Turn on, tune in, sign up

Online music-streaming has come on in leaps and bounds of late, and there are now any number of reasons for signing up to one of the top providers

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Few things have revolutionised the way we listen to recorded music as much as the advent of online streaming. The move to storing musical information on a vinyl disc was a landmark – as was the advent of the compact disc as the standard-bearer for the digital age – but doing away with discs altogether? That innovation surely deserves a place at the top table.

The genesis of this particular revolution was predictably modest. When streamed music first broke cover and flowed into the disc-playing public’s consciousness, it was touted by one or two fledgling firms juggling copyright infringement issues and preaching a gospel of convenience. So-so quality MP3 files were the order of the day and quality-conscious audiophiles found little to get excited about.

But, like any other newborn, online streaming soon grew up. It threw off the shackles of lo-res formats and morphed into the multi-faceted medium we have today, loaded with useful features and flexible user options.

There are now dozens of services to choose from, including a core of very sophisticated ones. The main players boast tens of millions of tracks in their catalogues and with so many of them now offering much – sometimes all – of their music as hi-res streams, sound quality is no longer an issue.