nxr Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 I asked this on different topic but moving to separate topic not to hijack that one. I currently have Apple Music and SXM through Sonos with C4 and, although it works reliably, I hate the jumping around between apps. I am moving and debating dumping Apple Music and going with Amazon Music (I can transfer playlists with Soundiz) and SXM directly through C4. This is just for whole house music as have sep listening room so less focused on absolute best quality. I am trying to gauge whether folks feel the user experience of navigating music directly from the C4 app is attractive / intuitive / polished vs defaulting to the native app, whether that is Amazon, Tidal or something else, or an intermediary like Sonos. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 I always prefer to use services within the Control4 app, it works well and eliminates jumping around like you said. Personally I use Pandora Premium and SiriusXM...used to use Spotify but didn't like having to use the Spotify app and Spotify Connect. Not an Apple guy so don't use Apple Music or Airplay...but would sure be nice if Control4 could get that as a native service...but hey even Savant doesn't have it and their Pro hosts run on Macs! SpencerT, tmj4, ekohn00 and 1 other 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BY96 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 Having now used the integrated Tidal for about a week, I regret not moving over from Apple Music a lot earlier. Even my wife has commented of the easiness of the integrated music service and how she prefers it over the old way. All the time spent moving playlists was totally worth it. Even though I get Apple Music for free through Verizon, I have no regrets about paying for Tidal. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Dueport and SpencerT 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew luecke Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 2 hours ago, BY96 said: Having now used the integrated Tidal for about a week, I regret not moving over from Apple Music a lot earlier. Even my wife has commented of the easiness of the integrated music service and how she prefers it over the old way. All the time spent moving playlists was totally worth it. Even though I get Apple Music for free through Verizon, I have no regrets about paying for Tidal. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Just one big thing with Tidal.. If you're using Android Auto, I found some of those services don't work properly (even after downloading the media) with no internet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ekohn00 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 8 hours ago, chopedogg88 said: I always prefer to use services within the Control4 app, it works well and eliminates jumping around like you said. Personally I use Pandora Premium and SiriusXM...used to use Spotify but didn't like having to use the Spotify app and Spotify Connect. Not an Apple guy so don't use Apple Music or Airplay...but would sure be nice if Control4 could get that as a native service...but hey even Savant doesn't have it and their Pro hosts run on Macs! Spot on. We're a big Apple household, especially since everyone can share my apple plan which gives everyone in the house apple music on their phones. (except the one remaining college kid who wants to be a Spotify rebel). I just wish Apple would give us an easy way to work off of C4 natively instead of the airplay option. Having moved to bluenode, it's become a bit more confusing to do airplay since you need to start a bluenode stream (ie select sirius) and then do airplay to the bluenode. I should mention, i moved from shaarebridge since the bluenode sounds better with airplay vs my EA w/sharebirdge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 Spotify is great. Good apps for both android and ios Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 I am 95% pandora premium and then 5% SXM. Both work fine in the native c4 app, both work fine on an iOS device and with very limited use (rental car on vacation) both work fine with CarPlay which wasn’t mentioned, but if you are an iOS house, you may have (or may get) a car with CarPlay features. As a side note, if you have an AMEX Platinum you can get a $20/month streaming credit that only applies to a few services, SXM being one of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BY96 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 Just one big thing with Tidal.. If you're using Android Auto, I found some of those services don't work properly (even after downloading the media) with no internet I am using Apple CarPlay, but thanks for the heads up. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnicholson Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 I think Tidal has the best integrated experience, especially if you want to provide intuitive single-interface access for guests using T3/T4 or C4 app. I think I will always keep that as an option. I you don't mind "non-native" / multiple-interface, I find the best experience overall to be Apple Music via AppleTV. Once you start a session, you get full control via Apple TV controls or any iPhone (using built-in ability to search / manage queues)-- so you don't need to sit in front of "source" TV to manage things. All my TVs have an Apple TV behind them and digital audio is backhauled to matrix, so easy to add other zones (and, if you have multiple AVR zones and a digital matrix, it passes through multi-channel high res digital signal, so that's a bonus in terms of quality-- although you'll need to adjust delays to keep whole house zones synced with AVRs). Of course, you could also use sources other than Apple Music via their Apple TV apps-- it seems that a lot of younger people want to use YouTube a music source, believe it or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon2828 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 Wasn't Control4 and Apple forging deeper integrations (in some announcement that I think was pre-Covid). Is there any word on whether or not Apple Music will ever come to Control4? I am in the same boat and using Amazon Music - the integration is pretty good, but we are otherwise all Apple and it would be great to be on a single service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnicholson Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 36 minutes ago, anon2828 said: Wasn't Control4 and Apple forging deeper integrations Anything is possible, but I think the safe bet is to assume this isn't happening anytime soon. Other than Sonos (which is probably "grandfathered" via an early contract), I'm not aware of other "streamer aggregator" type services that include deep Apple Music integration. I assume that C4 and Apple must have cooperated extensively on the Halo Voice integration, so maybe that's a good sign. But, again, I wouldn't hold my breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob21 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 I was under the impression that Savant recently announced native Apple Music integration. