HiFi buffs? A small but good HiFi system?

[PhaseThree]

You may have stumbled upon Spotify's Achillies' heel - It is not wonderful at classical (or world music or jazz or anything apart from modern western pop/rock/rap/etc).

For classical streaming try :-
https://www.primephonic.com
https://www.idagio.com

and if you really want to re-connect with music try Roon
https://roonlabs.com/

[tikunetih]

The only annoyance I have is seeing my phone fill up with apps and the battery going down faster than usual. So maybe a cheap smartphone to use just for stuff at home?

Using a Bluetooth speaker, it's your phone doing all the work of pulling the stream of music data from the Spotify servers, and then decoding/encoding and transmitting it over Bluetooth for your speaker to receive. Lots of processing, hence battery drain over time.

If you're using one of the "casting" technologies/protocols that smart speaker use, or a direct control app such as with Sonos speaker, then your phone (or other client device you have eg. tablet, laptop, PC) acts simply as a remote control for the speaker(s): it's the "speakers" ("music players", actually) themselves that are connected to the internet and are pulling the stream from the Spotify/Apple/Google/Amazon/Deezer/Tidal/TuneIn/BBC/etc servers. Much better way of doing things.

Since your phone is only a remote control (as are any other client devices you have), then you're free to switch off your phone / leave the house with it / make a phone call / watch Youtube on it / etc, none of which affects the music playing on the smart speakers; plus, your phone is using hardly any juice in its role as a remote control vs. your current setup.

[Itsallaguess]

Well, as the OP, I'm as happy as you are that the post went off at a slight tangent and have spent the last three evenings exploring what I get free from Spotify.

So last night, after almost falling off my chair at discovering music I hadn't heard for 40 years, I did a search for 'Clarinet Jazz' and an hour of reading with that in the background was almost enough to make me blow the dust off my clarinets and start practising again, though at 1 am, my wife might have had other ideas!

Due to our home tech being either hopelessly out of date or rendered unusable/sticky/hidden by over 20 years of kids in the place, I settled on a 50 quid 20W Anker speaker with bluetooth bought to use in the garden but as yet untouched.

Although my ears are most likely not up the standard of most HiFi Buffs, I was amazed at the sound and have to wonder why I should pay for a Spotify subscription when the free version sounds so good.

Great to hear that you've enjoyed it too Steve - isn't it a nice way to spend a lazy weekend, rolling back the years and diving into much-loved music from our youth?

The one fly in the ointment with the absolutely brilliant time I spent with my Spotify Connect sessions yesterday, just using the free Spotify account and listening through my Denon AVR-X1600H Home Theatre receiver (HEOS) and 5.1 speaker set-up in Multi-Channel Stereo mode, was the terrible loudness of the adverts when they appeared, as they were far too loud when compared to any of the previous music tracks, and unless I really turned the music down then they did spoil what was an otherwise extremely pleasant time listening to some of my favourite tracks. This is a common complaint, by all accounts, and I'm not lost to the idea that this is all part of the upgrade-path intent for the Spotify business-plan...

I've never been one for subscribing to any of these fee-based content providers, but I'm beginning to think that I'll get so much good use out of Spotify, and the HEOS 'Spotify Connect' source-quality really is that good, that I might well have to treat myself a little during this very strange period that we're living in at the moment, where personal comforts seem to mean much more right now than they might have done in previous times in my life.

With that in mind, and given that we can all get a free 'trial month' of the advert-free Spotify Premium accounts anyway, I've also found this morning that PayPal offer a '12-months for the price of 10' Premium account voucher for Spotify too, which means that I could treat myself to 13 months of Spotify Premium for just £99 -

With the 12 Months Spotify Gift Card, get 12 months for the price of 10 months (and save £20) -

https://www.paypal.com/uk/gifts/brands/spotify-uk-99

I note that the above page says that this discounted offer only applies to personal, single Spotify accounts, and cannot be applied to Family or Student plans, but as I've no need for those types of accounts at the moment, and a discounted Spotify personal account would be a great personal treat for me, then I'm beginning to think I've got something good to put on my Christmas List already...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Redmires]

For those who dislike adverts & DJ chat and don't want to subscribe, the aforementioned Radio Paradise is a good listen. There's choices of main, rock, mellow and world music etc. You don't get to choose the music but sometimes that's a good thing.

https://radioparadise.com/player

[stevensfo]

You may have stumbled upon Spotify's Achillies' heel - It is not wonderful at classical (or world music or jazz or anything apart from modern western pop/rock/rap/etc).

For classical streaming try :-
https://www.primephonic.com
https://www.idagio.com

and if you really want to re-connect with music try Roon
https://roonlabs.com/

Thanks. I looked at a few reviews and I'm trying the Idagio free version at the moment. Roonlabs looked a little complicated for me. What I like about Idagio is the mood selector, which is a brilliant idea. So far sticking with Happy, Powerful etc. I can't imagine anyone wanting 'Tragic' at this time.

Steve

[stevensfo]

Well, as the OP, I'm as happy as you are that the post went off at a slight tangent and have spent the last three evenings exploring what I get free from Spotify.

So last night, after almost falling off my chair at discovering music I hadn't heard for 40 years, I did a search for 'Clarinet Jazz' and an hour of reading with that in the background was almost enough to make me blow the dust off my clarinets and start practising again, though at 1 am, my wife might have had other ideas!

Due to our home tech being either hopelessly out of date or rendered unusable/sticky/hidden by over 20 years of kids in the place, I settled on a 50 quid 20W Anker speaker with bluetooth bought to use in the garden but as yet untouched.

Although my ears are most likely not up the standard of most HiFi Buffs, I was amazed at the sound and have to wonder why I should pay for a Spotify subscription when the free version sounds so good.

Great to hear that you've enjoyed it too Steve - isn't it a nice way to spend a lazy weekend, rolling back the years and diving into much-loved music from our youth?

The one fly in the ointment with the absolutely brilliant time I spent with my Spotify Connect sessions yesterday, just using the free Spotify account and listening through my Denon AVR-X1600H Home Theatre receiver (HEOS) and 5.1 speaker set-up in Multi-Channel Stereo mode, was the terrible loudness of the adverts when they appeared, as they were far too loud when compared to any of the previous music tracks, and unless I really turned the music down then they did spoil what was an otherwise extremely pleasant time listening to some of my favourite tracks. This is a common complaint, by all accounts, and I'm not lost to the idea that this is all part of the upgrade-path intent for the Spotify business-plan...

I've never been one for subscribing to any of these fee-based content providers, but I'm beginning to think that I'll get so much good use out of Spotify, and the HEOS 'Spotify Connect' source-quality really is that good, that I might well have to treat myself a little during this very strange period that we're living in at the moment, where personal comforts seem to mean much more right now than they might have done in previous times in my life.

With that in mind, and given that we can all get a free 'trial month' of the advert-free Spotify Premium accounts anyway, I've also found this morning that PayPal offer a '12-months for the price of 10' Premium account voucher for Spotify too, which means that I could treat myself to 13 months of Spotify Premium for just £99 -

With the 12 Months Spotify Gift Card, get 12 months for the price of 10 months (and save £20) -

https://www.paypal.com/uk/gifts/brands/spotify-uk-99

I note that the above page says that this discounted offer only applies to personal, single Spotify accounts, and cannot be applied to Family or Student plans, but as I've no need for those types of accounts at the moment, and a discounted Spotify personal account would be a great personal treat for me, then I'm beginning to think I've got something good to put on my Christmas List already...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Thanks for the info about the special offers. I will probably wait till after Christmas to start buying new equipment when the rest of the family have been, visited, gorged themselves and departed without getting their sticky fingers on new HiFi speakers. At the moment, I have nothing to fully utilise the higher 320kb quality of a subscription.

So far I have been using free Spotify a lot and haven't had a single advert. However, we are in North Italy so maybe they assume that we're Italian and the ads are not yet set up for here. Meanwhile, I tried Idagio for a few hours today and there were ads approx every two pieces of music. From what I see, Idagio is German, so they probably have a more up to date idea of the average Italian's linguistic skills which, sad to say, are far superior to those of the average Brit.

Keep it quiet though, or everyone will be accessing free Spotify via a VPN to avoid the ads and that little loophole will be quickly plugged.

Steve

[servodude]

So far I have been using free Spotify a lot and haven't had a single advert. However, we are in North Italy so maybe they assume that we're Italian and the ads are not yet set up for here.

That used to be a known work around for Spotify free adds
- if you were in a place where they did not have a local advertising stream set up they didn't bother you with them; so vpns or proxy servers could be used to circumvent the adds if you did not have an account

Enjoy it while it lasts!

Incidentally it's just occurred to me that podcasts on spotify premium often carry localised advertising
- I wonder why they see that as being different - perhaps it's time provided by the "artist" rather than the platform

- sd

[MaraMan]

You may have stumbled upon Spotify's Achillies' heel - It is not wonderful at classical (or world music or jazz or anything apart from modern western pop/rock/rap/etc).

For classical streaming try :-
https://www.primephonic.com
https://www.idagio.com

and if you really want to re-connect with music try Roon
https://roonlabs.com/

Thanks. I looked at a few reviews and I'm trying the Idagio free version at the moment. Roonlabs looked a little complicated for me. What I like about Idagio is the mood selector, which is a brilliant idea. So far sticking with Happy, Powerful etc. I can't imagine anyone wanting 'Tragic' at this time.

Steve

I used to think this but discovered it just takes a bit more searching to find huge amounts of great classical recordings of every era on Spotify. For, instance I recently listened to the recent Gramophone magazine award winners recordings on Spotify and generally I have rarely failed to find what I want. On that subject I thought that the Deutsche Grammophon recording of the CBSO playing the Weinberg symphonies No 2 & 21, conducted by the wonderful Mirga Grazinyta-Tyla, to be truly worthy of the Gramophone recording of the year award.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/gra ... f-the-year

So anyway just my experience.

MM

[stevensfo]

You may have stumbled upon Spotify's Achillies' heel - It is not wonderful at classical (or world music or jazz or anything apart from modern western pop/rock/rap/etc).

For classical streaming try :-
https://www.primephonic.com
https://www.idagio.com

and if you really want to re-connect with music try Roon
https://roonlabs.com/

Thanks. I looked at a few reviews and I'm trying the Idagio free version at the moment. Roonlabs looked a little complicated for me. What I like about Idagio is the mood selector, which is a brilliant idea. So far sticking with Happy, Powerful etc. I can't imagine anyone wanting 'Tragic' at this time.

Steve

I used to think this but discovered it just takes a bit more searching to find huge amounts of great classical recordings of every era on Spotify. For, instance I recently listened to the recent Gramophone magazine award winners recordings on Spotify and generally I have rarely failed to find what I want. On that subject I thought that the Deutsche Grammophon recording of the CBSO playing the Weinberg symphonies No 2 & 21, conducted by the wonderful Mirga Grazinyta-Tyla, to be truly worthy of the Gramophone recording of the year award.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/gra ... f-the-year

So anyway just my experience.

MM

Well, hopefully when I have better equipment I will be able to spend a happy few days comparing Spotify with the others. It's slowly dawned on me over the last few days that the quality and set-up of the system is far more important for classical music. The jazz I was listening to on my small, albeit pretty good, 20W speaker via Spotify sounds great, but there are fewer instruments. When I listen to classical I want to hear the 2nd violinist on the Lhs, the cellists on the rhs, the flautists taking a deep breath, even the oboist having a crafty swig from his hipflask between movements.

Steve

[Infrasonic]

Thanks. I looked at a few reviews and I'm trying the Idagio free version at the moment. Roonlabs looked a little complicated for me. What I like about Idagio is the mood selector, which is a brilliant idea. So far sticking with Happy, Powerful etc. I can't imagine anyone wanting 'Tragic' at this time.

Steve

I used to think this but discovered it just takes a bit more searching to find huge amounts of great classical recordings of every era on Spotify. For, instance I recently listened to the recent Gramophone magazine award winners recordings on Spotify and generally I have rarely failed to find what I want. On that subject I thought that the Deutsche Grammophon recording of the CBSO playing the Weinberg symphonies No 2 & 21, conducted by the wonderful Mirga Grazinyta-Tyla, to be truly worthy of the Gramophone recording of the year award.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/gra ... f-the-year

So anyway just my experience.

MM

Well, hopefully when I have better equipment I will be able to spend a happy few days comparing Spotify with the others. It's slowly dawned on me over the last few days that the quality and set-up of the system is far more important for classical music. The jazz I was listening to on my small, albeit pretty good, 20W speaker via Spotify sounds great, but there are fewer instruments. When I listen to classical I want to hear the 2nd violinist on the Lhs, the cellists on the rhs, the flautists taking a deep breath, even the oboist having a crafty swig from his hipflask between movements.

