Checkout the new MRz music streaming box.  Its on Kickstarter, and its amazing!
 
Put all your music on the cloud and have total control.    You can source any music including vinyl, tape, and your CDs.  All of your downloads.  Recordings you have made at concerts.  And it supports traditional music streaming like Spotify and Apple Music.
 
All of your music, on one service.  And the top of the device supports wireless charging, for your smartphone!  This streaming box is amazing - and its on Kickstarter:

The device supports all audio formats, and my method of ripping or playing.  It is a very flexible design, so future audio formats can be integrated into the device.  It currently supports MP#, WMA,OGG, DSF, DFF, ISO SACD (DSD), Wave, AIFF, ALAC, APE, FAC, and more.  By supporting multiple high-resolution formats, the device will last for many years!
The most common connection method will probably be WIFI; which means multiple people can use the streaming box, at the same time.  It supports the new WIFI/Streaming speakers that are on the market, supports multi-room playback, and gives you more control over playlists.

Learn more on their Kickstarter page.  





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There are hundreds of music services now.   The streaming services are very similar, in most cases.  It takes courage to go beyond the average, but it is so easy now to start a music streaming service, that most companies are satisfied to try and grow via marketing and advertising, instead by real innovation.

Spotify is the leader, and deservedly so.  They have a big selection, and the best user interface.  Their pricing is not bad, and their family plan does help families a lot.   Spotify is our favorite.

Deezer is active in higher definition music, as is Pono and Tidal; we think high definition music is important, and should be supported.

Apple Music is not as good as Spotify, and when it launched they chose to have a smaller sampling rate - which can lead to lower quality.  While that is a concern, we feel it is still possibly an interesting choice for iOS users, since it integrates so nicely on Apple devices.
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There are Two music services we are not currently recomending:
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1. Amazon Music - This is part of Amazon Prime, and has a smaller catalog than all of the services mentioned on this page; which is disappointing.  There is nothing very innovative with this service, and you just have to wonder: why settle for less?  To our thinking, if someone can afford Amazon Prime, they could probably afford Spotify; or put it this way, if Amazon is going to charge over $100 for Amazon Prime, why can't they have even an average-sized catalog?   Their dream is that you use Alexa, via your voice, to play music; so what a shame their catalog and their service is not as good as Spotify.

2. Google Music - Google has always been confusing, with more than one music service, and it just never feels like Youtube music is used an in effective way, in their paid offerings.  We do not think most young people will want to pay Google for music streaming.  We also have concerns about privacy issues with Google; for example,  managing your privacy on Google products is overly complicated and thus is hard for some users.  

Pandora - while Pandora has had a large following, many are on the free tier and we believe that man will, over time, switch to other services; it is hard to see what is innovative here.  The user interface is not as good as Spotify, either.  We would much rather pay Spotify than Pandora, in order to have the best experience possible.  We feel disappointed in Pandora, and are not recommending it at this time.  Pandora moved to the Undecided Section (9-24-18)

BREAKING NEWS: SiriusXM announced they are buying Pandora; for $3.5B, and will maintain the same brand.  It will be very interesting, over time, if SiriusXM can make Pandora more interesting and more competitive.  We previously felt Pandora was not-recommended but lets hope it improves.

Many music services are evolving, and new ones are still starting.  We will evaluate the industry from time-to-time, to see what is worth recommending, and what not.  Spotify is so good, that anyone whow wants to take market share from Spotify has to be significaly better; and that takes more courage (and investment) than most companies are willing to bear.  We believe that the most interesting areas right now are in connected devices offering music, and in high definition music; there needs to be more development and focus on higher-quality music reproduction.
 
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