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 2 minutes ago, Rob21 said: I was under the impression that Savant recently announced native Apple Music integration. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I believe they announced it but it's not out - or even listed on savant.com/music Rob21 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ekohn00 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 1 hour ago, cnicholson said: Other than Sonos (which is probably "grandfathered" via an early contract), I'm not aware of other "streamer aggregator" type services that include deep Apple Music integration. so if you get a sonus streamer, and use the Sonus C4 driver, can i then select Apple Music and search dn play music using the C4 touch panel? No ariplay from my. apple device needed.? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chopedogg88 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 with Sonos and Control4, you can only select from stations or playlists that you've favorited to "My Sonos" in the Sonos app, you can't browse and search unfortunately. You'd have to use the Sonos app to browse and search, which you can still do in conjunction with Control4, but its not all in C4 or on the touchscreen obviously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ekohn00 Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 10 minutes ago, chopedogg88 said: with Sonos and Control4, you can only select from stations or playlists that you've favorited to "My Sonos" in the Sonos app, you can't browse and search unfortunately. You'd have to use the Sonos app to browse and search, which you can still do in conjunction with Control4, but its not all in C4 or on the touchscreen obviously. thanks.... close but not close enough. Dueport 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nxr Posted July 13, 2023 Author Share Posted July 13, 2023 While using Airplay with Apple Music works fine you then also have to use the native app for any other service you are using (like SXM). You can aggregate the streams in the Sonos app but it is an inferior interface to all the native apps so you find yourself going back to those from time to time anyway. And agree that relying on favoriting items to My Sonos to find them in C4 is only satisfactory if you are only going to listen to the same things all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnicholson Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 Agreed. I added a Sonos Port thinking I would use that as a "bridge" to Apple Music. I basically never use it. As I mentioned above, instead I mostly use Apple TV. With Halo Remote (especially when voice is working), using Halo to browse Apple Music on Apple TV "feels" more integrated (single remote) to me (even though, of course, it's not) versus switching to Sonos app. Even though I don't use Shairbridge much, I've found that guests find that pretty easy intuitive to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevKev Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 Savant has Apple Music in beta but their music servers are a mess. For C4 you can use an Autonomic MMS1E with AMB hardware to enable Apple Music natively on C4 with full browsing. It's $1500 in hardware for one stream. cnicholson and WhyPhy 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnicholson Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 54 minutes ago, KevKev said: enable Apple Music natively on C4 with full browsing Cool (but pricey). Looks like AMB box supports two Apple Music streams, so I assume the three-stream MMS3E (which appears to get feed digitally from AMS and then would connect to matrix via digital inputs?) would allow you two Apple Music streams and one Spotify (or whatever) stream? Is that right? Do you have experience with this? Is the C4 interface like Tidal? Full text searching, etc. Short video promo makes it seem pretty close to Sonos in terms of cross-service searching, etc. Is that right? It touts room grouping. How does that work vis-a-vis C4? This makes me think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevKev Posted July 13, 2023 Share Posted July 13, 2023 1 hour ago, cnicholson said: would allow you two Apple Music streams and one Spotify (or whatever) stream? Is that right? Yes that's right. I use it. Works like any other native music service, normal grouping etc. Autonomic is good about firmware updates, it's new for them and they're consistently improving it. CalmRadio is great for background music too. Dueport and WhyPhy 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nxr Posted July 14, 2023 Author Share Posted July 14, 2023 This seems like it would solve a lot of the issues? Curious as to why it’s not more widely implemented Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted July 15, 2023 Share Posted July 15, 2023 7 hours ago, nxr said: This seems like it would solve a lot of the issues? Curious as to why it’s not more widely implemented Because 1500 per stream tends to make one consider alternative streaming providers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted July 15, 2023 Share Posted July 15, 2023 9 hours ago, Cyknight said: Because 1500 per stream tends to make one consider alternative streaming providers I must say that is rich! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevKev Posted July 15, 2023 Share Posted July 15, 2023 Yeah it's all a matter of perspective. As part of a $100k+ proposal it's acceptable if someone is hardcore on Apple Music or Spotify without switching apps or having full control via a touchscreen where you can't. Cost per stream goes down also as the AMB supports two streams. It's not for everyone but it's an option for those that really want that functionality. Dueport 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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