Apple Music alternatives for my music library?

Software
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I have a deep and eclectic library of songs that I would like to enjoy on the desktop as well as stream to my mobile devices.

I gave Apple Music a 3-month trial earlier this year there were too many gaps in the catalog for me to feel like it was worth the cost. I have been using Doppler for desktop listening and it’s fine. I don’t want to have to transfer songs to my mobile devices, though. I’d prefer to stream them.

Has the Plex offering been good? The music arm was still half-baked when I was first looking at it.

Is there another application that I should check out?

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For the most part, I’m happy with Plex. I don’t think it’s 100% there, but it gets the job done. You can try it for free, just to see if it’ll work for you. Plexamp (with paid sub) is great.

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if you have you own music collection but want to stream to your devices, you can try YouTube Music, you can upload your own

I may be biased as I am a fan of YouTube Music due to its huge collection of music video and it seems to me to quality of streaming is better than Applic Music ( just my perception)

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Thank you, I’ve been sporadically looking for a replacement to iTunes/ Music for a while now, but hadn’t come across Doppler. Looks like it’s worth evaluating. One other question: can anyone recommend a good site that sells - not streams - music? I don’t listen to so much that paying a streaming subscription is worth it. Mostly I just buy CDs and rip them, with an occasional top up of an album purchased from the iTunes Store.

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You can buy music off Bandcamp if you are looking for flexibility in audio quality but they only have artist that sell their own music. Some indie labels do sell digital music on their own site. iTunes is still the most complete store to buy digital music.

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I think you are clearly in iTunes Match territory. Don’t know if you can still suscribe to Match these days but the service still works. For me.

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I second youtube music plus it comes free with youtube premium.

I’ve tried apple music and amazon music, but much prefer the UI and experience with YT music.

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It’s still available. Works well for me.

If you’re a Synology user, you’ve obviously got DS Audio as well. It’s functional and works, but has to store the music within the DS Audio app, not the music library.

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Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex, Plex,

Plexamp and Prism are both good listening clients. I think Plexamp is better for streaming, but Prism is better for offline (which you don’t want)

The beauty of Plex is that people can make their own clients.

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Plex is a good choice. I used it for several years after fleeing iTunes Match because it was constantly scrambling my albums and changing my cover art.

But eventually I checked out YouTube Music (I already had a Premium YT sub) and found it has most of the music I listen to these days. So I uploaded what was missing and so far, so good.

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I’ve been thinking about this same thing. I’m leaning towards Itunes Match because it’s $25 a year vs much more for youtube premium. Since you already have the music that you want, then it will upload the songs that aren’t matched up.

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And will mismatch plenty, messing with the integrity of your files.

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I highly suggest you make a full backup, or two, of all your music before turning on music match

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If you are really are eclectic music listener. I would recommend to try Roon. They have just released a new app to also stream and have your music with your phone, Arc before it was just centered around your home. Though, it is expensive. If you use it together with Tidal, it is worth the money.

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+1 for Roon with the new Arc app.

I run a Roon server on an Intel Nuc (they offer a linux based Roon OS that basically turns the NUC into a music appliance) I have all my FLAC files on that and with the Arc app I can now stream from that to my iPhone anywhere, basically your own private streaming service. Adding Qobuz or Tidal onto that integrates really well and is great for music discovery.

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just wondering how Roon Arc compares to PlexAmp. I have not used both extensively. However, PlexAmp use the same music source I store on my Synology NAS

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I’ve not used Plex Amp, although I was a heavy plex user for years. They will both basically do the same thing when it comes to streaming your files to your mobile, I think the only differences would be bit-perfect playback with Arc if that matters and the extra enriched metadata and content you get with Roon (e.g curated playlists and playlists based on your library) It also scrobbled pretty nicely to Last.fm.

The value add for Roon (for me anyway) is in its other applications such as the way it surfaces links between your music that can branch off into discovery (I’ve found a lot of albums this way which makes it worth the price of admission for me) Also the Roon Radio implementation is excellent, pairing it with Qobuz or Tidal is fantastic for discovery as well.

Arc is very new so there are bugs, but the interface is great and the way it merges local files and streaming content is awesome.