Primephonic - £14.99/month, 14 day free trial
Product Description: Specialist HiRes classical music streaming site with mobile and web apps.
Overall
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Audio quality
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Content
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Music discovery
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Features
Summary
Specialist HiRes classical music streamer. Good quality catalogue but limited by relatively poor device support.
Pros
Specialist Classical Music catalogue
HiRes Streaming using Orastream technology
Classical Encyclopaedia
Cons
Relatively limited device support
History
Update 05/10/2021: At the end of August 2021, Primephonic was acquired by Apple and was closed down. Its services will be relaunched as part of Apple Music but no date has been set for the rollout. For further information on this go to Apple buys classical musical music streamer Primephonic.
Primephonic launched as a specialist classical music download site in 2014 offering CD Quality, HiRes and DSD (Direct Stream Digital) files in QAV, FLAC and DSF formats. Multichannel as well as stereo files were available in FLAC and DSD formats depending on the original release.
In June 2017, Primephonic changed into a streaming service soft launching its CD Quality and HiRes streaming service in the UK and the US adding the Netherlands in 2018 and relaunching with an upgraded iOS app. 2019 saw the completion of its global rollout all bar China, Japan and Russia which are promised ‘soon’.
Primephonic completed a replatforming of its streaming service on 1st September 2018. As part of this re-engineering the download store is offline and is still not available with no news as to if it will become available again.
There is a blog containing articles on artists and performances together with some original research on classical music listening and streaming commissioned by the company. Recent articles have been on how streamers could improve the listening experience and the extent of classical music knowledge amongst Americans.
Services
A 14 day free trial is available with a bonus 14 days free when you sign up with your credit card through the Primephonic website here. If you sign up to Primephonic via the Apple App Store then the free trial period is 14 days.
There are currently no student or family discounts available.
Platinum Subscription
Yearly Subscription – £/$/€149.90 for a 12 month subscription
Lossless HiRes quality up to 24-bit
Monthly Subscription – £/$/€14.99/month
Lossless HiRes quality up to 24-bit
Premium Subscription
Yearly Subscription – £/$/€79.90 for a 12 month subscription
MP3 quality up to 320 kbps
Monthly Subscription – £/$/€9.99/month
MP3 quality up to 320 kbps
Availability
154 countries worldwide with the exception of China, Japan and Russia which are expected ‘soon’.
Audio Quality
Primephonic streams are available in 320 kpbs MP3 and up to 24-bit HiRes FLAC depending on your subscription with adaptive bit-rate technology powered by Orastream.
In order to stream on Primephonic in the highest quality possible, Primephonic recommend a minimum bandwidth of 20 Mbps or a stable 4G connection when you are listening with mobile data. If you have a slower internet connection, you will still be able to listen to Primephonic but the audio quality will adjust itself in order to provide you with a smooth listening experience.
Content
Primephonic’s catalogue contains over 3.5 million tracks from Warner Classics, Sony Classical, Universal Music Classical, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI and another 400+ labels from around the world including independent labels such as Solo Musica and Willowhayne Records. The company believes that classical music lovers can finally stream nearly all classical music that has ever been recorded in lossless FLAC.
Music Discovery
Primephonic offers a search functionality designed for classical music. Searching by composer, work, artist, musical period, and genre, offers greater ease of use to navigate the vast catalogue of classical music.
In addition to the expected playlists to be found on most streaming platforms side-by-side there is a comparison feature called Works that allows the listener to compare different recordings of the same work with a single click.
There is a comprehensive encyclopaedia to help explore the world of classical music which includes In-depth background information and dynamic content, including many stories and anecdotes about composers, recordings, and artists, to enrich the classical experience.
Features
There is support for mobile devices. The iOS app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store here and the Android app can be obtained from the Google Play store here.
The web player does not support CD quality across all browsers – Microsoft Edge and Safari on the iPad being examples. Primephonic recommend using Google Chrome and their web-player can be found here.
Support for devices has improved markedly over the past year and the streamer now supports Sonos, AirPlay, Chromecast (via Chrome browser) and Bluetooth devices and offline playback has been introduced.
There are currently no dedicated PC and Mac desktop applications.
