I am married to an audiophile. Lock away all your plastic and your checkbook, too. 
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I appreciate the comparison work you’ve done on this!
I love the “convenience” of streaming, but I often need to make playlists with a combination of recorded demos, mp3’s AND published songs available on streaming media. Apple music seems to be my go to for most of these purposes, but iCloud syncing to another device isn’t always smooth…
I thought this YouTube commentary was sort of interesting as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG7kXW9sIGo
Cheers,
Tyler
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Let me fix that for you…
After reading about Plexamp here — I had no idea it was a thing — I threw my old CD rips at my (previously Movies & TV only) Plex library and gave it a spin.
It’s… interesting. I like that I just threw my files at it and it worked out everything else from there. It has a largely accurate set of album covers, too, where my earlier attempts at automatic art were very spotty. Though some are way off the mark.
But… when I look at the “clever” bits, it’s a little over the top in my view. It has apparently found 212 “Moods”, whatever they are, among 230 albums. And 115 “Styles”. I have no idea what these even mean. Still… if you think Michael Crawford, Supertramp, and Yello belong together as “Campy” then I guess it’s great?
It also found 7 “Soundtracks” of which 5 I completely agree. But Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense? Not really. It was a concert film. Same deal with U2, Rattle and Hum. Yet there is no “Live albums” category.
Overall, it is a decent player and organiser, but it suffers from a product design issue that can best be summarised as “Oooh, we could do this, and this, and this, and this…”
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Glad you found your solution @RunningBoris, having gone through the same pathway. I was lucky to have a recent Synology NAS (purchased because my Drobo was going to die unsupported one day) so I could put the Roon core on an SSD attached to it and point it at a folder with all my FLAC rips. What I didn’t realise was the folder had ‘snapshots’ enabled, and after a few months Roon had ground to a halt and was reporting that I had 265000 tracks! (I had 5000). All sorted now.
Like you I have enjoyed rediscovering my CDs, some of which are not on streaming services. I also bought an Eversolo streamer which has been a game changer. I went with Roon/Tidal rather than Roon Qobuz, and glad I did as they have just recently effectively halved their prices for the highest res tier.
Roon ARC is a bonus too. I still double take when I am playing one of my ripped CDs located on my NAS at home whilst driving in my car…
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I am not sure where they get them from but they classify every song with each of these. You can see what they are classified as if you drill down in your library. In the end it is just another way to make playlists, which is where PlexAmp shines. There are a bunch of options to quickly and easily make a playlist, and then once it is playing, iIf you hit the DJ button (it looks like a turntable) you can have it further alter the playlist, especially if you have Tidal.
I also have one regular album classified as a soundtrack, but I think that is tag problem. Your tracks need to be accurately tagged or it can cause issues. I don’t worry about it, because I can’t think of a case where it would matter if one CD is displayed as a soundtrack but isn’t. On the other hand, I have a double of a CD, and I have no idea why. From what little I have researched it, it’s a tag problem.
I disagree with this. First and foremost it is a way to manage and listen to your collection on your own network (and outside if you choose to). I think Roon is better here, but Plex does a good job. Second, they made a player that can be used just to play albums or to make on-the-fly playlists quickly and easily as well as using your own library to aid in music discovery. Basically they don’t have the curated playlists of the services, so they gave you way to do it yourself. If you want to make something like an “aggressive” playlist, the option is there, if not, it is easily skipped. Some of the Sonic components for finding matching songs is a little more questionable at times, but fun to play with.
Interesting, from what I read the problem with most Synology NAS is not just the SSD part, but the CPU/memory limitations (my Synology is a lower end one, a 423+). That’s why I didn’t try. It worked fine using the NAS for the music, and the Core on my Mac, until my Mac put itself to sleep at least.
Now that I “decided” on Plex, I keep going back to how I really like PlexAmp, but I wonder if the playlist thing will get old and then I will just want Roon?
I am jealous of the Eversolo, there is a bunch of cool streamers out there that I have been watching videos on. I just don’t need one because most of my condo is covered by Sonos systems. I did order some Kef wireless speakers (Amazon got me with a 20% off sale), but they are going to go to my Mac.
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Sorry for the late reply. The downsides of Qobuz for me are that the interface is clunky, songs often take several seconds to start, and the song radio and music discovery aren’t as rich as others.
In that role it does well, but when I click on the Library icon I am presented with a list of 12 different ways of categorising my music — it’s overwhelming me with its complexity here, and some of it is, in my view, pointless. Yet I don’t seem to be able to turn them off. All I need is Artists, Albums, Playlists, and Compilations.
Artist genres, album genres, styles, and moods are flights of fancy in my book. Someone has an idea, that probably doesn’t agree with me nor thousands of other people, and that’s how things get split up.
