A String Lover’s Guide to Digital Streaming Platforms

By Pat Moran | From the July/August 2025 issue of Strings

While services such as Spotify, SoundCloud, Tidal, and Amazon Music offer string-driven music like classical, jazz, bluegrass, and folk, music streaming can sometimes seem like opening the floodgates. It can be frustrating trying to find what you’re looking for amid a tidal wave of pop, rap, and rock. Luckily, a growing number of streaming platforms cater to consumers and creators of string music. This overview, organized by genre, looks at what some major streamers offer and what they cost. 

Classical & Early Music: IDAGIO

Designed for classical music lovers, IDAGIO offers a library of over two million tracks and expert-curated playlists. The deep archive houses exclusive recordings and live concerts encompassing opera, orchestral, and dance performances. Current offerings also include early/Baroque music like Handel’s Apollo e Dafne performed by Early Music Vancouver.

IDAGIO also provides lossless audio (FLAC 16-bit 44.1kHz), personalized recommendations, and interactive courses, such as “Making Sense of Puccini,” hosted by opera expert Fred Plotkin. A specialized search function, designed for classical music, enables listeners to refine searches via conductors, performers, and orchestras. One disadvantage is that this service doesn’t offer podcasts or lyrics. Lossless streaming is also not part of the standard subscription. 

IDAGIO’s free plan includes the generous music archive. A premium plan at $12.99 per month accesses an even larger catalog. An additional $3.68 a month allows access to all IDAGIO concerts.

Classical & Jazz: Presto Music

Presto Music streams classical and jazz music for casual listeners and serious collectors. This service’s extensive catalog includes over 160,000 classical and over 70,000 jazz recordings. The streamer offers hi-res audio (up to 24-bit/192kHz audio quality), album downloads for offline listening, curated playlists, reviews, recommendations, and artist interviews. 

Presto offers two streaming options: a standard plan for $10.99 per month and
a Streaming Plus plan for $14.99 per month. Both include access to over 200,000 albums, 70,000 digital booklets, high-quality sound, and offline listening. Streaming Plus adds a 10 percent discount on all Presto purchases.

Classical & Jazz: Medici.tv

Medici.tv is a music video streaming platform offering a vast library of classical music, opera, dance, and jazz videos, including live events and on-demand content. Its catalog of classical music videos features over 4,000 films, 3,500 musical works, and over 150 live events streamed annually. The service offers documentaries and master classes, as well as curated playlists and collections in  four languages: English, Spanish, French, and Russian. Subscribers stream ad-free.

Medici.tv’s audio is streamed in AAC-LC 320 kbps, which is good, but not the highest lossless resolution. Music streaming services like Apple Music, Qobuz, and Tidal boast higher-resolution sound, but without video. Medici.tv is available through its website and app, but it lacks support for Android and Fire TV platforms.

Medici.tv offers a monthly plan for $12.99 and an annual plan for $129. A discounted annual plan is also available for $74.50 for the first year, then $149 per year. Some libraries offer free access to Medici.tv with a library card.

Classical, Jazz, Blues, Folk, and more: Qobuz

Although Qobuz is often seen as a classical streamer, it offers a variety of genres, including jazz, blues, folk, and world music. It boasts a large catalog of over 100 million tracks and enables users to stream and download music ranging from CD quality to hi-res formats like FLAC 24-bit up to 192 kHz. Qobuz also provides original editorial content including articles, reviews, and artist interviews. There is a free trial period for customers too.

Qobuz offers various subscription plans starting from $10.83 per month with a 12-month commitment for its Studio plan. A monthly Studio plan is available for $12.99. The Sublime plan, which includes discounts on hi-res purchases, starts at $14.99 per month with a 12-month commitment. 

Jazz, Soul, and Blues: Jazzed

On its website, Jazzed says it’s “the world’s first audio-visual app” dedicated to jazz, soul, and blues music. The service offers over 20 curated music channels, plus music videos, documentaries, and live shows. The site also hosts articles, features, stories, and reviews pertaining to its chosen genres.

