Which music platform is better?

Streaming services are more abundant than ever, making it difficult to decide which platform is best for you.

We are living in a golden age of music thanks to all the streaming services on the web today. But with so many options on the market, from Spotify to Amazon Music Unlimited to Apple Music, it can be difficult to decide which streaming platform is best for you.

So let’s break down both Spotify and Amazon Music Unlimited to see how they differ in terms of pricing, features, and audio quality.

price

Both Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify offer several plans for their users. A free plan is also available, but it’s ad-supported and comes from top playlists, but doesn’t give you the option to choose your own music or skip tracks.

Prime members can subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited for £8.99/$8.99 per month or pay an annual subscription fee of £89/$89. Non-Prime members can also join Music Unlimited for £9.99/$9.99 per month. There is no annual membership option. There’s also a family plan, which costs £14.99/$15.99 per month or £149/$159 per year, with non-Prime members paying the same.

Finally, Music Unlimited also offers student memberships, which, like Spotify, must be university-accredited to qualify. Its membership is £5.99 / $5.99 per month.

Spotify offers a few more plans in comparison.There are individual, duo, family and student memberships, with prices listed below.

• Individual: £9.99/$9.99 per month
• Duo (2 accounts): £13.99/$12.99 per month
• Family (up to 6 accounts): £16.99/$15.99/month
• Student: £5.99/month $4.99

Spotify offers one more plan than Music Unlimited with Duo memberships that you can pair with friends and family.

Overall, both services offer similar prices, but Music Unlimited wins thanks to annual membership discounts and slightly lower fees.

feature

Both Spotify and Music Unlimited offer very similar features. Both boast massive music libraries with vast collections of contemporary artists and old music. It claims to offer

Amazon Music Unlimited claims to have over 100 million songs on its platform, but is a little more tight-lipped about how many podcasts and audiobooks it supports. In our experience, Music Unlimited comes with a large number of podcasts and audiobooks, but it’s not clear if it can directly compete with Spotify in terms of numbers.

Looking at compatibility, both services are available on most platforms including iOS, Android, macOS, Chrome OS and Windows. Devices running FireOS are more compatible with Music Unlimited than Spotify, but Spotify is supported on the Amazon Fire TV Stick.

audio quality

Amazon seems to have the edge when it comes to streaming quality. Provides lossless audio streaming for many tracks, albums and content. This is fueled by the fact that Amazon Music HD (previously a separate, more expensive tier) is included in Music Unlimited at no extra charge.

Amazon Music Unlimited has two quality ranges, HD and Ultra HD, with sampling rates from 44.1kHz to 129kHz. This is a better option than CD and preserves the original recording without loss of quality, making it a good option if you want the best sounding music. Spotify, on the other hand, uses AAC or Ogg/Vorbis format, which ranges from 96kbps to 256kbps.

Overall, Music Unlimited offers better quality audio than Spotify, but you need to make sure you’re using a device compatible with these formats.

verdict

Overall, both Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify have their pros and cons. When it comes to pure audio quality, Music Unlimited is your best option as it supports HD and Ultra HD formats with the best sound. Both services are similarly priced and supported by similar platforms.

With little distinction between the two services, it may come down to which user interface you prefer. From our experience, we think Spotify is more streamlined and user-friendly, but it’s worth checking out both to see which you prefer.