Streaming Napster £5 per month...good value?

[Pete Shields]

Really enjoyed the Manchester show on Saturday.

Had a long chat with a very helpful guy on the Sonos stand and was very helpful in helping me plan my next kitchen project, which will be Sonos powered.

Had to ask him about when Sonos would get Spotify support. He gave me the party line response that they were in discussions with Spotify, but then asked whether I'd tried the 1 month trial of Napster.

I haven't even considered Napster. How does it compare both quality and track availability wise to Spotify?

He said it had been recently reduced to a fiver a month, not something I could remember being seen advertised here or anywhere else.

I briefly had a go of the free trial, and it looks ok.

Anybody got views on napster??

 

[Anonymous]

I've had a 30 day free trial with Napster for about 4 months now! Even though the trial has officially expired I use Napster for free. It keeps working - but dont tell them.

I think Napster bit rate is 128kbps whereas Spotify is 160 (or 320 for Premium customers £10 per month).

I use Squeezebox to stream Napster but Spotify is USB cable from laptop. I find spotify easier to use but cannot stream it.

Choice of music with Napster is huge. So far I have been able to find every track I have searched for including local Indie bands who dont have record contracts.

When my free trial expires I will go for the £5 per month - 16p a day isnt bad.

Dont forget to give internet radio a go - its all free.

 

[Anonymous]

I use both Napster and Spotify Premium.

Napster streams at 128kps but downloads are in the 226kbps region (I think). I get the 320 for Spotify Premium which is awesome on the iPhone.

I actually found Napster a little easier to use. I prefer listening to albums which I think it was more set up to do. Spotify on the other hand is much better at setting up your random playlists and the likes. So in short, if you like to listen to albums, Napster's better (ignoring kbps), playlists and Spotify is better.

In terms of libraries I have found Napster to be the larger (slightly) in my preferred genres and it even had Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka!