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Presto Music has launched a classical and jazz focused music streaming service to go along side its music sales business. Using the OraStream platform, Presto Music offers tightly curated catalog for $10.00 per month or $109.90 per year. Streaming Plus plans also exist, that offer discounts on purchases and shipping of physical products.
Presto says its catalog contains over 200,000 albums and 70,000 PDF booklets. I signed up for the service this morning and really like the PDF booklets on many of the album pages. Offline listening is another selling point of Presto Music, although not a differentiator among streaming services.
In my cursory look this morning, I found all the record labels I typically associate with Classical and Jazz, in the Presto streaming catalog. Atlantic, Blue Note, Capitol, Columbia, Concord, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Harmonia Mundi, Prestige, Verve, and many more.
Currently Presto Music offers applications for Android, iOS, and web based playback. Macs with Apple Silicon chips will be able to use the iOS app, but it isn't certified to work on the platform. I ran into an issue with playback stopping at the end of each track on my MacBook Pro (M2 Pro), but couldn't duplicate the issue on supported iOS platforms such as my iPhone and iPad Pro.
The music goes up to 24/192, but listeners should note that the web player can't change the sample rate of the interface outputting audio. Not a showstopper, but an item to note. Playing a 24/96 track at tis native rate, then switching to 24/192, does require a manual sample rate adjustment if the new album is to be played at its native rate. If the sample rate isn't changed, the album will play at whatever rate is set on the computer.
Using Presto Music I ran into some hiccups that I'll chalk up to the fact that it's a new release. Setting the Mobile Streaming Quality to lossless required multiple attempts. Ever time I changed it from MP3 to lossless, the setting would go back to MP3 when I left the settings page. Currently it's set to lossless, and it has been there through multiple restarts of the application, so all seems well.
Testing out the offline nature was a bit strange. I tapped the save offline arrow and nothing happened. I tried tapping it again and again, and even swiping it, and nothing happened. About 15 seconds later, Kind of Blue said it was "saving." Scrolling down to the album tracks I could see circles indicating the tracks were downloading. I then clicked the heart to add the album to my collection. This reset the offline setting and removed the downloaded tracks. I started this over and wasn't able to reproduce the behavior a second time.
These are small things that I'm sure will be worked out, but things to note nonetheless.
What sets Presto Music apart from other services is the smaller focus on Classical and Jazz, and the magazine-like presentation of information. Presto is clearly trying not to be just another repository of music, instead offering highly focused information and music.
I ran some searches to test Presto Music's results against Qobuz. In my limited tests, the results were very similar. For example, here are results for my search terms Shostakovich Boston. The results are what I expected, but may be different from what a classical music aficionado expects. I look forward to hearing more from members of the Audiophile Style community who have more stringent classical searching needs than I.
Presto search results vs Qobuz search results
One feature I'd love to see in the Presto Music app is active links for artists, labels, and composers. For example, searching for Eiji Oue, I found several Minnesota Orchestra albums from Reference Recordings. Navigating can only be done on the arch results, not clicking into an album then clicking Minnesota Orchestra, Eiji Oue, or Reference Recordings. Perhaps this is by design, and a way to keep the experience less techie, and more like that of an actual album in one's lap. Click on the album, press play, and be done.
Overall, I'm happy the Presto Music streaming service is here. More competition is good, as is a more focused service catering to the needs of listeners who only listen to classical and jazz. The OraStream platform has proven itself for many years, and is run by a very capable team from Singapore. If you didn't listen to my interview with OraStream, check out the podcast below.
Presto Music Streaming - https://www.prestomusic.com/streaming
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