Choosing the Gear
CHOOSING THE SERVICE
Standard pricing for these streaming services is $9.99/month unless otherwise noted, with student, family (up to six people), and annual discounts usually available. Services work across most devices, including Apple and Android, for listening at home, in the car, or on the go with your smartphone.
Apple Music First-rate library, including exclusive content. No free tier, but Apple offers three-month free trials. Works especially well with Siri voice control and Apple CarPlay.
Spotify Premium First-rate library, including exclusive content and great curated playlists. Upgrade from Spotify Free for unlimited song skipping, no ads, and offline listening.
YouTube Music Premium Google’s music-streaming service is the previously announced successor to Google Play Music. Works especially well with “Ok, Google” voice control.
Pandora Premium Upgrade from free Pandora for unlimited song skipping, no ads, and offline listening. Recently acquired by Sirius XM.
IDAGIO Based in Berlin, this streaming service dedicated to classical music arrived in the U.S. in late 2018, and boasts specialized searches for classical performances by orchestra, soloist, conductor, and more.
Tidal HiFi Tidal differentiates itself with higher-quality streaming at $19.99/month. There is a 30-day free trial to let you see if you can tell the difference. No free tier.
Sonos can teach your stereo even more digital-music tricks. The Santa Barbara–based trendsetter upended the home speaker industry over the last decade not with better sound in the den, though the company’s $199 Sonos One and $499 Play:5 speakers are a good value. The real innovation was cleverly networked multiroom systems that play any song anywhere in the home. In recent years, Sonos has positioned itself as a kind of Switzerland of smart speakers that work well with the gamut of smartphones and streaming services. Add a $349 Sonos Connect to your stereo, and it will be able to stream not only from the Internet but also wirelessly to Sonos speakers around the house.
If you’re starting fresh and forgoing the receiver and amplifier of a traditional setup, we still recommend Sonos speakers as the benchmark for price, features, and sound quality, starting with the Sonos One smart speaker, which includes Alexa voice controls. The Sonos One is plenty strong for background music (if not a dance party) and can be paired more powerfully as stereo speakers if you are willing to devote two units to a single room.
If you’re an Apple fan and already at least a little accustomed to Siri, we think a stand-alone HomePod is the best treble and bass for the buck, especially when paired with an Apple Music monthly subscription. A single HomePod is the size of a small bookshelf speaker but contains a circular array of powerful, software-controlled mini speakers and microphones; these read surroundings to create a “soundstage” that ricochets music off walls to fill a good-size room with surprisingly rich sound.
