Both. You can do spotify style streaming with just the monthly sub, or you can do amazon style purchase downloads with or without the sub.
If youāre subbed, do you get a discount on purchases? Like Audible-style?
They have 2 tiers. 14/mo just streaming. 20/mo for up to 60% off.
Sorry, I said 96KHz, apparently itās 192KHz where available. (not all music is available in thiccccccc quality)
For example:
Iām evaluating their stream of Defenders of the Faith right now. Itās really good quality.
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Hmmmm 
Well Iāll have to think about it more, but it might just be better value to look for CDās at a local store or something.
Just as an example
Dark Side Of The Moon is going for $12 at Rasputin, but Qobuz is $16.49 (assuming without discount, but it doesnāt show me it).
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I do love me some FLAC. First time I streamed FLAC from my Plex in the car I knew I was on to something good.
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Yeah I was just thinking the same thing. $10 a month for spotify is starting to look like a bad deal.
Remember this. If youāre willing to risk an account ban on your platform of choice, you have the ability to rip from it. This is true with every streaming platform with the possible exception of Apple Music because of the nature of their ecosystem. This is the inherent risk that made the RIAA so on edge. The fact of the matter is that artists have never been more free than in this age of digital downloads and streaming. Which is probably why the RIAA is basically dead today. Artists are keeping more of their own money by releasing demos on spotify and landing on the Discover page, reaching millions of people without signing a contract with a record agency who keeps 85% of the revenue. So while itās possible to rip, it seems that not enough people do it to make a difference.
Thatās literally all Iāll say though. Iām not taking that route because I believe in supporting the artists and have the means to do so.
Yes, that tends to be the case. Youāre paying for the convenience of instant access. Also, depending on distance to music store, you might spend the $4 difference in gas.
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Iāve only kept Spotify for the student discount which brings the price down to $5 a month. I donāt really like the library management in Spotify. Apple Music is the best in that aspect IMO, but then they had to go and do this.
Ya true. Used to have one right down the street, but now I think the closes is probably 15 minutes away.
Donāt mistake this for me saying thereās no value in getting out of the house, especially these days.
Also true. Itās just that all I do with spotify is play the same playlists over and over again, and occasionally add something when a new album drops. I donāt really use it to discover new music, so I might as well just buy the tracks, support the artists, and ditch the monthly sub fee.
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Same. I tend to just play individual playlists.
P.S. I just hit Heavy Duty on my evaluation. Iāll give Qobuz a solid 8/10. Interface feels a bit early days, but aside from that, itās good.
When you go to play music, so say you just want to play from one artist, does it only play the songs youāve added to your library (like Apple Music) or will it play all the songs from that artist (Spotify, Deezer)?
If itās like Apple Music, that alone would be enough to get me to switch. Spotify feels super clunky because you canāt just press Library, Artists, and play just the songs youāve liked. You have to go to Library, Liked Songs, press the three dots in the top right, press Find in Liked Songs, then type in the name of the artist you want to play. Itās a huge PITA.
Hmmm, Iāve been searching for an album, then hit play on the album.
So if I play the first song, itāll play that song and queue the rest of the album. Let me check from the main artist page.
I think thereās a queue option to allow you to only add a single song.
Yes. You can āadd to queueā
If I click play on one of the āpopular songsā from the artist page, it plays the āartist popularā playlist, which is ~15 songs.
It doesnāt do the spotify thing of displaying all the songs of all albums on one page.
I guess my thing is I want it to be like as close to like a desktop music player as possible. That way I donāt have to keep messing with queues. I can just go into my library, select an artist or album to play, and it only plays songs that Iāve liked from that album or artist and it works that way every time.
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There are many advantages to using a desktop PC as your daily driver.
You donāt have to live in hope that corporations will (or fear that they wonāt) honour the privacy settings that you have configured in the OS or application. Since you donāt have inbuilt microphones or cameras, the evil maggots that want to use them to spy on you simply canāt.
There is no need to place strips of sticky-tape across the top of your screen (and possibly elsewhere as well) to obscure or muffle devices that you have no way of knowing whether they are active or not.
If you want to use a microphone or camera, you have to knowingly and willingly plug it in. It doesnāt happen by accident. You have control.
I only know of two phones that have physical hardware switches for microphones and cameras, but I donāt know of any laptops with such switches.
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FWIW, weāve got a few users dailying pinephones on the forum. Iād say itās nearing market adoption readiness. The only downside for me is that the interface doesnāt quite have the snappiness that Iāve come to expect. (first world problems, I know)
I hope this sort of stuff pushes people back to media hoarding.
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When my OP7 craps out Iām considering a Pine phone
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My hope is there will be a gen 2 with more horsepower by 2023.
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Ya my plan basically is to pay my phone off until I can trade it back in and then order a Librem.
I feel like thatās what itās coming to for me ultimately. Thereās just way too much data sharing going on and itās not going to go away.
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Iām finding ncmpcpp way more usable than spotify lately.