Spotify - benefits of paying?

[admin_exported]

I've recently downloaded the free version of spotify & I like it.

However I'm struggling to find anywhere in the app where it tells me what the benefits of paying for it are.

Anyone know?

 

[JamesPianoman]

Hi Dave, if you pay, you get music without adds. The free version has ads playing every 20mins or so...

 

[John Duncan]

- no adverts
- higher bitrates (320 instead of 160) for some (and eventually all, presumably) of the catalogue
- access to the iPhone app (rar)
- access to some new albums earlier than everybody else (U2 was a recent example)

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

Day two of Spotify premium/iPhone app usage and I'm still in thrall to it's revolutionary wonder.

No more Bit Torrent naughtiness, offline playlists offer a virtually limitless opportunity to delve deep into previously unheard music.

As a reasonably* avid buyer of music I'm still pondering the impact it may have on my future purchasing decisions. Listening to music last night at 320kbps through my DAC I was impressed by a multitude of songs and wondered whether I will actually ever "own" any of these in a physical or digital format.

What may have once constituted an impulse purchase bought on the strength of various whims will now most likely be Spotify-ed and DAC-ed first.

The vetting has begun.

* wife's eyebrows raised at use of euphemistic adjective

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. I'm probably totally missing the point here but I assume you cant copy (rip & burn) songs to blank CD's from spotify (like you can with Itunes?

It has started me questioning what I actually want. I have an apple mac upstairs in one of the bedrooms ( just a mac, no separate speakers, dacs etc), a laptop i use for work, a 13 year old (but still decent) cd player, stero amp and stereo speakers (which have lived under the bed for the last year or two) and a nice new home cinema system. I like keeping my home cinema and hi-fi separate but I don't have room in my living room for another amp, cd player and 2 more speakers, so currently listning to CD's via my home cinema set-up.

Sorry I know I'm going totally off topic now (and maybe i should post this elsewhere) but I guess what i need is something that lets me play the music stored on my imac, in any room in the house, but thats more likely to be in my living room (the majority of the time). Pardon my ignorance but is there anything out there that could access spotify and play it through my home cinema speakers without me putting extra kit in the room?

As an aside I have read about the AVI ADM 9.1 (did i get that right) speakers and they sound great but I don't have room for extra speakers in my living room.

 

[John Duncan]

Obvious answer is an airport express, which can play all your iTunes content by plugging in the back of your amp. Add Airfoil software ($25) and you can stream any content from your mac to the airport.

Alternatively, if you need something portable, maybe a Pure Evoke Flow is the kind of thing that you need? Note some reader comments about intermittent Mac compatibility though...

 

[professorhat]

Ahh - thanks JD, this has reminded me I needed to check out the Pure site and it looks like they've brought out a version of Flowserver for the Mac now (though still based around Twonky). I'll give this a go at some point and see if it's improved.

 

[kena]

barnsleydave:

Thanks guys. I'm probably totally missing the point here but I assume you cant copy (rip & burn) songs to blank CD's from spotify (like you can with Itunes?

There's Spotify Ripper a Swedish language free ripper but it doesn't work will all soundcards. (It also records sounds from any other application so if it works for you so close e-mail etc.) For purchase Replay Music 15 euro will rip for you then you can burn to CD. Normal copyright laws would apply