Over the past year, I’ve spent a good amount of time switching between Spotify, YouTube Music, and Apple Music, trying to figure out which one suits my needs best. All three have their strengths, but after countless hours of listening across different devices headphones, home audio, and now car audio I can confidently say that Apple Music is the best fit for me.

My New (Old) Audi S8

Recently, I picked up a 2007 Audi S8, and what really tipped the scales for me was its 14-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system. It's an incredible setup, especially for a car of that age, and it made me start paying even more attention to audio quality.

When playing tracks through Apple Music in that car, the sound is simply phenomenal:

• Deep bass that doesn't shake the car.

• Clear highs with no harshness

• Mids that feel warm and natural

• Overall soundstage and clarity that just feels right

I don’t know if it’s a mix of the codec Apple uses (ALAC for lossless) or how well their audio is mastered and optimized, but there’s something about Apple Music’s output that just feels more musical in that car. It honestly feels like the tracks are tuned for high-end systems.

Spotify - The Old Reliable (But Not Perfect)

For the longest time, Spotify was my go-to. It's just hard to beat the ease of use, the UI design, and especially the ecosystem flexibility:

• Seamless switching between devices car, phone, PC, headphones

• Excellent music discovery via playlists and radio

• Social features like collaborative playlists, Spotify Wrapped, etc.

However, the audio quality never blew me away. Even on “Very High” settings, it feels a bit compressed compared to Apple Music. On a casual pair of earbuds, it’s fine. But on a proper system like the B&O setup in my S8 it becomes noticeable. Spotify's current max bitrate is 320kbps, and while they’ve been teasing Spotify HiFi for years, it’s still nowhere to be found.

YouTube Music - A Hidden Gem, But Not Quite There

YouTube Music surprised me in a few ways:

• It has a massive library, including remixes, covers, and unreleased tracks you won’t find elsewhere.

• It’s great for discovering underground and lesser-known artists.

• Audio is noticeably louder which some people might like but that doesn’t mean it sounds better.

My issue? It lacks polish. The UI feels a bit clunky, and integration between devices is inconsistent. Also, despite the library size, 99% of the artists I care about are still available on Apple Music or Spotify so the exclusives didn’t justify the trade-offs for me.

Final Thoughts

If I had to summarize:

• Apple Music wins for audio quality and overall listening experience, especially on higher-end systems.

• Spotify is still the king of usability and music discovery.

• YouTube Music is good if you want everything in one place, especially YouTube content and niche music.

The turning point for me was experiencing what Apple Music sounds like on a serious audio setup. I never expected a streaming service to make such a difference, but here we are. It reminded me that at the end of the day, music is meant to be felt not just heard.

Would love to know what others think.
Have you noticed similar differences with your car/home systems?
Anyone still holding out for Spotify HiFi?

I’ve been using YT music since 2018 and for the past few months I’ve been messing around with different streaming apps and now im using Apple Music up until a few months ago. I don’t know if I made the right choice but I’m enjoying Apple Music as of right now. The biggest factor thats going to keep me from switching permanently is that with YT Music you can do more than just download music, you can download videos as well and old tracks you can’t find on Apple Music or Spotify. There’s about 300 songs I have on My YT Music library i can’t find on Apple Music or even Spotify. YT Music is slightly louder and you can tell the difference but Apples Lossless takes the cake, Spotify has HiFi and YT Music doesn’t have anything special just the regular high medium and low audio quality. The main problem that made me switch to Apple Music was with YTM Shuffling. Regardless if i was playing my downloaded songs or a regular playlist, it would be under “queue” and after about 20 songs I would have to restart my playlist, every single time which got really annoying, a really horrible update. Spotify I just never got into, I didn’t feel like I should waste my time building a library on there. Spotify is the type that if you don’t have some type of library built, it ain’t worth it and should build with Apple Music or YTM instead. On YTM I have 4,000+ songs and on Apple Music I have about around 1,500.

I’ve been bouncing between Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music for a while now, and honestly, each platform has its own strengths that make it really hard to choose just one. Here’s my take on what makes each of these apps great—and what each one desperately needs to fix in order to dominate the music streaming space.

Apple Music: Hands down, Apple Music has some of the best sound quality out there with its Lossless and Spatial Audio features. The curated playlists and exclusive releases are also major perks. However, Apple Music is severely lacking in connectivity options. We desperately need a “Spotify Connect” type feature that allows seamless playback control across devices, including Chromecast. This would give Apple Music a massive edge in terms of usability for people with mixed ecosystems (Android/Chromecast users, I’m looking at you).

Spotify: I love Spotify for its user interface, algorithm-driven playlists, and, of course, the unmatched social features like collaborative playlists and sharing. However, the glaring issue? No lossless audio. With other platforms offering higher quality sound, it feels like Spotify is lagging behind on this front. If Spotify released a lossless audio option, it would retain its user-friendly vibe while offering audiophiles the sound quality they crave—making it the perfect all-rounder.

YouTube Music: YouTube Music shines with its massive library that goes beyond just songs—you get live performances, remixes, and those obscure tracks that are hard to find elsewhere. The one thing holding it back? Limited device compatibility. There’s no stand-alone desktop app for PC or Mac, and it’s just not as integrated into other devices as Spotify or Apple Music. Expanding to more platforms would make it a serious contender, especially for those who like a diverse library that goes beyond traditional music tracks.

In the end, each platform has its unique advantages, but if they tackled these specific issues, they’d gain a massive competitive edge. What do you guys think? Which app would you commit to if they fixed one key problem?

I've been a long-term user of both Apple Music and Spotify, and find YouTube Music Premium to be a great service. The main weakness compared to the big two is, the design of the app looks the worst, Apple Music looks miles better, I miss the animated album covers, and Spotify is better for the algorithm of the suggested playlists. I would love a native Mac App, and I've grown used to crossfade. I find it's lacking majorly in artist best of playlists. And it would be great to have better sound quality.

For the positives, it's suggested playlists are far better than Apple Music. I can trust it to play a playlist for hours with only a few skips. The community playlists are also great. Playing music from YouTube through YouTube music is great and adds loads more music unavailable on Spotify or Apple. Also, the perk of it only costing a few extra £’s to have Youtube Premium included is worth its weight in gold. All the family is happy as our viewing habits are probably 90% YouTube compared to other streaming apps.

Samples are pretty pointless and I've only spent minutes browsing it.

Overall I think it's a great service, and I regret it's taken me so long to try it.