U.S. Music Fans Continue Shift to Streaming Services as Apple Readies Beats Revamp

[cox-orange]

As long as Apple does not switch their iTunes music repertoire to a lossless compression format (or even high-res quality like it was rumoured some months ago), I will not spend any money there but use alternative platforms instead.

And like some people have written already, no, streaming is NOT an alternative for people who want to OWN the music they have bought. For background entertainment streaming might be fine though.

 

[sleepydinosaur]

Go suck a lemon you whippersnapper! Who took my cane again! Oh.. Nevermind

Hahahahaha, we can cane fight!

 

[bushman4]

Streaming is not owning. So it may sooth the moment when you want to go back to the songs you love when you want them you have nothing. To go back to. Streaming is like my car radio I listen to what's on but I cannot listen to exactly what I want. Only advantage to streaming is variety

 

[Gnawbert]

I have a bad feeling that Apple just have lost the touch when it comes to music. iTunes Radio is still limited to only 2 countries ( a disgrace), and the streaming business has already been taken. iTunes LP never made it (which is a shame). The iTunes store is in desperate need of tidying up (especially in multicultural countries, where all foreign language films are thrown into on category now).
Maybe Apple should have a year without new operating systems and other new features, but make the ones they have available to all their customers, and make them actually work properly.

I would love to see this. A year to clean house, to get rid of the fugly interface that is iTunes, and streamline the media experience into a simple, cohesive, and nice looking application (or split it up into several).

I'm using iTunes... just because it's the only one that syncs easily between OS X and my iOS devices, but it's a far cry from what it could, or should, be.

 

[patent10021]

I usually use my local library, but I like iTunes Radio sometimes when I'm working... except that it doesn't work with certain stations for some reason! Like, it almost never plays my Aram Khachaturian station, just plays for a split-second then stops. I have to fall back to YouTube or Pandora or even my SDR for local FM stations.

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I'd be fine with this iff
1. I had infinite LTE everywhere for free.
2. I could put all my music I want to stream into playlists and have it work nicely on my Mac and iPhone.
3. there were no monthly service fee.
4. the said service would never go out of existence.

But since none of these conditions are met, I use iTunes with a library. No Internet required, nice playlist system, no monthly payments, and my files are always there only under my own responsibility.

That's true. I'm sure streaming will be ubiquitous 5 yrs from now.

 

[hobo.hopkins]

Streaming is not owning. So it may sooth the moment when you want to go back to the songs you love when you want them you have nothing. To go back to. Streaming is like my car radio I listen to what's on but I cannot listen to exactly what I want. Only advantage to streaming is variety

Your characterisation of streaming simply isn't correct. Services like Spotify or Beats not only allow you to listen to "exactly what [you] want" but also listen as many times as you want whether you are connected to the Internet or not. So you're wrong to compare these services to a car radio or to suggest that their only advantage is variety.

I agree, I own all my music - approaching 15,000 individual songs. I make my own play lists and I listen to exactly what I want. Having said that I do use iTunes radio in a few situations like when I just want some background music or to listen to new music which then leads to me potentially buying something. For me paying to listen makes no sense. I have never bought into subscription systems of anything. Out of nessecity, I pay a mortgage, a phone bill, the electric bill, the water bill, and Internet service each month. I resist anything else that has me paying a monthly charge (the only non essential monthly charge is Netflix).

If you bought those 15,000 songs for just $1 each then you've spent $15,000.00 on your music collection. It would take you 125 years to spend that much using Spotify. Again to reiterate with Spotify you can save whatever songs you wish locally to your device and need no internet connection to play them.

Obviously there are pros/cons to each option but to characterise streaming services as a markedly inferior choice is incorrect.

 

[Ciclismo]

...If I want a semi-random stream of audio that I may or may not like, or be in the mood to listen to at any given moment, I already have that, it's called a radio... it's not dependent on an internet connection, and it's FREE...

Radio isn't free, unless you like listening to ads, constant talk about crap that doesn't interest you, the same 10 songs over and over, and having songs cut short for more ads and self-proliferation.

Also, Spotify allows you to create playlists and save them to devices and computers so you can listen to your songs even without an internet connection - which is how I keep my sanity on our road trips to Italy where radio station jockeys have a public torrid love affair with their own voices...

 

[tkermit]

As long as Apple does not switch their iTunes music repertoire to a lossless compression format (or even high-res quality like it was rumoured some months ago), I will not spend any money there but use alternative platforms instead.

