Itsallaguess wrote:
Just as a quick update to the above - I've found myself using my free Spotify account so much over the subsequent months since this thread originated, that I've now given myself a treat and used the PayPal offer above to gain access to the Spotify Premium service for 12 months at a cost of £99 (normally around £120).
The main driver for the move was to rid myself of the really quite intrusive adverts (why so loud!! - I know, I know....), but I don't think I was aware of the additional 'download' benefits of the Premium service too much, which allows 10,000 songs per device, up to a limit of 50,000 songs across five personal devices, to be able to be downloaded locally for those periods where a data-connection can't be maintained or might be too costly to do so - there's going to be quite a few occasions over the coming year where this will apply to me, so that's another big plus for the Premium service that I will definitely benefit from...
When I considered how much I've been using the free service over the past 6 months or so, and especially now that we're getting out into the garden over the coming summer, then the above benefits along with the availability of the 'Very High' streaming quality (for internal hi-fi benefit only, really - the normal 'High' quality of the free account is absolutely brilliant for any bluetooth or out-door use to be quite honest...), I thought it was a worthwhile offer for a service that I find myself using more and more of in recent months, and discovering (and re-discovering!) music that I would simply never have found using my other normal music-channels...
I'm absolutely rubbish at treating myself with things like this, so it feels like a great present from someone really close to me - me!
£2 per week - Here's to a great summer of music for us all..
I've been meaning to come back and report how much I've been enjoying my Spotify Premium service since the above post back in April. I'm not even 5 months into my 12 months subscription, but I really do feel like it's been the best £100 that I've spent on myself for a long, long time.
The sheer scope of songs and audio that's available through this service has only really started to become apparent to me since I got seriously into using the various bits of Spotify-enabled hardware that I've got available, and to be honest, even that didn't really open up to me until I started to look into things properly once I'd started my Premium subscription, and the high-quality Spotify-connect functionality has been absolutely brilliant in being able to control either my upstairs 'home-theatre' room AV receiver, using it's HEOS Spotify functionality, or using the Windows ''media PC' that sits behind my downstairs TV and speaker set-up, all of which can be controlled by any of my Android devices (phones or tablets) using the linked Spotify app, to then remotely search and play Spotify material from the comfort of my chair, remotely controlling the audio pumping out of any of my various speaker set-ups through the house.
And that's just the hardware and software side of things - but it's been the sheer scope of music available through the service that's been really surprising. Not only is it almost impossible to find anything that's not available on the platform, but there's often a huge number of different
versions available for many popular songs or tracks, whether that's the version from the original single, or the 12" version, or the album version, or quite often a range of options where they've been played live, or covered by other bands...etc..
It's a stunning music and audio service, and one area that I've not even got into yet is the massive amount of podcasts that are available, on a simply massive range of topics and subjects, so whilst I've been over the moon with discovering more and more old favourites, as well as fresh musical discoveries, it feels like there's still a massive amount of life left in terms of the available audio landscape here, and I'm thrilled that I've gifted myself something that I've both had so much enjoyment from during what's been a fairly difficult period for many of us, and which feels like it's refreshed my love of so much music from my past, as well as opening up so many new doors to music of the present...
I do really enjoy the '
Fans also like' feature of the Spotify software, where you can bounce around bands with similar styles, often re-remembered from days of youth long past, or newly-introduced when bouncing around more modern bands and music - it's great, and similar to a bookmark I've had for a few years now, called '
Music-Map', so here's a link to that if anyone wants to have a play with some of their favourite bands, to see where it leads -
https://www.music-map.com/Currently sat with a too-large glass of Malbec listening to Pink Floyd running through their Spotify live Pulse gig.....sheer heaven....
Cheers,
Itsallaguess