Bad sound quality with premium

[satelite]

I have premium and some tracks are in offline. I discovered that sound quality at Spotify is low at the moment. I listened first a song (320kbps MP3) and after that same song in Spotify, high and mid range sounds are so low quality or allmost missing in Spotify.

I traced my sound quality problem to Spotify (high quality streaming is on, hardware acceleration is on and same volume for all tracks is off) and i tested this with 2 different computers and 2 different accounts and same problem. So it cant be hardware.

I have listened my songs so much so i know some songs listened much better before... now they play like played from broken speaker (tracks from Spotify... not from my local files!).

So the problem must be in Spotify... Is anyone else noticed big drop in sound quality?

[Rune1]

Premium sound quality on Spotify is not as good as Deezer or Google, that's a fact  and i can i hear the difference clearly.

Spotify sounds compressed and less full and engaging ,it hurts my ears when listened at high volumes.

This never happened to me with Deezer, Google or Tidal.

I'm currently on Tidal and the HIFI quality there is just MIND BLOWING, much better than Deezer and Google and 1000 times better than Spotify, it's like you are listening to your music for the first time if you come from Spotify.

I subscribed to Tidal only for this reason, Spotify has a great app and a lot of features with a very good catalog (Tidal's catalog and app are surprisingly really good too anyway, despite it is a relatively new service) but for me the most important thing is the sound quality and Spotify Premium has the worst sound quality of the four services.

I don't know why they are not improving it or why they don't make a higher quality subscription plan to provide the same service as Tidal for example, but again they are behind Deezer and Google in  the "lossy" department too and this drives me crazy. 

I'm not an audiophile freak but i am not deaf either and i'm constantly testing different streaming services with a decent audio equipment, when i come back to Spotify everytime i realize that NOTHING has changed.

[fluidz15]

Its all in your head 😉

[TattyBee]

Thank you!!! This is exactly what was wrong with mine! Cheers 😄

[Arcturus95]

I had the same problem as you guys, very bad sound quality on nearly every song, crackling noises and no bass. What helped me is to turn of the Hardware accleration! 

Songs are Crystal clear now!

[oldcargirl]

I was suddenly experiencing poor sound quality, no bass at all on an HP laptop with Windows 10. I tried a previous suggestion (I think on page 2 of this thread) of disabling my sound card/driver. I was a little nervous because you don't just disable it, it actually removed it. But a quick search for 'sound' showed the driver link , clicked it open, I reactivated it and Voila! Normal sound quality again. 

[etheuer]

This solved my problem:

1. Uninstall Spotify (move the app to the trash)
2. Using Finder, navigate to: YOURUSERNAME/Library/Application Support/Spotify
3. Delete all contents inside this folder
4. Reinstall Spotify
5. Enjoy high quality again!

[Kungfupanda77]

I appear to be having this problem.recently, I thought it was a headphone problem then realised that the music is actually skipping like a scratched record. Appears to be on both streaming and downloaded files which have worked fine previously. Any suggestions on how to resolve this please?

[markspl_]

Hi. This is old thread but i want to share my thoughts too.
With my android I tried to download the best quality track so I can listen while I'm offline. Problem is I can hear the difference with offline sound and steamed sound.
I've tried to uninstall Spotify, clear all data (all folders what I found from android file system) and redownload songs in the best quality.
Tried to untick option 'play songs at the same volume'.
I have Finnish language in Spotify so I'm not sure how these options are in English.

[user-removed]

I feel I'm going crazy. Am I the only one who thinks this song sounds like 64-96kbps mp3 on Spotify compared to SoundCloud or even YouTube? And also, why the heck is not the same version with that awesome instrumental at 0:54?

Khwezi - Like An Animal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T72NumwYqw

https://soundcloud.com/onlyclassy/khwezi-like-an-animal

https://open.spotify.com/album/2SOLlBLASJCeaotOQN9NBY

[calebjoyce]

Streaming music with High Quality turned on and I get the same results as the post above me. Soundcloud and youtube sound so much richer. Deeper bass, cleaner highs. What's the deal? 

[tonyram57]

Just did the 3 month promo for $10 and I regreat it.  Sound quality is horrible at the highest quality.  It sounds just as bad as Play Music.  Apple Music and Amazon Music sound amazing.

[Freefom]

According to my DAC Spotify Premium is 44.1 khz

[chkh89]

I have tried apple music side by side with spotify on the same exact track on my ip6s+ for almost a month now with the two different IEMs. I have found that the volume in spotify is always significantly lower than apple music (by two knots, in the volume bar to get almost equal volume). i thought it was just apple music's default equalizer settings which deliberately ramp the volume up but i soon realise that is not the case as many new and old songs played in spotify are now really flat and lack of details. When i ramp up the volume to get the same hearing experience as apple music, i realise there are plenty of distortions and i did not even put any effort into scrutinising the details to hear all that distortions (just try Leona Lewis Bleeding Love from 2nd chorus till the end). I have my settings setup as the thread starter as well. i'm just a casual listener, so please spotify, dont complicate things and just bring us good music quality!

[notlordcalvert]

This worked perfectly. What a difference. Thank you!

[eTaoss]

Actually its not, if you have a pair of decent headphones, just sit in quiet place and compare it yourself, I was also really dissapointed when I heard the difference, and not talking just about HIFI quality in tidal, I tried also only their "high" quality and it's sadly still much better than Spotify. Spotify just lacks quality in highs and sometimes even in mids. 

I am spotify user for years and this makes me consider leaving