The Jazzed app offers a free tier plus a subscription plan. The free tier provides access to the music channels, videos, and articles with ads. A premium subscription costs £3.99, or about $5.35, a month. The subscription offers a wider range of content plus ad-free listening.

Bluegrass, Bluegrass Gospel, and Traditional Country: Bluegrass Music TV Prime

Astreaming platform aimed at fans of bluegrass, bluegrass gospel, and old-time country music, Bluegrass Music TV Prime was launched by video producer and record executive Sammy Passamano III (615 Hideaway Entertainment) and country and bluegrass legend Ronnie Reno, who announced his retirement in 2019. Video programming consists of music videos, artist interviews, and behind-the-scenes documentaries, including Heart To Heart, which spotlights conversations with bluegrass and country artists; Old Country Church, which explores the connection between gospel and bluegrass music; Reno’s Old Time Music Festival that features live acoustic performances; and Woodsongs, which showcases bluegrass and folk music. 

Bluegrass Music TV Prime offers a seven-day free trial, followed by a monthly subscription of $4.95 that provides unlimited access to all content.

Classical: Apple Classical Music

As its name indicates, Apple Classical Music reaches out to a broad range of classical aficionados, from longtime enthusiasts to new listeners. The service boasts a vast catalog of over five million tracks, plus optimized searching and browsing, where listeners can find music by composer, conductor, or even catalog number. The app also offers high-quality audio (24-bit/192 kHz hi-res lossless), and a user-friendly interface that is tailored to the genre.

The streamer’s main disadvantage is that it’s primarily designed for iPhones and offers no dedicated computer app. The service also fails to provide a credits section for tracks. Unlike IDAGIO and Qobuz, Apple Classical Music does not offer detailed liner notes.

Apple Music Classical is available for Apple Music subscribers at no additional charge. That breaks down to $10.99 per month for the Individual plan, which includes access to the music catalog, ad-free streaming, and personalized playlists. A Student plan costs $5.99 per month, while a $16.99 per month Family plan allows up to six subscribers.

More Streaming Services

JAZZRADIO offers 43 channels of curated jazz music ranging from the genre’s earliest days to the present. The free app offers a limited selection of channels. A premium plan costs $7.99 a month and affords listeners access to all channels ad-free.

BanjoRadio is an online radio station that spotlights traditional and new bluegrass music, curated by radio and bluegrass veteran Kyle Cantrell. The app is free, and donations are accepted to help sustain the service, with a limited-edition T-shirt offered as a thank-you gift for donations of $30 or more. 

Bluegrass Country Radio is an online radio station that plays a range of roots music, including bluegrass, old-time, gospel, Americana, and classic country. Started half a century ago at WAMU 88.5 FM in Washington, DC, the station is now operated and funded by the nonprofit Bluegrass Country Foundation. It can be heard 24/7 on HD radio at 88.5FM Channel 2 in the Washington area, streaming at BluegrassCountry.org, and via a free smartphone app.

Artist Payouts

In the streaming business, big players like Spotify pay artists and rights holders per stream. Rates published by Royalty Exchange in March 2025 are $0.01284 per stream from Tidal, $0.01 from Apple Music, $0.00.1–$0.005 from Amazon Music, $0.00200 from YouTube Music, and $0.00318 from Spotify. Apple Classical Music also pays artists based on streams, with an average per-stream payout of around $0.01. In March 2025, Qobuz shared the results of an independent audit of its average payout per stream. Royalties due to labels and publishers were $0.01873 per stream for the fiscal year 2024.

IDAGIO employs a Fair Pay Mode, where revenue is calculated by the second rather than by stream. The platform says it doesn’t pool subscriptions, instead distributing royalties based on the listening behavior of individual users—e.g., if a user spends 25 percent of their time listening to a particular artist, that artist will receive 25 percent of that user’s monthly subscription fees. Like IDAGIO, Presto Music follows a Fair Play payout to artists and rights holders, paying per second of music streamed, rather than per play. —PM