Streaming Services

Most people love listening to music. These days most offices are filled with people on headsets listening to a personal playlist or on their computers sharing music with the office community all day long. As music tends to grab us as social beings, we find the fun in connecting to genres or artists we enjoy as we share with each other. Is it the same for your workplace? In these spaces, one person uses YouTube, another  streaming radio from the BBC, and another uses Spotify. There are so many streaming music choices!

Gone are the days of just a few choices when thinking about how to listen to music. Today’s music landscape includes streaming from all of the major players, Apple, Google and Amazon, which can all play through their connected home devices for a price.  If you have a favorite among these three, you may be done searching.

Commercials or Subscriptions?

If you don’t mind a few commercials placed within your music listening, there are another group of services which offer free music.  You may have heard of Pandora and iHeart Radio but there are also Slacker Radio and Spotify to include in free music with commercials.  Usually the free versions limit your ability to bypass a song or end up skipping a few songs that are reserved for premium play for a certain artist.  Most local radio stations have websites that let you stream live stations if you want to continue to connect to that market.

High-Quality Options

If you want a high quality sound choose Tidal or Deezer. Music here is high quality at 1411Kbps versus the general sound range of 128Kbps to 320Kbps.  You can listen to the differences for yourself if you pay to upgrade for the quality and see if it matters the most to you. According to some sources, Tidal is also the one source that tries to pay its musicians the most.

For more great general reviews and comparisons check out these two links.  One is from the ever-honest Consumer Reports and the other is from a PC Magazine review.

Basically, you should choose the platform that has the music you want in a platform that is easy to navigate in the price range that your prefer.  There is a best fit for you out there. Enjoy!