Xiami Just Rolled Its Subscription-based Service

June 6, 2013 — 7 Comments

xiami-subscription

If you’ve (for some reason) been following this blog a while, you’d know that I’m a big fan of Xiami, the Mainland China-based music site that has never flashed me with a “this content is not available in your region” message. I’ve actually bought some tracks off of them, started way before iTunes became available in my country, and have continued with tracks that aren’t available in my iTunes store, or with overpriced albums/singles.

It’s particularly useful for Chinese-based artists.

In general, all tracks are priced at 0.8米 (Mi) and 1 Mi is 1 Yuan, which is about 0.16USD, which is like 1/10 of what iTunes charges. They accept Paypal as one of their paying options, which seems way simpler than paying with your credit card (I tried). And since Xiami is a community-based site, they give you points for activities. Every time you log in, you get points and once you log in for a whole uninterrupted week, they give you a red envelope which also serves to download tracks. If you log in every day for a month or a whole year, you’ll get even more for free downloads.

Downloading tracks, adding albums, adding information (photos, lyrics, etc), participating in community discussions, and joining groups also gives you points to raise your Xiami level. Though, I still don’t know what’s that for, other than showing off and user respectability.

ANYWAY – after Pandora and Spotify have made its splash on the net in a subscription-based system… even though I stopped using Pandora after it blocked my usage, basically kicking me out of their system… and Spotify has never allowed me in. Xiami is joining them.

This is their thing:

Regular (free) members

  • Stream quality: Regular
  • Offline stream quality: Regular
  • App capacity offline: 30 tracks
  • Free downloads: None

Monthly VIP members

  • Stream quality: High
  • Offline stream quality: High
  • App capacity offline: No Limit
  • Free downloads: 100/Month
  • Price: 15 Yuan/Month ($2.45USD)

Yearly VIP members

  • Stream quality: High
  • Offline stream quality: High
  • App capacity offline: No Limit
  • Free downloads: 1500/Year
  • Price: 120 Yuan/Year ($19.57USD)

I don’t even think I download 1500 MP3s a year. I’m considering signing up. They even let you use your current Mi to pay for the subscription, so you don’t lose your money if you want to upgrade from your current account. The 120 Yuan you spend on the Yearly subscription which allows your 1500 Free downloads is basically what you spend by buying 150 songs.

7 responses to Xiami Just Rolled Its Subscription-based Service

  1. Greeting from Finland. Thanks for the info! Awesome music service, so much better than Spotify. Finally able to play high quality Asian and Western music from my Android phone for free and download songs at very affordable price! It’s great they seek to support the artists. It took some time to understand the interface since Im not a chinese speaker (yet!) but trying things out couple hours I figured out which button does what. If the interface would be in English I believe Xiami would gain popularity all around the world much faster and put iTunes and Spotify to shame (it already does, but many people are unpatient and afraid of languages they are not familiar with in the beginning… well their loss!). Any way thanks for the explanation on free and vip service of Xiami.

    • Hi, JJ. I can’t read Chinese characters (or speak Mandarin) either, but I’ve gotten accustomed to the interface already. The same with Weibo. Not long ago, I found that they (Weibo) had already rolled their English interface, so I tried it out, but it turns out I’m already too accustomed to the Chinese one lol

      I suppose, at least in Finland, that Spotify has a larger catalog of music. Though I do believe Taiwanese and Hong Kong musicians are rolling their iTunes profiles (despite some lack of consolidation), Mainland music is largely missing from it. Xiami is a great source. The thing is that I believe it’s navigating a really gray area in terms of copyright (specially in non-chinese music), and that’s why they don’t roll a multilingual interface.As long as it avoids the English interface (and its universality), they won’t have to deal with international copyright law. Let’s keep it our kinda dirty little secret xD that way I won’t start getting those “this content is not available in your region”

    • Hi, you can change the UI language to English in the Settings menu. Go to the last icon in the bottom horizontal bar, click the item at the bottom of the list (looks like a hexagon). In the 6th section of the list, click on the 2nd item. This is the settings for Languages. Then just choose English, close the app, start it. You now have an English interface of XIami Music. Enjoy your favorite music!

  2. Thanks for the info. I’m new to the scene of music download because I more interested into traditional HiFi i.e CDs and Vinyl for it’s high sound quality reproduction and now it seems Xiami is offering something just right for me equally I don’t have to fought out “an arm and a leg” for music that is even higher quality than CD and vinyl

    • It’s the Xiami master quality music my previous message is about

    • Some updates: I think Xiami stopped working with Paypal. :/

      About the quality, I think most of the downloads are at 320kbps mp3s, sometimes m4a. Xiami’s main perk used to be Mainland China’s acts music, but it seems most of them have iTunes/Spotify profiles now. It’s still a great place to browse for new releases and discover new music.

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