my case is a phone that is better suited for other tasks.

As far as the other gank (GUI, podcasts etc.) I won’t comment.

The drain seems to come from the constant connection to my 4g or 5g depending on my location while playing music.

My iPhone 14’s battery drains just as fast with ARC or the Qobuz or Deezer app. I’ve quit with Tidal, but its app battery drain was on par with ARC as well. I’ve noticed though while listening to an Internet radio station it drains even faster.

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YT Music is fine for the car and if you use YouTube you’ll get that ad free.
I sub mainly for YouTube but it’s there for an emergency.

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Same here. I’m spending a lot of my free time on YouTube. So having no, pardon my English, bloody adds with YouTube Premium is a godsend. YouTube Music is just a bonus for me.

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Amazon Music anyone - :face_vomiting:

I used Amazon Music for years and it was ok. Then around 2021 the app updates made it unbearable

I’m using Tidal with Roon at home, but I have Spotify for the family and the wide support.
We have a Spotify Family subscription and wife and kids each use their own profile.

In the car (BMW iX3) there is an integrated Spotify app in the car media setup. Just log in and use all options in the car: heads up display, buttons on the steering wheel, etc ,etc, …
So convenient …

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I’d rather avoid Amazon and Apple as brands.
If memory serves me, it was Amazon that first provided Hi Res streaming at a substantially lower price than everyone else, more so for prime members. £7.99 in the UK I think.
I can’t see how that has helped the music industry, others had to follow suit and it’s all too cheap.
I digress tho sorry…

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I’m having a lot of issues on my Pixel 8.
Roon ARC will just stop playing, opening up the app again continues the music.
Also if I don’t force close the app my battery will keep draining.
I don’t have these problems with the Tidal app so I’m using that instead, although it saddens me that I cannot listen to my local music reliably on the go.

Well… This is my current phone homescreen – that may give it away a little.

My Roon and ARC are running perfectly fine. That said – my Spotify does too. And then some…

This is pretty much my setup. I tried all of them over the last month when coming back to Roon. Ended up with Tidal + Roon, and Spotify for car, running, etc. Dropped Apple Music, although a great experience and excellent app, too much overlap. I found Qobuz CarPlay incredibly frustrating, plus it didn’t have auto-download / caching (to be fair neither does Tidal).

I use Tidal much better than spotify

“When I travel I tend to use Roon on my laptop in the hotel.” That is exactly what I want to do, but have not been able to. I can open Roon, see all my music, and play it too- only not on my laptop. I can’t see it as an endpoint. I can make music play on devices back home, but that’s it. Do you have any idea what I am doing wrong? Thanks.

Have you selected the correct audio output zone for your laptop? And enabled it, if you look in settings: audio it will show you available zones.

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That’s pretty much my situation. I have Roon with both my home music library and Qobuz, that I use pretty much exclusively at home. When I am in my car or a hotel room, I use Spotify. The main downside of this would be having to pay for that extra service, but I have it for my family anyway. We have the family plan and my wife and kids love their Spotify. I’m just as happy to keep them away from my Roon account, so I have it available. I don’t know that I’d be spending the money to have it just for myself, but I can see that with it already available I find I tend to use it as described.

Yes it does :thinking:

When I am at home and start Roon on my laptop, I very briefly see a message at the bottom of my screen saying “Select Zone” but it quickly goes away and my laptop is shown as the device for playback (of course I can change it to any other endpoint on my system). Music plays fine. When I am at a hotel, I have to connect to my home via VPN (or Zerotier). When I do this and start Roon, everything looks good and I can see all my home endpoints, but the laptop itself is not one of them, even though it has been enabled.

Roon does not support VPN except with Roon ARC. If you want to use VPN with Roon, you need to search in the Tinkering category of this forum for possible help.

Otherwise, to use Roon on your laptop away from home, you need to install Roon Server and Roon (client) on the laptop. Connect your laptop to the internet using a WIFI signal or cellular and authorize the Roon server that is loaded on your laptop. You will unauthorize your “at home” Roon server as part of this process.

@Jim_F Yes, what you said is what I also understood, but when @AceRimmer wrote “When I travel I tend to use Roon on my laptop in the hotel” I was hopeful he had found a way to make it work. Is he just using his laptop as the Roon server then?

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