Go ahead and guess what Peter Gabriel, Enya, and Clannad have in common. Or what trait is shared by Vangelis and Bananarama. And most enigmatic of all, how on earth is it that I, teenager of the 80s, own only 2 albums that are classified as Pop!
And again… 212 “moods” is patently silly. I doubt anyone, certainly not me, cares to call Heartbeat City “crunchy”. It’s one of the smoother albums I own.
It’s trying too hard.
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I’ve been using PlexAmp (the app, not the Plex desktop or Web apps, which are horrible for music) for a long time and have literally never noticed Moods or Styles until it was brought up here. I agree they are next to useless looking at them now (and my library is very well tagged), but it’s a shame if they overshadowed what is a great platform and app.
We all have different needs and expectations, but for me, Plexamp is great. When I don’t want a specific album, I spend most of my time on the home screen of the App and use the ‘Deep Cuts’ & ‘Library’ radios mostly. With the sonic analysis complete, it does a great job of diving into my library and always feeling fresh. It will throw in Tidal tracks as well which is great.
Its ‘Sonic recommendations’ section has led me to some artists and albums on Tidal that I never knew about and ended up adding to my collection. So, it ticks the Music Discovery box for me better than Apple Music, but not quite as well as Roon.
The area where is really does ‘delight’ me is when I’m working out. I select my Gym playlist which has hundreds of tracks in it, shuffle it and then enable DJ Stretch which will use the sonic analysis to insert tracks to bridge from one track to another - so it adds in tracks not in my playlist from both my library and Tidal. It’s brilliant.
Now, I do think the Plex devs make some questionable choices … (e.g., the desktop ‘App’ UI, the 24-hour limit on playlist downloads, the half-baked AI playlist generator, etc.…), but I am not throwing the baby out with the proverbial.
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I have used the mood things a few time, mostly just playing around. There are too many selections, but it works. I was looking for something moody and dark and picked one that sounded like that and got a playlist with a bunch of The Cure. I liked it.
My biggest problem with Plex is the Mac app feels like the iOS app. Give me a full sized desktop app, like Roon.
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Re: AirPlay:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe AirPlay always plays from the device (so phone for instance), and if it also does multi-room, it’s always AirPlay 2. Homepods can also play music themselves (for instance through hand-off), and when I had Spotify, I could play music on my Sonos speakers three different ways:
- AirPlay 2 - from my phone for instance.
- Through Spotify Connect. This plays directly on the Sonos speakers, and can be controlled from any Spotify app, for instance on a PC even though I started it on my phone.
- Sonos. This also plays from the speakers - and my wife could go into the Sonos app on her phone and control the music as well.
Now I’ve switched to Tidal, and “Tidal Connect” doesn’t support Sonos speakers. 
So now I can only use Sonos or AirPlay (2).
Maybe I am misunderstanding, but you can use Tidal inside the Sonos app and get full Sonos functionality with Tidal. You can’t use the Tidal app to “Connect” to your Sonos system though. Which isn’t great because the Sonos app is not as easy to use, but it would let everyone in your house control it at least.
Tidal is interesting. I did a search on this and a Sonos rep said that Sonos would work with Tidal Connect, but it’s up to Tidal do it. And Tidal supports everything else, so why not Sonos? Maybe because they are going after the audiophile crowd, and as far as I can tell that crowd does not use Sonos?
I like my Sonos stuff, but I don’t think it is as amazing as I used to. Much like Apple’s stuff, it works better if you fully adopt it, but I am finding I can sync my non-Sonos devices as well, just how I do it is finicky. Airplay 2 seems to be the easiest, but Plex doesn’t like to work on that sometimes (and it’s even worse with Chromecast). I am pretty sure that is a Plex thing though, because Roon works with everything with little to no problems (but you can’t mix and match, Airplay and bluetooth won’t work for example).
Plex is really starting to annoy me at times. It “supports” Sonos, but I can’t get it to work (which seems to be very common). Airplay works most of the time. Chromecast, like everything Android, just doesn’t work as well as it could, but I am not sure if the problem is Plex or Android. It’s making me want to go with Roon, but I do love all the playlist options of Plex.
And now I want to replace my Sonos stuff. Everyone always says how expensive Sonos stuff is, including myself. I know better now. Sonos speakers are inexpensive compared to everything else, but they don’t sound as good either.
I was perhaps a bit unclear - but by this sentence I meant that I can “only” play music from Tidal to my speakers through Sonos or AirPlay.
The reasons I liked the options with Spotify better:
- The Sonos app is straight up dog water. The rumours point to a new one in the making - but it’s still sub-optimal to have to use one app to listen to music while not at home and another while at home. No matter how good the at-home one is.