Steve

It would be interesting if you did some A/B listening on the classical and jazz front between Spotify and the higher bitrate/sampling services linked to above.

The wider dynamic range of non pop/commercial music tends to suffer with the lower bitrate/sampling codecs, but of course unless doing completely blind random listening tests it's very easy to convince yourself that more is always better!

There are very respected mastering engineers with golden ears who are adamant that anything beyond 20 bit / 96KHz is wasting bandwidth as no-one can really hear the difference beyond that.

[stevensfo]

I used to think this but discovered it just takes a bit more searching to find huge amounts of great classical recordings of every era on Spotify. For, instance I recently listened to the recent Gramophone magazine award winners recordings on Spotify and generally I have rarely failed to find what I want. On that subject I thought that the Deutsche Grammophon recording of the CBSO playing the Weinberg symphonies No 2 & 21, conducted by the wonderful Mirga Grazinyta-Tyla, to be truly worthy of the Gramophone recording of the year award.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/gra ... f-the-year

So anyway just my experience.

MM

Well, hopefully when I have better equipment I will be able to spend a happy few days comparing Spotify with the others. It's slowly dawned on me over the last few days that the quality and set-up of the system is far more important for classical music. The jazz I was listening to on my small, albeit pretty good, 20W speaker via Spotify sounds great, but there are fewer instruments. When I listen to classical I want to hear the 2nd violinist on the Lhs, the cellists on the rhs, the flautists taking a deep breath, even the oboist having a crafty swig from his hipflask between movements.

Steve

It would be interesting if you did some A/B listening on the classical and jazz front between Spotify and the higher bitrate/sampling services linked to above.

The wider dynamic range of non pop/commercial music tends to suffer with the lower bitrate/sampling codecs, but of course unless doing completely blind random listening tests it's very easy to convince yourself that more is always better!

There are very respected mastering engineers with golden ears who are adamant that anything beyond 20 bit / 96KHz is wasting bandwidth as no-one can really hear the difference beyond that.

Could you explain to a luddite like me how this translates into 128 vs 320kbps quality audio? I think that the free Spotify I'm trying is about 128kbps but the Idagio boasts 192kbps.

Steve

[Infrasonic]

Could you explain to a luddite like me how this translates into 128 vs 320kbps quality audio? I think that the free Spotify I'm trying is about 128kbps but the Idagio boasts 192kbps.
Steve

Generally the higher the streaming kbps the better, but it depends on how exactly it is doing it in the codec, which is a book in itself...

From a source to listener perspective you have the bandwidth of the recording equipment (microphones/cables/mixing desks/tape machines/computers and software bit/sample rates et al). It's subjective but generally classical/jazz has erred towards high fidelity/bandwidth/low noise (because of the dynamic range requirements). Pop often took advantage of artifacts like distortion for creative purposes (guitar amps, mixing desk mic amps, tape compression [Led Zeppelin drums] etc).

Then any change at the mix stage (generally more on pop stuff) whereby they may have recorded at 24 bit/ 96KHz (or higher) but then mix to a lower bit/sampling rate before sending to the mastering engineer, who may produce a final master at a lower rate -- or multiple masters at different rates for different purposes (say a higher rate for direct marketing to fans who are paid subscribers to the artist).

Then you have the streaming services and their choice of codecs, where you get into very technical discussions around their pluses and minuses.
The major streaming services have been very unhelpful wrt to explaining optimal levels et al to the mastering and general engineer community over the years.
Historically there were general technical standards of adherence throughout the music industry to maintain the quality at every stage.
I'm old enough to remember putting sine wave test tones at specific amplitude levels onto analogue tape multitracks and two track mix masters for the benefit of everyone after me in the chain, the streaming services threw all of that out of the window.
It's better now but they still have a habit of changing things without telling anyone first...

Hence my interest in any truly perceivable quality differences between the various streaming services. Tidal was supposed to be the answer to the artists complaints about low streaming rates (and royalty rates..), but I'd be interested in what people think of the more cottage/bespoke higher rate services as my hunch is they'll probably take more care over doing it properly rather than just chasing market share and profit.

