Spotiy Premium audio quality - pretty disappointed

[Choiglia]

Just signed up for Spotify Premium after reading that the premium service streams high quality audio.  Did two quick quality comparisons, and so far I am pretty disappointed.

First I played a local audio file using Spotify.  I had ripped the file from a CD in iTunes... don't remember the settings, but they were high.  Sounded great.  Then I searched for the same song on Spotify and streamed it.... sounded significantly worse.

Then I played another local audio file using Spotify.  This file was not ripped from a CD.  It was downloaded from iTunes.  Sounded good.  Again searched for the same song on Spotify and streamed it.... again really disappointed by the Spotify streamed version.  Noticeably worse.

High Quality Streaming is checked on in my preferences.  Am I missing something?  Is the streaming quality just inferior?

Anyone else experience similar results?

[johnnysound16]

The same experience for me.   I went for the Spotify "premium" version for the sole purpose of  obtaining  high quality streaming audio, (not interested in mobile devices or other gadgets) and the results are, well, similar to yours,  disappointing.   First, if you offer high quality audio as a premium, paid  service, you should deliver just that, as promised,  Second, it is perfectly understandable that not all of the "premium" material is available at high bitrates.   However, it is absolutely necessary that the stream bitrate should appear in the premium control panel,  so you can choose the version that best suites you.   Third, even a standard 128 streaming bitrate can sound really good,  as we all know from some  excellent Internet radio stations,  so very obviously, even a standard  bitrate can be delivered in high quality if the station really cares about its associated equipment and its sound.      Keep in mind that all this is free,  I can choose a 320 hi def station freely, no charge, so very frankly, with the very high quality  computer audio gear that we have today,  and what  is available from  competing audio streaming services,  offrering "high quality audio"  today is not a joke.   Maybe the mainstream consumer will take the marketing hipe,    but in my experience, Spotify "premium" is delivering  nothing near 320 or 192,  the best I heard was around 5%, 162 or so,  maybe 50 % of, well,  acceptable 128, the rest below that,  but even the 128 was  a kind of standard sound,   clearly  restricted in dynamics, bass, and, well, "life".   This is not a problem of bitrates only.  This is way more serious. Spotify is compressing  the streams , perhaps for more efficiency,  and  this way you will never get really good  sound. ,    Sorry, I have a modern  external DAC, high resolution,   which reveals everything,      I want to be constructive, and I think Spotify does have one of the greatest databases of music available,  really a great one,  but dear sirs,  "high quality audio" should be taken very seriously...       

[user-removed · Accepted solution]

Hey there. Sorry about this.

Quality is 160 kbps by default. After update to premium, rmeember to select High 320 kbps quality from Preferences and for best results after clean-reinstall or cache removal.

Hope dat heps!

[johnnysound16 · Accepted solution]

Hi hpguru, and thank you for the advice.  Before reading your post, I did exactly what you suggest: a clean reinstall and selected "high quality audio" in preferences.  Ok, the sound improved but not too much.  Puzzled, I read all the posts in this forum (wise decision) and found that Choiglia and aelOnn have discovered the problem, or at least part of it.    Both of them use  external DACs as I do,  and, while it is indeed very difficult to identify different  sampling rates "by ear",  specially from streaming audio,   any good  DAC  will reveal inmediately other problems  in sound quality,  not related to  the bitrate.   In my previous post, I said that Spotify sounded compressed to me, and I was right.    As they discovered,  by unchecking the "equal volume"  tab in preferences  the sound improved a whole lot.  And, as they said, it is weird  that a simple volume control can do this.   I am no technician,  but  it is pretty obvious  that the problem lies in the Spotify Software, which is compressing not only volume, but also dynamic range.   When you do this, you kill the sound.

  In computer audio, everybody  knows the  dangers of tampering with the signal in the digital domain.  The less you alter it, the better it sounds.  Just to be sure, I also unchecked the "allow hardware acceleration" tab.  Since there is no bitrate indication in the control panel, there is no way to know,  but surely Spotify now sounds a LOT better.   Finally, when you save some song for a playlist, a message like "improving the sound for the playlist" appears.  What is this ?  It looks like dual bitrates, one for  "browsing" and a higher one for playlists...I think that Spotify should take note and improve its software platform as soon as possible.   

Kind regards,

[Peter__]

Finally, when you save some song for a playlist, a message like "improving the sound for the playlist" appears.  What is this ?

Is that not the message you get when you press the thumbs up button on a radio station? If so its not related to sound quality, its just the system improving your station as it learns what you want to listen to.

[user-removed]

The quality of Spotify Premium is very good.

If you hear quality badly, maybe you need to improve your sound system or clear cacge or something?

[johnnysound16]

Thank you for the info,  and  Ok,   if "thumbs up"  is not about sound quality, then the  "improvement"  must be a  faster access to the station thru the playlist or something like that.      Regarding sound quality, by unchecking the "equal  volume" tab in preferences, as I mentioned before, the sound of Spotify premium  improved a lot,  and now is quite good, but...  

My point is that  a simple "volume normalization"  should not have any impact (or very little)  in overall sound quality.  If this happens by default,  then  we have a software problem.    At the minimum, the designers overdone this function,   and we can only wonder if  other internal settings are also degrading the sound in some way  or another (I hope not).     That is why I am quite sure that a revised sofware version of Spotify,  focused in  sound quality,  will  be  much welcomed by all of us.  

[Peter__]

I can't say I have ever heard much different in sound quality between volume normalization on and off.

It does stand to reason you will loose a little quality, as you do anytime you alter the signals. For ultimate sound quality, hardware devices like Sonos, Onkyo (to name a few) and Spotify Connect all stream directly from Spotify without volume normalization for top quality playback. 

