Thank you. I'm trying a trial subscription of Tidal for now. With their veterans discount, it will be pretty inexpensive if i keep it after the free trial.
Thank you. I'm trying a trial subscription of Tidal for now. With their veterans discount, it will be pretty inexpensive if i keep it after the free trial.
I found it on their website, here. I've started searching websites and doing google searches routinely because a lot of places I'd never have thought to check offer a discount.
I've got an Amazon Prime subscription; with that, comes their streaming audio service.
I have a Sirius/XM subscription for my car (for now)...with that I can use the Sirius/XM app on my phone and stream music that way, though it can get repetitive...they don't have really deep playlists on a lot of channels, honestly.
Amazon has a ton of stuff in it's library though...it's hard to not find something there, especially if you're already paying for Prime. The only reason I ever signed up for Prime in the first place was for The Grand Tour, which is kind of on it's last legs now, I think. Prime shipping has reverted back to what normal shipping was before Prime existed (and sometimes not even that good; weeks for Prime deliveries) so once The Grand Tour ends and I get tired of watching Clarkson's Farm or whatever...I'll probably pull the plug on Prime. It's really not saving me a huge amount of shipping costs anymore.
Since you guys made me jump back into the rabbit hole, I found this explanation helpful understanding all the different streaming services and who they might be suitable for. Regardless of service, it seems like the top budget streaming devices (standalone) are raspberry pi, the Wiim mini or pro (my choice right now), Amazon Echo Link, and the Bluesound Node - in order of price, low to high.
Re ripping CDs to play digitally, research NAS- Network Attached Storage for local media servers. All the above devices can play from services such as Spotify as well as ripped media on local hard drives.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lg-dErF4ThY
Apple Music user here; formerly had Spotify. I like that much of Apple's catalog has been upgraded to lossless at no additional cost over the basic subscription, though listening to lossless over Bluetooth is kinda pointless. Playlist selection is decent enough, and just about every major artist has an Apple-curated "essentials" playlist to get you started, with "deep cuts" and "next steps" playlists for the bigger names if you don't want to take the time to listen to their entire catalog. 95% of my home listening is over a variety of Sonos speakers and audio quality is just fine.
In my home office, my computer speaker setup is a TEAC AI-301-DA amplifier/DAC connected to a pair of Polk RTI A1 bookshelf speakers and a DSW Pro 550 10" sub. It is overkill for a 10x10' room and I never need to go above 50% volume, but holy crap it sounds good. I also have a set of Sennheiser HD58X open-back headphones I can plug into the TEAC for the rare occasion I want to just jam out to a particular album. All in all, a great combination that didn't break the bank.