[stevensfo]

Could you explain to a luddite like me how this translates into 128 vs 320kbps quality audio? I think that the free Spotify I'm trying is about 128kbps but the Idagio boasts 192kbps.
Steve

Generally the higher the streaming kbps the better, but it depends on how exactly it is doing it in the codec, which is a book in itself...

From a source to listener perspective you have the bandwidth of the recording equipment (microphones/cables/mixing desks/tape machines/computers and software bit/sample rates et al). It's subjective but generally classical/jazz has erred towards high fidelity/bandwidth/low noise (because of the dynamic range requirements). Pop often took advantage of artifacts like distortion for creative purposes (guitar amps, mixing desk mic amps, tape compression [Led Zeppelin drums] etc).

Then any change at the mix stage (generally more on pop stuff) whereby they may have recorded at 24 bit/ 96KHz (or higher) but then mix to a lower bit/sampling rate before sending to the mastering engineer, who may produce a final master at a lower rate -- or multiple masters at different rates for different purposes (say a higher rate for direct marketing to fans who are paid subscribers to the artist).

Then you have the streaming services and their choice of codecs, where you get into very technical discussions around their pluses and minuses.
The major streaming services have been very unhelpful wrt to explaining optimal levels et al to the mastering and general engineer community over the years.
Historically there were general technical standards of adherence throughout the music industry to maintain the quality at every stage.
I'm old enough to remember putting sine wave test tones at specific amplitude levels onto analogue tape multitracks and two track mix masters for the benefit of everyone after me in the chain, the streaming services threw all of that out of the window.
It's better now but they still have a habit of changing things without telling anyone first...

Hence my interest in any truly perceivable quality differences between the various streaming services. Tidal was supposed to be the answer to the artists complaints about low streaming rates (and royalty rates..), but I'd be interested in what people think of the more cottage/bespoke higher rate services as my hunch is they'll probably take more care over doing it properly rather than just chasing market share and profit.

All a bit over my head, but thanks. I'll wait for the super duper gear to arrive and do plenty of testing. I know that in music, as in other hobbies, we can get so obsessed by the small things that we spend more time on fretting about tiny details than actually sitting back and enjoying what we have in front of us.

Steve

[Infrasonic]

All a bit over my head, but thanks. I'll wait for the super duper gear to arrive and do plenty of testing. I know that in music, as in other hobbies, we can get so obsessed by the small things that we spend more time on fretting about tiny details than actually sitting back and enjoying what we have in front of us.
Steve

I still have a decent hifi system, kept all my vinyl and CD's etc.

I spend most of my time listening to Youtube streaming though as it's convenient -- the audio quality is awful in comparison -- so I'd agree it's easy to get carried away with the minutiae.

It would be great if the streaming quality was indistinguishable from a digital master though -- without paying through the nose.
Most people don't care, so there's no real market pressure for it to improve with the big streaming players, who have the largest licensed catalogues.

[PhaseThree]

All a bit over my head, but thanks. I'll wait for the super duper gear to arrive and do plenty of testing. I know that in music, as in other hobbies, we can get so obsessed by the small things that we spend more time on fretting about tiny details than actually sitting back and enjoying what we have in front of us.
Steve

At a higher level :- The studios and engineers to a great job recording every nuance of the artists performance and generally use very high quality equipment to do this. This results in huge amounts of music information, this used to be stored on miles of reel-to-reel magnetic tape but over the last few decades this has ended up as digital data on computer hard drives.
When the record company wants to sell you a copy of the musical performance the take this data and process it. The processing is done to reduce the amount of information so it either fits on a CD, allows you to download it over an average broadband connection in a reasonable time, or to stream it directly to your listening device. The processing generally involves throwing away bits of the original recording that they think you won't miss. There are different methods of doing this (the codecs) - some are better than others and you can choose to throw away more or less data during the processing.

So onto the specifics :- Spotify uses a Codec called "Ogg Vorbis" which is a modern(ish) processing method and the original data has been reduced in size to give you a stream of 128kbs, it's also free and hence is popular. Idagio uses a different codec (AAC) which was design as a replacement for the old MP3 codec and also gives generally good results. In the case of Spotify@128kbs vs Idagio@192kbs you are getting 50% more data with the Idagio stream which all things being equal will give you a better listening experience.