[user-removed]

I've had this problem in the past, haven't had the time to check all the replies so maybe someone already mentioned it, but deleting the local storage of spotify might remove the previously stored lower bitrate files, and you can try again with premium, it should redownload the higher bitrate this time if premium bitrate is enabled.

[E41Hz]

Hi all, I'm a new Spotify Premium member on a good PC making the transition over from MOG (which was bought by BeatsMusic and sadly will be shut down mid April).  When I do an a/b listening comparison of MOG and my premium Spotify on the same tunes, it's quite clear that MOG is producing better sound on my system.  I've searched the Spotify community about sound quality issues and followed your very helpful suggestions on settings (yes, I am set to high quality), purging cache of lower bitrate file, reloading the desktop player etc, yet Spotify is not yet achieving the sound quality that I'm used to on MOG. I have a good nearfield desktop system (Role Kayak speakers through an ARCAM amp) and the MOG produces a soundstage with depth.  Cymbals rings.  You can look into the music.  With Spotify, the music is much flatter, and compressed.  It has a dullness to it.  I was hoping to be excited by the music and hearing new detail as I do with MOG.    

If anyone has identified anything else that might be interfering with Spotify's sound, I would love to know.  I really want this work.  Thanks.

[Joe]

That's strange as 320kbps OGG Vobis should give a better quality then 320kbps CBR MP3. Are you hearing this on all genres of music? 

[spotf]

Here's the real reason why your sound quality sounds the same: 

http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2011/07/18/is-spotifys-high-quality-streaming-a-sham/

"Though the original July 2009 announcement and the Spotify website make it clear that “not all tracks are currently available in high bitrate”, 320kbps streaming is still one of the headline features for Spotify Premium. The company hasn’t prominently indicated how many songs are available in that format which makes the blogger’s research and the company’s responses interesting reading…"

[Peter__]

That was back in 2011, I would imagine things have moved on a long way since then.

[thotu84]

Nah, spotify sound quality is still bad. Good enough for a smartphone and headphones for 20 euros.

[Peter__]

I think the issue with sound quality is, the vast majority of users (myself included) find it very difficult to hear any difference between good 320kbps tracks and lossless. And with that being the case, the cost of extra bandwidth makes it questionably worthwhile at the minute.

[E41Hz]

As a jazz listener, I find that a number of tunes on Spotify premium do not have the same sound quality as the same tune on MOG (which at the moment is still live and streaming...for another month or so).  I've been comparing the same tunes on both services for the past two months with a good audio system (Arcam amp, Role Audio speakers) and about two thirds of the time Spotify and MOG are about the same sound quality.  About a third of the time MOG is far superior in providing music with presence, depth and soundstage.  The tunes on Spotify sound way more compressed.  It's clear to me that Spotify has work to do in upgrading its library.  

But I also agree that even with my system, I have a hard time hearing meaningful differences between 320kbps streams and lossless.  But I can hear the difference between a good 320 kbps stream and a more compressed stream, and unfortunately occurs way too often on Spotify.  

[thotu84]

I agree with you.

I hardly hear any difference between a good 320kbps stream and losslesss.
Spotify might have 320 kbps, unfortunately it just doesn't sound good.

I do not have any expensive equipment, but people still say "Wow, this sounds much better", when comparing a track between spotify and some other source.

[runnerbeans]

been following this thread with some interest as i am also struggling with similar. but also new to all this so i am hoping its user error. I am using a Naim network player, streaming via my laptop spotify account (with a Jamcast server as Naim still dont directly support Spotify). I have tested three scenarios and have found this

Cut cd's copied to my disk and streamed via the laptop sound great.

CD's played in my cd player sound great

the same CD streamed from Spotify Premium sounds awful. Almost no mid and top end and out of control booming  bass. 

I am wireless so in a desperate attempt to elimitate wifi i am installing a new 50mb BB connection and will use an ethernet cable from the router into the network player and see if there is any improvement.. If there is not then i am stumped..  i wont be able to test this for a couple of weeks however will feed back what i find.. I hope i can finally find a way to stream HQ music from the net!

😞

[runnerbeans]

Update as of today.. Again I Spent an hour trialling more tests. here are the results.

Download a standard Itunes quality track- same artist, album and song throughout- sound quality acceptable but not great as expected

stream a sample from a HQ site (Linn) in this case - sound quality as good as the CD player, if not slightly better.

Play Naims own Radio Stations through the network player- great sound but not same artist.

Again play the same streams from Spotify and its just awful- The wife even said "take it back" I told her its not the hardware! 🙂

So after 6 tests/variations the only unlistenable format is Spotify. I am going to take the player back to the dealer (as its on loan) and ask him to demonstrate streaming music thats acceptable. I hope he can..

Ho hum

[Peter__]

Wondering is it down to formats, iTunes is probably in .m4a format whereas Spotify streams in .ogg.

[jatoba]

Hi All, I did the quality test with Spotify premium desktop and Qobuz premium that advertizes 320kpb and higher (up to losseless) using a Jazz song (so not testing on basic rap song) and frankly there is some noticeable difference in quality. Qobuz sound richer, more dynamique, more cristal clear - I ve unchecked "equal volume in pref" of Spotify + checked high quality streaming.

Spotify should state the bitrate of each song so that we can really compare.

Also, I don t agree with the argument that i read several times in the thread "most people don t hear the difference between 320kbp and looseless) so there is no need for higher quality. This is so stupid: if you keep earing poor quality music, your ear will get lazy and little by little you will not see the difference between a 96kbp and a CD quality song..

If you want to level down your music experience, up to you!