topic Re: Bad sound quality only on mobile phone in Android

Bad sound quality only on mobile phone

M1ndKilla — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:47:18 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country

Georgia, but I live in Portugal for now

Device

Google Pixel 6a

Operating System

Android 16

My Question or Issue

I use Spotify on my laptop (MacBookPro) and on smartphone at the same time

And some time ago, I found out that after a long time listening to songs on my laptop, I went for a walk somewhere with my phone with the same headphones (WH-1000XM4), and the sound quality was disgustingly bad.
I thought that the issue was with my phone, and I went through many instructions to make the sound better. In settings all in the best quality mode, I have switched off all equalization (in the app and everywhere in the phone). I have checked Bluetooth settings, and all looks fine
After that, I was ready even to change my phone to get better quality, but then I decided to just check the video with the same track on youTube and it sounds normal. I have checked the same song in YouTubeMusic, and it sounds normal, even on the free version
But when I open it in Spotify, it sounds so bad, like in the barrel, and I have no idea how to fix that

Please help me

Song which I have checked:

As I Lay Dying - My Own Grave

Re: Bad sound quality only on mobile phone

Ivelina — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:36:49 GMT

Hello @M1ndKilla,

Thanks for reaching out via the Community!

As far as I understand, the issue is only with this particular song when you've connected your headphones to your mobile device and if you're listening from the phone's speakers then the quality is not bad.

Kudos for already going over some troubleshooting steps. If you've not already done so, consider performing a clean reinstall as well with these steps. It often helps resolve different performance issues that are caused by corrupted cache.

Some other things to check in the meantime are:

Disable Audio Normalization within Spotify's Settings > Playback.
How the song sounds if you've downloaded it.
To connect to another Bluetooth device (if one is available).

We'll be on the lookout.

Re: Bad sound quality only on mobile phone

M1ndKilla — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 15:02:22 GMT

Thank you, Ivelina

As far as I understand, the issue is only with this particular song when you've connected your headphones to your mobile device and if you're listening from the phone's speakers then the quality is not bad.

No, I can't check the quality of the sound through the speakers, because speakers are kinda weak for this purpose:

- Spotify on MacOs on my MacBook Pro - good quality
- Spotify on Android on my Google Pixel 6a - bad quality

- YouTubeMusic on Android on my Google Pixel 6a - good quality

Disable Audio Normalization within Spotify's Settings > Playback.

It is already turned off

How the song sounds if you've downloaded it.

same result

To connect to another Bluetooth device (if one is available).

I have only this headphones

I want to add that sometimes it is hard to compare sound and it sounds fine even on mobile phone

I can think that the reason is dynamic quality, but I turned off this dynamic thing in settings because I want to have the best quality no matter what

Re: Bad sound quality only on mobile phone

Ivelina — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 15:45:37 GMT

Appreciate you returning with this info @M1ndKilla.

We'd like to look further into this as you've mentioned there's no difference both when streaming the song connected to the internet and when listening to it downloaded offline.

To be on the safe side, could you perform a clean reinstall and let us know if there's any difference streaming via internet and listening to the track downloaded (keep in mind you'd have to re-download the content)? When connected to the headphones, try with toggling and changing the sound quality settings once again from Media quality.

Lastly, to get a better understanding, let us know if this is happening with other songs as well and it'd be great if you could even share a link to the particular song here.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Re: Bad sound quality only on mobile phone

M1ndKilla — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:45:35 GMT

@Ivelina

Looks like I have finally found the issue.

When I am in my home, when I open sound quality settings, all looks fine with quality (image 1)

But if I go somewhere, application blocks sound quality for Cellualar streaming and sets "Low" with no option to change it.

For example this song:
https://open.spotify.com/track/46odPfzMypgxCBMUPmdKxr?si=80d73f8859ee4a33

It is very new and must be not cached, but when I listen to this in metro it sounds very terrible

I want to be able to listen only highest quality, because it is better to sit in silence, then listen to low quality music. I can wait for downloading, it is not a big deal.
And as I told in the start of the topic, in "YouTube Music", even in free version the quality is fine in the same conditions

Re: Bad sound quality only on mobile phone

Paula_Vi — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 21:26:33 GMT

Hi there, @M1ndKilla

Thanks for keeping in contact!

Jumping in to suggest some other troubleshooting steps. Just to confirm, have you checked if the location permission is enabled for Spotify in your phone's settings? If you've checked this and the Bluetooth settings and the quality is still as poor as before on your mobile, then try checking the battery optimization on your phone's settings following these steps:

Open your phone's Settings app.
Tap on Apps, then tap See all apps.
Click on Spotify.
Tap on App battery usage or just Battery from the app's info page (Spotify should be on "unrestricted" to function normally).

Also, check on the Spotify app's settings under Data saving and offline menu that the Data saver mode feature is toggled to always off.

Keep us in the loop!