Your method for discovering great music.

I do not have Spotify.

I used to rely on radio too. But it is pretty stagnant in this radio market. Have not explored internet radio much.

@danager What got me thinking about this is my wife and I just watched a movie called High Fidelity with John Cusack and Jack Black. It was about a guy who owned a vinyl store and there was a lot of dialogue about obscure music. The music credits were helpful.

As I type this I'm listening to St. Paul and the Broken Bones new album. Totally new direction from them. Sounds A LOT like Alabama Shakes second album which I had mixed feelings about. I'm kind of enjoying this but it is severely dynamically compressed (just like everything Alabama Shakes released) and I'm having a hard time getting past that.

@reubent What is this internet you speak of?

I can certainly check out Spotify but Radio Paradise sounds more my speed.

@reubent Enjoying listening to Radio Paradise already.

@jim5559 I listen to live music whenever I can.

Including rock.

And I have impeccable taste. 😎

@aewarren Yes, I have a lot of great recorded music in my collection. And I do play a lot of it, well, a lot. But to me, that rarely represents a discovery or broadens my horizon any further than that music already has.

@mahgister I used to subscribe to a magazine called The Oxford American which was a southern art and culture magazine. Over the years it got predictably ideological to the point of being a cliche'  and I stopped subscribing but every year they came out with the music edition. That edition included a CD of various artists from the south across all genres. Some were extremely obscure and some were superstars. The magazine would have articles about all of the artists and songs on the CD. In the late 90s and early 2000s these CDs and magazines greatly broadened my musical horizons. I still pick up the yearly music edition from time to time. It has been a few years though. Not sure you still get an actual CD. I have 15 or twenty years worth of those CDs and they are priceless. In fact, some of them that are hard to find are fetching silly amounts of money.

Okay, I’ve got Spotify, the free version. Like it so far.

I like Radio Paradise a lot too.

Now for some tech questions with these:

1) I do not see Spotify Discover Weekly. Either it is staring me in the face or it must be only with a paid subscription.

2) With free Spotify you can select "high" in the qaulity settings but not "very high". Does anyone know what "high" and "very high" mean? To my ear "high" sounds decent. I’m assuming "very high" comes with paid version.

3) My main system is old. I listen to Sonos through an old Sonos Connect. Works fine in that capacity. It does not work with AirPlay. So I access AirPlay through an old AppleTV module. It SUCKS. Audio breaks up and skips constantly. Because of this I can only do Radio Paradise on this system through the Sonos app. For some reason the SQ is a bit flat and you cannot skip through songs within Sonos. AirPlay and the Radio Paradise app works fine throughout the rest of the house because all those Sonos components are newer. What would be the cheapest way to get my main (old) system integrated with AirPlay? I could buy the new Sonos Port but that’s $450 and the only thing I’d get over the old Sonos Connect is AirPlay. There has to be a cheaper option.

4) Happily Spotify works through the old Sonos Connect without AirPlay. I have no idea why. Maybe it came with Spotify integration?

Got it. That makes sense. I'll spend some time with Spotify, as I have been this evening. It makes it MUCH easier to browse for new music than Qobuz or even Amazon Music as it is already showing suggestions of bands similar to the ones I just listened to and seems to get closer than Amazon. Can't say I've hit gold yet but certainly some artists to explore. Looking forward to when the Discover Weekly feature kicks in.

@curiousjim I would have taken the risk on that box of CDs too!

@jbhiller I am a CD guy. I've got some vinyl but not much. My typical process is to find stuff I like and then buy it on CD. I've slowed down on that a little but if its something really good I get the CD. I have used Discogs in the past. I also consult the Dynamic Range database. My ears are far from golden and I'm not super picky about SQ but compressed DR ruins a recording for me for anywhere but the car or ear buds.

@tyray I live in the Charlotte, NC radio market. And much like Charlotte itself, the radio offerings are pretty cookie cutter. In fact, its a wasteland. At least in terms of rock/indie etc. I don't know about jazz. I still scan the channels in the car but you are not going to hear anything new or interesting on Charlotte radio stations unless I'm missing something after being in the area for 25 years.

One exception is WDAV out of Davidson College. It is a fantastic classical music station. I'm only marginally into classical though.

There is an oldies station south of here that is pretty good. They occasionally play stuff I've never heard from the 60s and 70s..........but there is a catch.......the reason I haven't heard most of those is because they are AWFUL. ;-)

Several people have mentioned the various "what are you listening to" threads here on Audiogon. I used to frequent those threads and over the last few years I have been turned onto some artists that I remain really fond of.

However, what you mostly get in those threads is just a name of a song or an artist or an album. Nothing wrong with that. But from the perspective of looking for recommendations these threads don't offer much more than that. It would be awesome if people would include why they are listening to that song or artist, or what they like or dislike about it, what it means to them. I know that takes more work but it would certainly have more meaning than simply what another person is listening to. For whatever reason it seems very popular simply to state "I am listening to 'x' " and leave it at that.

@dancub Can you explain what you mean by:

Now it's"   Radio Paradise => Qobuz => "Go to Artist" => "Similar Artists" and you're off on an adventure.   

Sorry to be so dense. Does this mean you start in Qobuz?

@2channel8 

I will check out those links. Thanks. We need something similar here. I know there are "new for 2021 etc" threads. And there are "what are you listening to threads" but I do not recall a long running "little known artist thread." There needs to be one here.

I will start one if it isn't redundant or stepping on someone else's toes.

Yes, it makes sense and for some reason I have not used the "Got to Artist" function in Qobuz but I will certainly check it out now. Thanks!

"Discover Weekly" still has not popped up on my Spotify app. There are lots of other categories for looking for new music but I can't find that particular one.