Same here. I feel like Apple is losing every potential iTunes (music) customer at the moment. Either to streaming services or to high quality (or cheaper) download portals of rival companies.

 

[iolinux333]

Almost the same as E.Luzardo

Project Carbon TT (450)
1970 Sansui Amp (80)
Sansui SP2000 speakers (80)

SpeAkers now replaced (I splurged) with
Focal 807v w/stands

I'm so happy with my setup. All told I've spent 1600. Not cheap. Not expensive when you consider there's $30k turntables out there.

The biggest thing though is that I now have fallen in love with music again. I look forward to Record Store Day every year and it meNs gathering at s social spot like the record store to find music, talk music and love music.

I'm installing this in my daughter as well.

Also worthy of note is that nearly every new album will have s card to download mp's for the computer. It's a win/win!

OK. Stop right there. How the living **** can there be a THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLAR record player?

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The music industry started this, by packaging albums with two good songs, two marginal songs and 8 crappy songs and making you buy the whole thing.

Now people have the option of just buying the songs they like, and the old model no longer works.

I for one am not sad.

Yes and they were charging about $45 in today's inflated currency for that POS album.

And another thing, let's bring back leaded gasoline! That stuff smelled amazing. Kids today have no idea what they're missing. To bad there isn't some place modern kids can go to sniff the real gasoline with vaporized lead in it..

 

[patent10021]

The biggest thing though is that I now have fallen in love with music again. I look forward to Record Store Day every year and it meNs gathering at s social spot like the record store to find music, talk music and love music.

I'm installing this in my daughter as well.

Is her name Lucy?

 

[AlecZ]

I would say virtually all of your conditions are already met. Most people purchase enough LTE data already to listen to plenty of music. Compressed music is low bandwidth in a world of networks optimized for HD video. Further, once you've put together your playlist, you are free to download that playlist locally so you use no data at all.

Every major music service has playlists that function pretty much just like iTunes. Most of them work perfectly on your Mac and iPhone.

I'm not sure why you think you should get your music for free though. Do you steal the music you own?

It doesn't really matter if any one particular streaming service stays in business as you will likely be able to find tools to move your playlists from one service to another, which is effectively the same thing.

A good enough LTE plan costs a lot. My current one would not hold up if I streamed every time instead of playing locally. They all "work" with Mac and iPhone but not as nicely as iTunes does. If the company holding my playlists, and they go bankrupt, there's most likely no tool to move my playlists over, especially if they disappear without a warning. And I don't steal my music; I just don't want to pay monthly for it, especially because I already have so much in my library that I can play for free.

 

[mr.bee]

Its amazing how parents have failed to educate their children in regards paying for what amounts to a glorified radio station.

It's amazing to see how many people are listening to an industry defined by record labels and advertising.
It's the same pop structures, chords and rhythms over and over again. They are all 3:30 seconds longs and advertising is soo annoying and long.

So no thank you, I gladly pay for quality. what a presumptuous post

 

[Theatre]

I just hope that the "beats revamp" will become available in my country. We don't have many options here when it comes to streaming music services, so that would be a good thing. Meanwhile, I'll keep buying music on iTunes.

 

[castlema]

Your calculations for streaming data consumption are a bit off. An hour of 256k streaming (higher than most services default rate for mobile) consumes about 115 MegaBytes.

And this is why while I may use something iTunes Radio at home I will never use it in the car. We (2 of us) have 1GB of shared data per month. We don't stream anything so this is more than enough data for us. At around 115 MB/hr that gives us collectively about 9 hours of music and nothing else for the month. That is just not a workable solution. I am fortunate to live somewhere where I can get some good radio stations and that works fine for me when I am not listening to my own music in the car.

 

[iolinux333]

Is her name Lucy?

I think this is probably a really funny joke because of the autocorrect error but I totally am missing the Lucy reference.

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And this is why while I may use something iTunes Radio at home I will never use it in the car. We (2 of us) have 1GB of shared data per month. We don't stream anything so this is more than enough data for us. At around 115 MB/hr that gives us collectively about 9 hours of music and nothing else for the month. That is just not a workable solution. I am fortunate to live somewhere where I can get some good radio stations and that works fine for me when I am not listening to my own music in the car.

Almost all of the T-Mobile plans let you stream free without it counting against your data plan.

 

[Tech198]

Yay... music services


It's not just U.S

If music listening is gonna be allot on mobile, then this basically also forces u onto a cellar plan. Forget Pre-paid.

