Streaming – Discovering Similar or New Music

Maybe off topic but I've always looked at who is playing on a disk I like and go in search of their recordings.  Looking to expand as opposed to similar?  It's worked well for me over the years.  

I’m not big on building playlists but I do have an appreciation for the Spotify interface with regards to suggesting other titles/artists that “Connect” with what I’ve been listening to. I haven’t had much experience yet with Qobuz as I’ve only recently started using it.

Along the lines of what @bigtwin describes the interface in my Naim Uniti Core has an excellent method of supplying album/artist facts and recommending similar music.

Once a disk is ripped onto the server album art and data are brought in via Rovi, Music Brainz and Free DB. On the album page is a press review of the title and a link to a booklet. The booklet lists all track/performer/credit data as well as pictures of the artist. All references are hyperlinked for immediate browsing. At the end of the booklet there are multiple page lists of similar artists and recordings with hyperlinks. You can also use the descriptors provided with the associated links to sort your library by genre. It’s really nice.

Mostly when it comes to finding new music or artists though I rely on the AOTY website. This site lists all music releases by genre or by release date. I check it and sort every couple of weeks, audition the music via my Lumin on Qobuz/Spotify and makes notes of what I want. When I have enough titles to keep me busy for a few weeks I place an order and then repeat the process. It never ends!

I use the website music-map.com  - try it out.

My experience is with Lumin and Roon.  I have both Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions.  To me, it's not even close....Roon wins!  Roon wins for selecting the best highest resolution sound quality.  I have my Roon set up to bias Qobuz because I like that everything is hi-res.  I have also used the Lumin app and while it also does a fabulous job with playback I find Roon easier and faster to work with on an Apple mobile device.

I use Roon with a Qobuz subscription.

I mostly listen to the "Your Daily Mixes" feature.

One disappointing experience is that Roon's "Your Daliy Mixes" tend to populate well-known albums that for me are played out (at least in the jazz genre).

A Roon staffer on some forum mentioned their updated algorithm works best to surface new music when your library of favorite albums is well-populated. I think he mentioned that a majority of users favorite less than 500 albums.

Having subscribed to most every streaming service over the years before settling on Qobuz, I used an online playlist/favorite album transfer service to move all my albums over to Qobuz from Tidal, Amazon music, etc. where I could still see them without the subscription for those. I paid for the transfer service, moved the albums over, then cancelled. Some I had to move manually because the transfer service (I think it was Tune My Music) couldn't see albums in the former service without that service being paid up. Guess you could repay for those, transfer, and cancel, but in those cases I ended up moving manually.  

Now I have 600 albums in my library and "Your Daily Mixes" are a bit more diverse in their offerings. I'm less discerning in favoriting albums now so I can keep enlarging the library as "Your Daily Mixes" and the "Start Radio" features in Roon are how I listen to music most.