5 Best Ways to Listen to Music Together

If you ever find yourself confined to your home (remember the Covid-19 times), here’s how to entertain yourself.

5 simple ways (including free) how to listen to music with friends remotely, even if you live miles apart.

We get it. You’re bored, socially deprived, and miss your friends and regular socializing.

But there are many ways you can chat, meet new people, and enjoy social interactions remotely.

With the apps and services below, you can create your own little party for the whole world or just your best friends.

5 Best Ways to Listen to Music Together

1. RVRB

Requires Spotify Premium

RVRB is a free music streaming web app that you can use to listen to music with friends or join public rooms.

It’s an open-source alternative to the popular JQBX app, which was shut down. Unfortunately, there are no iPhone or Android apps for it yet. The development is planned.

But you can use it on their official website. It works for iOS and Android like a web app instead of an installed app.

P.S. Since it’s in development, they’re still fixing some kinks.

RBVR features:

• Share your music with friends, listen together, and chat (even if you are continents away).
• Share your live audio while enjoying the music.
• Create a PUBLIC or PRIVATE music chatroom (channel) and become a DJ. Play your favorite songs and let other people join and rate your taste.
• Join public music chatrooms and rate the music of other DJs.

Check the official site.

But you need Spotify Premium to use it. If you don’t have a paid subscription, then look for other methods below.

Your friends also need a Spotify subscription to use it (to adhere to copyright laws).

What are the best headphones for listening to music and chatting?

• Best headphones with a microphone
• Best earbuds with a clear microphone
• Best headphones under $100 for music and chat

2. Earbuds: Share Music and Chat

Requires Apple Music or Spotify Premium

The free Earbuds app offers more than just sharing music. You can build playlists with friends, judge songs, and chat.

The BEST thing is that your friend doesn’t need the same music streaming service as you.

If you are on Spotify, and your friend has Apple Music, the app will automatically find the same song in both services.

Earbuds: Share music and Chat features:

• You can listen to music with friends by listening to the same songs (playlists they created).
• Automatically creates a playlist from the songs in chat.
• Find new music (swipe left & right like on a dating app).
• Chat with friends, find new songs you like, and have fun.

Right now, it supports:

• Spotify (paid)
• Apple Music (paid)
• Amazon Music (coming soon)
• Pandora (coming soon)
• YouTube Music (coming soon)
• Tidal (coming soon)

The app is free to download on iPhone and Android:

Download on iPhone (App Store)

Download on Android

Do you listen to Spotify or Apple Music?

Here are some interesting statistics about the music streaming services:

• Spotify statistics
• Apple Music statistics

3. Discord

Free but needs setup

Discord is a free application that’s popular with the gaming community (best gaming headphones). And it doesn’t require any premium subscriptions.

In the program, you can create your own server and invite friends to join. Then select a music bot with preset genres or share songs from YouTube or SoundCloud (here’s data on SoundCloud users).

You can share 1 song or whole playlists (less management).

It takes a bit of setup, but once you’re set, it’s easy to use, and you can enjoy the same music with friends.

Basic steps you need to follow:

1. Download and install Discord (it’s free) – App Store download – Google Play download
2. Create a new server and invite your friends to join – check the tutorial below.

3. Install the wanted music bot. Rythmbot is a good one. It supports YouTube, SoundCloud, and Twitch.

Here’s a tutorial on how to install music bots.

4. Once you have the music bot installed, you can listen to any songs from YouTube with some basic commands. Check the video above for the ones you need.

And with Discord, you can also chat, share screen, and obviously, play games together.

Note: Groovy music bot supports sharing Spotify playlists, too.

4. Quorus

Works with free Spotify

Quorus is a simple app that lets you co-create music playlists together with friends or random strangers.

In your live session, you can invite friends to create your own unique jam and enjoy it together at the same time. Your friends can make their own suggestions.

And if you feel open to meeting new people and collaborating on a brand new, “never-before-heard playlist”, you can create a public session.

Quorus features:

• Create your own music room and become a DJ (private or public).
• Join your friend’s or stranger’s music room to enjoy music.
• Works with FREE Spotify (needs paid for all features)

It does work with free Spotify with limitations. However, Spotify Premium is highly recommended for full features.

You can download the app on the:

App Store (iPhone)

Google Play (Android)

It’s a simple app that only works with Spotify. No other music streaming services are supported right now. But might be just enough to stave off the feeling of loneliness in times of isolation.

5. Twitch

Free but limited to your music

Twitch Music lets you share your music with the audience, but you have to own the music to do so or have the rights.

In other apps, music streaming services and YouTube take care of the copyright laws. On Twitch, you’re only able to stream what you produce. More info here.

Nonetheless, if you’re a starting musician and want an audience while you’re playing from home, Twitch is the way to go.

It’s free, very popular globally, and works better than most similar applications. You’re sure to get the biggest audience here.

Here’s the getting started guide.

Bonus ways to listen to music with friends:

Apple SharePlay: If you have an iPhone (with iOS 15), you can watch videos and listen to music with anyone on FaceTime call. You need the FaceTime app and Spotify Premium or Apple Music.

AmpMe – Speaker & Music Sync: This free app helps you sync phones and Bluetooth speakers into one louder music system. But you can use it to listen to the same music with friends. It works with YouTube, Spotify, Deezer, SoundCloud, and your own music.

How to Watch YouTube Videos Together?

If you want to share more than music, there’s a way to do so.

There’s a website that shows you how to watch YouTube videos together with friends over long distances.

Watch2Gether

Watch YouTube and chat for free

It’s a website and works without registration.  So, there’s no need to install it.

You can use it on mobile or desktop, and it’s super simple.

Go to the website.

• Create your room
• Invite your friends
• Choose the YouTube videos you want to watch together
• Enjoy funny and interesting videos, comment, or chat about random things

It supports YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and SoundCloud. You can even shop on Amazon together or create joint playlists.

How to Watch Netflix Together?

You might be isolated in your own home, all alone, thanks to the social distancing rules and fighting Covid-19. But you don’t have to watch your favorite Netflix content alone.

Teleparty (previously Netflix Party)

Works on Chrome only and requires a Netflix subscription

Teleparty is a Google Chrome extension, and it’s very easy to install.

Only the person creating the shared room needs to install it. Click here for Chrome Web Store link.

Once you have it:

• Choose a movie or show and pause it
• Then, create your party by clicking on the red “NP” button (next to the address bar)
• Invite your friends by sharing the party URL to join and comment on it in the chat
• Once the movie or episode ends, you need to recreate the room again (one of the drawbacks of the extension)

Conclusion

These are the best ways to listen to music and videos together.

Most are free but require some kind of a paid subscription. Without a premium music streaming service your music options are limited.

Thanks a lot for checking our guide.

P.S. Did we miss any? If you find an even better or more convenient one, please let us know.

Matija Ferjan

Matija Ferjan is a seasoned audio enthusiast reviewing headphones since 2015. He has personally tested hundreds of headphones and earbuds. He’s an active member of the Headphone Audio community and a true nitpicker, always looking for the “best-value-for-money” headphones.