This is my limitation of any music steaming services using on iPhone.

 

[movieator]

Why does the argument here have to be one or the other?

You want to use a subscription model, use a subscription model. You want to download individually and locally, download indivicually and locally?

Me, I prefer the latter. Why? It isn't just about "ownership". For me, it's about collecting things. I have a music collection, albiet digitially.
It's why I still cannot cross over into the e-reader/iBooks model. I collect books and, more specifically, comic books. I like that tactile tangibility of something in my hand when I am reading it. Turning a real page, not a digital swipe. I like having shelves filled with stuff. Same with blu-rays.

For me, it's just about collecting things. Actual, physical things. Except for music. Digitally, I crossed over years ago

But I fully understand that my way isn't, and shouldn't be, everyone's way.

As long as I still have the option to download individual albums and buy the printed word/image, I'm good.

Everyone else can do whatever the hell they want.

 

[Michael Scrip]

As long as I still have the option to download individual albums and buy the printed word/image, I'm good.

Everyone else can do whatever the hell they want.

Everyone is doing whatever they want.

And what are they doing?

Downloads are down... streaming is up.

 

[movieator]

Everyone is doing whatever they want.

And what are they doing?

Downloads are down... streaming is up.

And I'll still download as long as I have the option. You keep streaming.
Life goes on.

My point entirely.

 

[sleepydinosaur]

OK. Stop right there. How the living **** can there be a THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLAR record player?

----------

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-1356-avid-acutus-reference-sp-turntable.aspx

There's a $15k needle as well...

 

[mrphil49]

U.S. Music Fans Continue Shift to Streaming Services as Apple Readies Beats Revamp

Until we have a direct interface to plug computers/music directly into our brains, to all humans, music is analog until your brain converts it through sound waves hitting your ears.

It has been so long since most generations have had access to music players that read the complete analog sound wave that most of you have never heard the incredible difference in listening to an LP through a quality sound system as opposed to MP3 or the few that add more one's and zero's that are cuts of that sound wave. (Note: MP5 has existed for years but isn't used)
As a result, only in a live performance, or for video, from a BluRay Player (32 bit sound) do you hear the full experience.

Neil Young approached Steve Jobs regarding Apple improving iTunes from their primitive MP3 downloads. Neil Young & a group of famous artists had already entered a lawsuit to stop the degradation of their copyrighted music. Neil's approach to Steve Jobs was his way of looking for a shorter/better way for the current generation to actually hear all of the music he and other artists created. Steve Jobs suggested that Neil make his own digital player if he wanted a better product for his fans.

Neil Young has done so and it is called a PONO (https://ponomusic.force.com). Apple has made the choice to give you the watered down music or sound track (Apple TV has only Dolby 5 in a world of DTS Dolby 7).
Note that Steve Jobs had a very high quality LP music system in his own home that he used.

LP's have the complete sound wave for 2 channel stereo cut into them.
No digital player of downloaded music (except perhaps the new PONO) comes close!
That is why LP's are suddenly gaining traction. Even at the last Apple Event, when they announced the free album, the image put on the screen was an LP!

If you have the money, there has been a cottage industry of laser readers made for LP's. Due to the lack of a major manufacturer reducing their cost by making 100's of thousands of these machines, they cost about $5,000-$15,000 (http://www.elpj.com is an example). Not only do they read the 2 points in the grouve that a regular record player does, they read the entire grouve from top to bottom, take thousands of samples and give you music without the old "wow's" and "pops". They even treat the LP just like a CD as they can skip tracks or read the LP randomly.

There are 3 reasons why we are stuck with such low quality downloads or streaming. 1) There is a huge lack of available bandwidth, particularly in America. 2) 1/2 of America has very poor internet connections & cell connections to the internet are limited too much. 3) The streaming or downloading of higher quality digital representations of the analog sound wave would require both the service and the public's storage to be massively bigger.

Cheap reproductions sold at prices similar to LP's or streamed (particularly for a monthly fee) are more profitable. After many generations of even bad CD's, the public apparently has been dumbed down and don't know what they are missing.

It's a scam so they make more money!
If you want the full emotional experience the performers wanted you to have, you will need to buy a good LP player and complete amplifier/speaker system though a digital format can meet great quality so long as they put enough one's & zero's in the coding. Let's all hope that Neil Young's PONO Player makes Apple's iPod's look like the toys that they are.