- With Airplay, you also pipe through your notifications and whatnot.
- Also, Spotify has a neat feature (that Tidal doesn’t have - don’t know about Apple Music) where if started playing on my phone (even through Airplay) I could see live what I’m playing, and change it, on my Mac.
- But with Spotify Connect I got: The music plays from the speaker (so no notifications, YouTube sound, etc.), I could use the same app at home and away, and someone else (like my wife) could seamlessly join in on the session.
I guess I should email Tidal to put a bit of pressure on them to support Sonos, then! The only reason I switched, is artist compensation (I notice the sound quality difference on some of my gear, but it’s not essential) - but it’s rough to have to go to a significantly worse product otherwise. =/
(I try to avoid paying for services from the absolutely largest players, and Apple gets enough of my business, so Apple Music isn’t an option. Also, I assume the situation I’m describing would be just as mediocre with Apple Music as with Tidal, right?)
Regarding Sonos in general, I must say I’m very happy with it (especially when I used Spotify).
- While it can be a bit confusing, I like that I have several ways (3) to achieve getting sound across my house. It has also been rock-solid for me.
- I like that they have something at every price-point, and with lots of different features. I mostly have their cheaper stuff now (IKEA and Roam) - which I don’t think is overpriced at all. But I’m planning on buying more when I move house in a year, and these things might be a bit overpriced in terms of the sound quality, but I don’ think it’s too bad. No other system has
- Portable and non-portable speakers
- Small/cheap speakers and larger more expensive oves
- TV speakers, including sound bars and surround (and that the cheaper speakers can be used as rear speakers for instance, makes everything flexible)
- A terribly(!) overpriced amp to get other speakers on the same network. Plenty of their products also offer line-ins, so you can connect a record player for instance, and get its sound across the network.
And I guess they’re adding headphones into the mix. (I also like that they’re not Google/Apple/et al. as well. 
) This also makes it easy to start small and then grow the system over time.
However, where I don’t think they’re the best choice, is if you value getting amazing sound (for less) fewer places, more than the flexibility of Sonos.
I don’t know if it’s a setting or how you are Airplaying, but mine does not send notifications, or anything else. If I Airplay from my phone to some speakers, I get only the music.
Apple Music has that but in my uses it was spotty. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn’t. Sonos does that reliably, so I usually use that. PlexAmp does not do this ever, and it sometimes will lose what it is playing now, meaning the music is still playing by Airplay, but the Plexamp app I started it from says nothing is playing. (I really hope Plex fixes its streaming issues, but it sounds like this has been a problem for a long time.)
Concerning Artist compensation: after watching some Benn Jordan videos (musician who does YouTube videos about the industry), none of them are great on this, and they have all been reducing how much they pay artists from what they originally said they were, including Apple. Spotify is still the worst I believe he said, but he generally seems to hate Spotify.
He says the best way to support artists is to buy music from musicians directly, or through something like Bandcamp. They do not make it easy though. I have been trying to add some FLACs to my collection, but a lot of the big labels/bands either don’t sell anything higher than MP3 quality, or they charge double the price for it. I figured in this day and age, bigger bands would sell digital music directly, but nope. Everyone does seem to sell LPs directly, but that is a route I am not going down.
Don’t get me wrong on Sonos, I like it quite a bit. I like the system and how it just works. But, I have found everything else that does the same thing just works as well (except HomePods). If you have some old speakers you like, it’s really easy and not too expensive to get them hooked up for streaming.
I have some AudioEngine 5+ speakers that I have always liked. I bought a Wiim Pro Plus (streamer/DAC) to use with them I think they sound better than the Sonos Era 100s I have. And they all go in standby mode and have an off button unlike Sonos.
I’m pretty sure you can, actually. Looking at this screenshot from my phone right now, all the devices listed are Sonos-devices. Some of them also support AirPlay2, but that option would be showing under the “Airplay and Bluetooth” menu.
The absolute best feature of this is that we can control playback from the lock-screen. It is unbelievable that Sonos STILL don’t support this on iOS devices.
I don’t know how it works but here is the link to Tidal Connect’s supported devices: Supported Devices | TIDAL
Maybe it has some other tie in with Sonos, so it doesn’t need Tidal Connect? I don’t ever use the Tidal app, so I haven’t messed with it myself.
Here is someone asking the question to Sonos, and showing what the difference are:
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Aha - got it!
I missed the distinction between “Sonos Connect” and “Tidal Connect” there, thinking you only wanted to cast from the Tidal app to a Sonos system. My bad, thanks for the clarification.
