Disconnecting from Spotify & Other Streaming Services

Spotify is a giant in the streaming music game. THE giant, to be exact. It’s also among the least fair services when it comes to the artists it profits off of. The executives have no true interest in making art more accessible, and see the service as a way to make more money, including their CEO investing in AI weapons. Every month, more money goes towards machines of war than towards the specific artists you’re listening to. And that’s fucked up. So get off Spotify, and honestly, get off of the streaming services in general.

So what the hell do you do? Honestly, I’ve tried a bunch of things. I’ve refurbished my old iPod. I’ve bought a cheap dedicated digital audio player. I spin my records more. I set up a Plex server and use PlexAmp specifically for music. The big difference is that I am listening to music I own, and that benefits the artists directly. It snowballed into a huge project, with some headaches, but it’s been so rewarding. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Building Your Library

If you’re going to disconnect from these services, you’re going to need to build your own library somehow. A bulk of my library is from stacks and stacks of ripped CDs. The app I’ve used for this is Exact Audio Copy, an old standard for ripping CDs, with a ton of configuration options. It also will fetch metadata for albums, making that bit so much easier. I also tend to rip in FLAC, lossless audio is king, but where you intend on playing back these files may dictate the best format for you. Fre:ac is another app that can rip CDs but also convert between different formats.

Then there’s where to get music – local CD/Record shops and thrift stores are a good start, bands’ merch sites, and online CD retailers are great to browse. Then there’s online marketplaces like Bandcamp. If you’re into Japanese music, my go-to is Ototoy, who offer most independent releases in both regular lossless formats, as well as HiRes audio. They do accept paypal so it’s easy for those outside of Japan to purchase music.

I’ve also tried claiming all of those slips that come with vinyl records. Most of those codes are long expired, with most companies completely abandoning those downloads completely. Other than the Secretly affiliated labels (Secretly Canadian, Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar) and Domino, you’re not going to have much luck. The Secretly group has a great website that registers all of your codes to your account, so once you claim them, you can still access them from their site. If you’re looking for lossless, again, it’s hit and miss, with Domino providing the most access to that. Some records, cassettes, etc, include Bandcamp codes, and those are absolutely golden.

Picking a Player

Picking a digital audio player (DAP) is the really fun part. A classic iPod is iconic, but there’s so many options, and things have evolved so much since Apple retired the iPod, another option may be best. For lossless, especially hi-res, the best path is something more modern. Something like a Hiby R1 for an entry-level player is great. It’s my daily-driver DAP, and punches well above its cheap price. There are plenty of other great choices, even the lower-end Fiio units. For About $250 there’s even more great options, many with Android operating systems. However, I did not want any type of Android on my player.

For an iPod, you’re going to need to do some work on it. On My iPod Video (Gen 5), I needed a new screen, battery and headphone jack, so I tore the whole thing apart. It’s such an easy thing to work on, especially with some tools from iFixIt. The newer gens are bit harder, but doable. I ended up also swapping in new, flash memory, which actually ended up failing, and prompting me to go for the R1. I swapped the new memory for the old hard drive and it’s still going strong. For lossless, you’re going to need something like Rockbox. But the iPod simply does not deal with these types of files well, even with faster storage. I ended up downconverting all of my files to 320kbps mp3 files and it works great.

You can also use your phone, but if you’re here you’re probably looking to disconnect from everything when listening to music. There are great options – VLC is probably my favorite, yes, that VLC.

Streaming To Other Devices

Well, this is where things get a bit more technical, but also pretty awesome. If you have a nicely organized music library from all the above steps, it’s not hard to spin up your own media server. There are two pretty good options for this, Plex and Jellyfin.

Plex is really easy to set up an use, and their streaming app, PlexAmp really is very good. This isn’t a tutorial to set up Plex, so check out their documentation here. It’s got a really interesting crossfade functionality, and overall its tagging and other stuff works really well. I’ve tested it out with Android Auto and on long drives, never had an issue. The free version has some limitations, but overall it’s a solid product. However, Plex is also not without its controversy.

Jellyfin is a similar setup, using your own media, set up a library. However, Jellyfin has no cloud component, so accessing the files there outside of your home network requires some extra work. It’s completely hosted by you, with no outside access, so it removes some of the issues with Plex’s policies. To use Jellyfin outside of your network, you have a few choices, port-forwarding, a VPN, etc, it’s a bit complicated, but in the end it’s worth it. If your ISP uses dynamic IP addresses, it adds another layer, and the need for something like DuckDNS. I did not want to enable port forwarding, so I went the VPN route, and settled on a very simple solution, Tailscale. Which offers so many benefits far beyond streaming media. With this setup, I’ve tested it in my car with Android Auto, and it worked fine. PlexAmp has a few more features if we’re talking Android Auto functionality specifically, but it’s nice to not be at the mercy of Plex.

Difficulties

Most people stream because it is easy. It’s simple. Other people handle the hard stuff, but when you set your own stuff up, there will be issues. Refurbishing an iPod may seem cheap from the prices of parts, but you’re gonna want more parts. You’re gonna want to add storage and next thing you know, you’re a couple hundred bucks in on a 20 year old device. Then there’s ripping each CD, one by one over the course of WEEKS (I still haven’t finished…) but it’s an amazing reminder of what’s in your library. Then there’s the manual management of your library, keeping it organized, as well as managing metadata which can be wildly incorrect, even with the most recent tools.

Overall, it’s been a fun experience that has even tightened my bond with my music library. Uncovering old favorites, digging through used CDs at record shops. It’s been so rewarding to disconnect from these services.

So yeah. Get the fuck off of these services and support artists directly, support local businesses, and take control of your libraries. You’re not going to miss the Spotify DJ randomly playing that damn Whitney song all the time. I promise.