 

[Analog Kid]

It's still mostly CDs for me. They get ripped in, and stored out of sight, but I appreciate having that token. Maybe it's because my tastes are too much a part of my identity. That stack of CDs feels like more than a playlist.

Same with books-- I tend to buy them in paper and iBooks simultaneously now because I find the iPad easier to read on a plane than a paperback, but I don't get the same feeling looking at a list of titles on my iPad as I do looking at a bookshelf of stuff that I've chosen to read and valued enough to spend money on and dedicate real estate to.

And then there's the permanence of it. Atoms rather than bits. I suppose I could lose it all in a fire, but online services feel far more impermanent these days. I've seen them change over far move often than I've lost homes to fire.

And, I avoid recurring payments anywhere I can. If my income gets constrained tomorrow, I still have the CDs I already own.

I'm aware that I have a quasi-mystical attachment to my music, and that a lot of people don't share that. I also value continuity more than many seem to today. My approach isn't best for everyone, but I fear for the day it becomes harder to sustain.

The one thing that I always hoped the digital revolution would lead to is less involvement of the music companies. I kept hoping we'd get to a model where iTunes was dominant enough that Apple could move to a Logic->Publish model. That would have been a tradeoff worth making. It's why Napster was so appealing in the era of Sam Goody. We haven't gotten that though-- we've gotten the same stuff at the same price, with more strings. It is still $10-15 an album on physical media or download, or you can get temporary access to someone else's catalog if you agree to essentially buy an album a month and donate it to the cause. iTunes hasn't been what saved me from mall store hell, Amazon CDs have.

There are certainly more independent musicians making progress now, I feel, but the record companies still have a chokehold on the music industry as a whole and all of these decisions require their sign-off. Why can't I buy music from the Japanese, or Nigerian, or Russian music stores? This is still a revolution in slow motion...

 

[Michael Scrip]

And I'll still download as long as I have the option. You keep streaming.

Life goes on.

My point entirely.

Yes... YOU will continue to download.

But with a 9% drop in album downloads and a 12% drop in single downloads... other people clearly aren't following your example. And that was MY point.

There will always be people who want to download and "own" their music. And good for them.

But those people are obviously becoming fewer in numbers.

 

[iSayuSay]

I see where you're coming from but I disagree.

Buy 2nd hand CDs and most of them are $2 to 5 on Amazon, thats equivalent to around 3 albums per month on average compared to Spotify.

You get a physical copy that you can resell if you want that also acts as a backup, you get higher quality music, album artwork and zero DRM once ripped.

i see the convenience of Spotify is great, but it's a subscription so you're paying for life if you always want music.

Geez why limit yourself with so many options available. Get a streaming subscription and when you listen to an artist you really like, buy the physical album? Easy.

It's not like planet Earth is running out of CD musics. It's still for sale somewhere although not affluent as it used to.
If you really love music, you wouldn't complaint about paying so little money for something you can listen anyday, anytime.

Or if you want something free, iTunes Radio is still free (with relatively unobtrusive ads). I found quite a lot of musics I didn't know before and eventually like it, and finally buy the album. Can't do that if you purely listen to CDs. Music streaming is also a great discovery tool, again if you love music so much.

 

[alex0002]

I just turned 45, and have lived through several formats -

Vinyl in the 70's, cassettes in the 80's, CD's in the 90's and MP3's/file-based ever since. I 'own' Purple Rain on all the formats mentioned, and have never once had the urge to pull out the vinyl, cassette or disc for a spin.

What I will do is pull up the file on iTunes, and more recently, select it on Spotify to listen to.

I have a rather large physical collection of records and CD's that now live in boxes - and here's the irony - I pay a monthly fee to store them, along with all the other stuff I no longer use or have space for, at Public Storage.

Physical media can take up a lot of space (if you have a lot of it), so to have my entire collection, plus stuff I've never owned (or even knew existed), via streaming is a plus.

I can't see how anyone can argue that. I enjoy music even more since becoming a Spotify member.

My 2 cents...

You don't have to keep the physical CD if you don't want to.
Just rip them all to FLAC format which is lossless.

You can even rip them to MP3 or AAC for use with low quality music players like iTunes. For FLAC, you'll need about 300MB per album or 300GB for 1000 albums. Even if you have 10,000 albums you can put that on a 4GB drive in your NAS or whatever you use for mass storage.

Make a second backup to a portable drive if you wish.

Spotify is great, but mainly as a way to find and listen to new music. To me, it's an addition to the other ways I listen to music.