My Sonos gear isn’t that high-end, except for the Sonos Amp with wired speakers, and there I usually use the Sonos app for any critical listening. Multi-room audio is mostly for ambient music and the quality is way good enough for that purpose. The Sonos app needs a LOT of work though…
99% of my critical listening is on my Mac with Tidal as a source, streaming through a nice desktop dac/amp and good wired cans. I do understand how Tidal Connect would be preferable for other setups.
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To beat a dead horse:
As I go further down the path of painstakingly curating my music, I found this is simply a tag that in the metadata. All they did is include it as a way to make playlists using this tag (I actually use it quite a bit, its a good way of getting a certain kind of music). So it’s not really a case of trying too hard, they just included something that already existed (but most players don’t use). If you wanted to, you can go crazy on metadata, and from reading various audiophile forums, people do.
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The music market is very odd in 2024. Consumers are mostly forced into streaming services unless they have a lot of money to invest in buying music. My original idea was to find CDs for all that music I don’t have a copy of, but that is proving to be cost prohibitive. (I need to find a local used CD shop if they still exist.)
From what I understand is that all the streaming services, even the ones who pay the artist a bit more, are all horrible for the artists. Not only do they not pay them much, but it is slowly getting worse. This isn’t a big deal for the big name artists, but it is a huge problem for the lesser know artists. There are a bunch of services to help those smaller artists get their music on the streaming platforms, for a price, but they are also not great and most are looking to rip them off the artist at every chance. (Benn Jordan on YouTube has a lot of info about this.)
The thing is, if someone wants to listen to new music without a service, they have to pay more for the privilege. More than it used to cost before these services were the norm, and a lot more than what a streaming services costs.
CDs are getting harder to find, although Amazon does have most of them. They have not come down in price over the years as I would have thought. I can find deals for $8 US, but often then are closer to to $15. I can get MP3s for around $10 an album, but those are mostly very lower quality. I bought a few CDs from Amazon that I could find on sale this month, which worked out well enough. Except now Amazon doesn’t see the need to use boxes or padding with CDs, so the cases didn’t all survive.
Finding higher quality digital music to buy is hit and miss. Bandcamp and Qobuz seem to be the main sources, but most albums are $15 if not more. Sometimes I find something for $10, but other times it’s $20 or more. Steely Dan for instance released their albums a couple of years ago in hi-res audio, but they want $30 an album for it! Radiohead used to be great about making their music available in hi-res, but not anymore. MP3s if you are lucky.
On the other hand, I can find an LP for almost anything. And LPs are often $20+. Every band who has a website seems to sell LPs. As someone who grew up in the 70s, this will never not seem strange to me. Besides nostalgia, I don’t get it.
So all that said, I am very happy with Tidal, but I don’t feel like I have a choice. I have to have a streaming service. I do not miss Apple Music at all, but that is more because I am using Plex to host my music collection and use Tidal to fill in the gaps of my collection. This setup feels a lot more like how I used to do things in iTunes with managing my own collection and using smart playlists. With the added benefit of I can use Tidal to insert things not in my collection into playlists.
Another thing I learned since I made the switch: paying more for speakers makes a very large difference. Oh, and that Sonos are not unique in what they do.
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I have an early Spotify subscription that is bundled with Hulu for the single $10.99 monthly price (no separate Hulu $$) that I’ve had for years. There is no way I could replace that with Apple Music. Also, I use Sonos speakers—no Home pods. The interface with Spotify is easier to figure out and discover new music, although there are some features of Apple Music I like better. I just wish Apple Music had a free version like it did in the beginning.
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Does it? My hazy memory says I used to pay a princely sum for a new release CD when I started buying them in 1987. I want to say they were around the NZD$25-30 mark.
But here’s an actual example I can prove, because I recently photographed my CD collection. Enya’s album Amarantine was released in November 2005 and I would have bought it when it was pretty new. I bought it in a shop known for having low prices, and that price was NZD$22.99.
A local inflation calculator says that equates to NZD$36.49 today. Right now, in a similarly ‘sharply priced’ shop, I can purchase Taylor Swift’s new album for… NZD$32.99. Go back to Taylor’s older albums and they just get cheaper, with Lover coming in at NZD$21.99.
For comparison, Apple Music is NZD$16.99 per month. So yes… a single CD is still more than a month of streaming, but they’re different beasts.
Another data point. Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell II, bought long after it came out, though I do not know when. From a Tower Music shop, NZD$34.95. Plenty of other price stickers from NZD$10-35 in general, but most I could not say when I bought them.
I found another that I specifically remember buying new, Delta Goodrem’s Mistaken Identity — definitely bought in 2004 when freshly released — “only” NZD$29.95. That’s NZD$49.01 in today’s money.
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