Spotify vs Streaming

[BlueMax]

Has anyone compared Spotify with MP3 rips streaming from your HD?!

I did some A-B comparisons of the same music.
I don't know what bit rate and format Spotify use but found that Spotify is better!
Strange! Any thoughts ?!

For MP3 rips, I use CDex with these settings:
Lame MP3 Encoder
Bit Rate: 192 kbps min - 320 kbps max
Quality: High (q=2)
VBR Method: VBR-ABR
VBR Quality: VBR 0

[Appzalien]

I actually prefer cbr myself as its less lossy than vbr. I can't answer your question though, I do not stream anything, YET!

[anon]

I don't know what bit rate and format Spotify use

Ogg Vorbis q5 (~160Kbit) for free users, and q9 (~320Kbit) for Premium ones.

[BlueMax]

Sound quality is not bad; at least for casual listening. Database is big but quality recordings from famous labels, artists, musicians and conductors is few.

Storage capacity of portable players are measured in GBs now rather than KBs of not so distant past. Some like the Sansa Fuze can play FLAC and APE.
Broadband with speeds of 8Mbps is commonly used compared to the long gone 55 Kbps dial-up service.

So can't help thinking that lossy formats such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis are well past their sell by date. Spotify is a move in the right direction and if someone bring out a service with lossless streaming, i will not have to buy another CD again!

[anon]

Database is big but quality recordings from famous labels, artists, musicians and conductors is few.

Yes, the music collection really lacks sometimes. Another reason to use Grooveshark instead.

[BlueMax]

hadn'nt heard about Grooveshark before. Just had a quick read at Wiki about it.
must give it a try

thanks

[anon]

They offer two music-related services, this is the one I'm talking about:
http://listen.grooveshark.com/

Have fun