Differences in YouTube, Spotify, etc.

Exact same reason @bipod72 for choosing Spotify over others. Have heard Tidal and Qobuz before and they sounded mush better on my system. But they did not have the world music I needed nor some obscure music that I listen to.

I recently searched Deezer and found that it does have a lot of world music that I need, has hifi and it's connect works the same way as Spotify connect to control the desktop app. I will try Deezer after the Spotify Stream On event after checking if Spotify is going to introduce HiFi soon. I have a feeling that Spotify HiFi could be the reason that Tidal dropped their HiFi prices.

Amazon HD. I access via HEOS and stream to a wired Marantz network audio player when I want to listen on my main audio system.  Decent-rez service with a good selection at a low price because we are already Amazon Prime subscribers.

I use mostly to check out music I’ve heard/read about.  If I really like something and want to support the artist I buy a high-rez download for my digital library.

I tried them all, and Qobuz is by far the best in my experience. Spotify I use for casual streaming and is great for music discovery.

Tidal is a cut above Spotify on sound quality, Amazon HD was the most disappointing of them all and canceled shortly after.

I didn’t tally all the responses, but my impression is that when the choice was between Tidal and Qobuz, Qobuz was by far the preferred choice.  I wonder why that is???  
Too bad for me, because I prefer Qobuz too.  I have a family option on Tidal while I would  have to pay the full price for Qobuz.  I had my own subscription to Qobuz for about two years and loved it.  I’m into classical music and I think Qobuz has a better selection.  I use Roon to stream my own ripped music.  Roon offers a choice of Qobuz or Tidal which is not a problem for me because  I won’t listen to any service if it’s not at least CD quality.

I have more than enough material in my collection that I don’t need to stream. But I do subscribe to a YouTube channel for a group called "Voices of Music." They’re an "early music" collaborative, mostly San Francisco area professionals. They do concert sets, record all of them, and present them on YouTube.  Though the sound quality isn't even Redbook, it is worthwhile listening to.  The subscription is free and I recommend that you check it out.  They do have CD recordings for sale, but you won't find them on Tidal or such.

My wife was a professional violinist who played both "modern" and baroque violin. She mostly did "modern" playing because it paid a whole lot more than the baroque stuff. The "Voices of Music" players are mostly people she worked with in the past, so whenever I fire up one of their recordings, she has to go over and see *WHO* itas that we’re listening to.

BTW, her "modern" instrument was built by George Chanot in France, in the year 1848. Now that she’s retired, we sold her baroque instrument, which, also French, was made by Jacques Chapuy, in 1774.

For those of you not familiar with "early music", violins evolved over time and really hit their final design in the mid 19th century. The idea was to make them louder and to project more. The style of playing also changed. The bows evolved as well, all with the intent to play louder and project better.

Most of those zillion dollar 18th century Italian violins have been "modernized" and significantly altered from their original builds. They originally had a straighter neck and gut strings. The "modern" instruments had the necks pulled back and use steel wound strings. The bows are heavier too, as you might expect with the intent to make a bigger sound.

The trade-off is that while you can play louder and project more in a bigger concert hall, you lose speed and articulation. The baroque style of playing also doesn’t have as much vibrato. When listening to the smaller baroque ensembles, you’ll find that the players often have a greater degree of personal interpretation and expression. Modern orchestras are the instrument of the conductor, whereas most baroque groups have no conductor.