Greetings everyone, seems like this awesome deal is back again :)
To redeem this offer: Go down to the bottom of the page under the "Get Your Music" section where it says "$11.99 per month - no commitments 90 days FREE" and click on Start Your 90 Day Trial.
Do Not Click Learn More at the top.
Easiest way to cancel is within your account, you can cancel straight away and you will retain Premium+ for 3 months Here. If you use PayPal, you can also cancel the payment here just in case.
Premium+ Includes:
Unlimited music on computer & tablet
Unlimited music on phone
No ads
Music accessible offline
As always, enjoy!
Thanks for this , been meaning to try Deezer for a while.
Currently have both apple music and spotify premium. Haven't tried google music yet.
Lengthy and rambling review below.
Layout-
Comparing it both Apple and Spotify,initial impressions are that the interface is really clean and simple, but almost feels a bit too sparse. I can understand its appeal though compared to the clutter of Spotify (especially) and Apple.
Music discovery -
Deezer - Too early to tell , similar artists are clearly show and seem to be pretty decent. Recommendations area seems pretty generic at the moment.
I clicked a curated "inspired by The National" playlist, and the first song was "Hilltop Hoods - nosedbleed section", some of the other tracks didn't seem much better. Either it's been put together by some musical genius and the song connections are way too next level for me to understand, or its a crappy automated playlist that's vaguely mashed together a bunch of JJJ hottest 100 songs. I'm hoping as I use it more the recommendations will get better.
Spotify big feature is its weekly recommendations, theres lots of misses with this, but when its a hit, it can be amazing and you wonder how you've never heard the particular track/artist before. User playlists are really great when it comes to specific genres and also soundtracks, but theres tons of crap due to the sheer number of playlists. I haven't found a way to cleanly search for playlists , its mostly trial and error for me.
Apple music has its curated playlists are they are excellent overall. Occasionally someone makes a mess of a playlist,(obvious songs missing or using bad re-recordings when the original is available) but the "inspired by" and "influences" playlists are a goldmine. Apple has user playlists now, but there's not a lot and the quality so far is average.
Catalogue size -
Technically Deezer has 40M+ tracks, making it one of the biggest, but it's available in nearly every country which might add a lot of obscure non English tracks, so its unknown how big Australias available catalogue actually is.
Ive done a few searches and it does seem good though. It even came up with a few extra EP's and singles for some (moderately obscure) artists.
All the services are good , and all occasionally will have missing albums.
Sound quality -
Im listening through a Denon Hi-Fi with Dali speakers. Its probably a step up from many peoples systems, but a long way down from what Audiophiles are using.
For what its worth I once did a really good online blind test of 320Kbs vs FLAC and I averaged near perfect …perfect random guessing :) Obviously some ears can spot the difference, but not mine. I also suspect that a decent number of people are doing poorly constructed self testing and are probably kidding themselves. Of course for some people , "lossless" truly makes a difference.
Deezer is 320kbps mp3 (make sure you turn on high quality). An extra fee adds lossless FLAC, but only via certain manufacturers equipment(sonos, b&0, Yamaha)
So far it sounds fine, but I haven't played around to see if there's any equalizer or loudness options etc.
Spotify (premium) is also 320 kbps mp3, I find the Spotify "normalize" option works really well with playlists.
Apple Music is 256kbps AAC. Theres lots of geek arguments about which is better but its (probably) safe to say its roughly the equivalent of 320 mp3. Audiophile tests on high end equipment generally give Apple Music a slight edge in clarity compared to Spotify, probably due to less loudness normalisation. However , the downside is Apple Music volume levels jump all over the place on mixed playlists, and the normalisation option in applemusic just seems to make things worse.
Organisation -
Albums in Deezer are thankfully listed via original release dates, a must if youre into older music or following an artists progression.
Spotify does this as well.
Apple music is a dogs breakfast when it comes to release dates.
Addons -
Deezer has app addons , not yet sure how many are useful though.
Spotify used to have this but seems to have killed it off.
Apple - none that I know of.
Adding own collection -
Deezer doesn't seem to have anyway to load or stream your own collection.
Spotify has local streaming. (ive read some users set up cloud streaming via dropbox, though im not sure if its still workable)
Apple has cloud streaming , probably its best feature, its gotten better but make sure you have a safe backup of your original collection.
All of these services are good , actually its amazing to realise they all offer you several lifetimes worth of music collection.
The "best" one really comes down what features you prioritize.
For me I tend to use Apple Music as my daily player and use Spotify mostly for music discovery.
So far Deezer seems decent, and the catalogue size is potentially its strong point.
Im not sure if its enough to convince anyone to jump ship from another service, but for 3 months free its definitely worth checking out.
Wow what an incredible review, thank you so much for this!
Whether or not I agree with it, I can't possibly not upvote such an in depth review!