BTW > Amazon also provide a music streaming service either "free" as part of their Amazon Prime service or as Amazon Music HD which will stream CD quality if your broadband is up to it.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.soundguys.com/amazon-music- ... %20320kbps.

...Amazon Music HD is a high-quality music streaming service and is something Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can easily upgrade to for a small price hike. Since its launch in September 2019, Music HD has grown in popularity, particularly among the audiophile crowd, and has already accrued 55 million listeners. Anyone whose pride and joy rests in their music collection will rejoice at how Amazon Music HD delivers lossless FLAC audio at 24bit/192kHz.

Cont.

https://www.soundguys.com/audio-compres ... ned-29148/

The important difference between audio and file compression
Everything you need to know about audio compression and what it means for your music and streaming quality.

Cont.
Good article going into the nitty gritty for the geeks.

[stevensfo]

You may have stumbled upon Spotify's Achillies' heel - It is not wonderful at classical (or world music or jazz or anything apart from modern western pop/rock/rap/etc).

For classical streaming try :-
https://www.primephonic.com
https://www.idagio.com

and if you really want to re-connect with music try Roon
https://roonlabs.com/

Thanks. I looked at a few reviews and I'm trying the Idagio free version at the moment. Roonlabs looked a little complicated for me. What I like about Idagio is the mood selector, which is a brilliant idea. So far sticking with Happy, Powerful etc. I can't imagine anyone wanting 'Tragic' at this time.

Steve

I used to think this but discovered it just takes a bit more searching to find huge amounts of great classical recordings of every era on Spotify. For, instance I recently listened to the recent Gramophone magazine award winners recordings on Spotify and generally I have rarely failed to find what I want. On that subject I thought that the Deutsche Grammophon recording of the CBSO playing the Weinberg symphonies No 2 & 21, conducted by the wonderful Mirga Grazinyta-Tyla, to be truly worthy of the Gramophone recording of the year award.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/awards/gra ... f-the-year

So anyway just my experience.

MM

Well, I spent about 15 minutes today using a fairly expensive pair of earphones to listen to parts of this recording and I couldn't hear any difference in quality between Spotify free and Idagio free. I will repeat this test in the future with some decent equipment. However I did discover one important difference elsewhere: Spotify allows you to go to any movement you like, whereas Idagio would only play the album from the beginning! That seems to me a pretty huge vote for Spotify.

Yes, you're right. There is plenty of classical.

I was also delighted to discover some Walt Disney Christmas songs that we used to play when the kids were little and were lost many years ago.

Though, despite my nostalgia, I'm not sure the 'kids' will appreciate them as much now.

Steve

[Itsallaguess]

Well, I spent about 15 minutes today using a fairly expensive pair of earphones to listen to parts of this recording and I couldn't hear any difference in quality between Spotify free and Idagio free. I will repeat this test in the future with some decent equipment.

However I did discover one important difference elsewhere: Spotify allows you to go to any movement you like, whereas Idagio would only play the album from the beginning!

That seems to me a pretty huge vote for Spotify.

But if Idagio (which I've not used yet) will at least play the whole album from beginning to end in the order that the tracks are listed, then isn't that a benefit over the 'Free' version of Spotify, which does indeed allow us to play any tracks, but when it comes to albums, will not allow us to continue playing them in the intended track-order, as the 'Free' accounts are locked to 'Shuffle' mode only?

I actually find the 'Shuffle only' mode of the 'Free' Spotify offering more annoying than the adverts...

I suspect it's perhaps a very 'generational' thing, but is there anything more disconcerting for us older album-lovers, than when we might start to hum the opening notes of 'the next track' to our favourite albums, and then we experience the blasted free 'Shuffle mode' of Spotify playing it in a completely different order?

That's just not right....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[scrumpyjack]

I do use Idagio and it is so good to have a streaming service that is designed for Classical Music. Having used the free version for a while I gave myself a subscription (cheaper than buying a subscription for yourself) and it is a relief not to have the ads.

[kiloran]

I actually find the 'Shuffle only' mode of the 'Free' Spotify offering more annoying than the adverts...

Itsallaguess

That sounds odd. My Chrome web interface and my Android app both play tracks in the correct order from my free Spotify account. I can enable shuffle, and then disable it whenever I wish.
There's certainly nothing worse than "Dark Side of the Moon" in anything other than the intended sequence.

--kiloran