stevensfo wrote:
Well, as the OP, I'm as happy as you are that the post went off at a slight tangent and have spent the last three evenings exploring what I get free from Spotify.
So last night, after almost falling off my chair at discovering music I hadn't heard for 40 years, I did a search for 'Clarinet Jazz' and an hour of reading with that in the background was almost enough to make me blow the dust off my clarinets and start practising again, though at 1 am, my wife might have had other ideas!
Due to our home tech being either hopelessly out of date or rendered unusable/sticky/hidden by over 20 years of kids in the place, I settled on a 50 quid 20W Anker speaker with bluetooth bought to use in the garden but as yet untouched.
Although my ears are most likely not up the standard of most HiFi Buffs, I was amazed at the sound and have to wonder why I should pay for a Spotify subscription when the free version sounds so good.
Great to hear that you've enjoyed it too Steve - isn't it a nice way to spend a lazy weekend, rolling back the years and diving into much-loved music from our youth?
The one fly in the ointment with the absolutely brilliant time I spent with my Spotify Connect sessions yesterday, just using the free Spotify account and listening through my Denon AVR-X1600H Home Theatre receiver (HEOS) and 5.1 speaker set-up in Multi-Channel Stereo mode, was the terrible loudness of the adverts when they appeared, as they were far too loud when compared to any of the previous music tracks, and unless I really turned the music down then they did spoil what was an otherwise extremely pleasant time listening to some of my favourite tracks. This is a common complaint, by all accounts, and I'm not lost to the idea that this is all part of the upgrade-path intent for the Spotify business-plan...
I've never been one for subscribing to any of these fee-based content providers, but I'm beginning to think that I'll get so much good use out of Spotify, and the HEOS '
Spotify Connect' source-quality
really is that good, that I might well have to treat myself a little during this very strange period that we're living in at the moment, where personal comforts seem to mean much more right now than they might have done in previous times in my life.
With that in mind, and given that we can all get a free '
trial month' of the advert-free
Spotify Premium accounts anyway, I've also found this morning that PayPal offer a '
12-months for the price of 10' Premium account voucher for Spotify too, which means that I could treat myself to 13 months of
Spotify Premium for just £99 -
With the 12 Months Spotify Gift Card, get 12 months for the price of 10 months (and save £20) - https://www.paypal.com/uk/gifts/brands/spotify-uk-99I note that the above page says that this discounted offer only applies to personal, single Spotify accounts, and cannot be applied to
Family or
Student plans, but as I've no need for those types of accounts at the moment, and a discounted Spotify personal account would be a great personal treat for me, then I'm beginning to think I've got something good to put on my Christmas List already...
Cheers,
Itsallaguess