Sound quality on Mac desktop app

[Ginger817]

Love the idea of Spotify, just installed on my Macbook Pro and am doing the free 30 day premium trial.  I changed the sound quality to High in preferences but it's not very good sound.  I'm not running it through anything else, my Mac is connected directly to speakers.   When I play the same song I have locally vs the high quality from Spotify it doesn't sound as good and it's a higher bitrate than the MP3 file I have.  Any ideas or suggestions?  I'd love to use this on my iPhone as well but I want to get better sound quality.

[Jude]

Delete the streaming cache which will still be largely normal bitrate. You do do this by deleting (on Mac)

~/Library/Application Support/Spotify

On Mountain Lion, the Library is hidden.

1. Click on Finder
2. Use the Go menu in the main menu bar, with the Alt key pressed
3. Choose Library

[Ginger817]

Thanks, found it it and deleted everything, unfortunately the sound didn't improve.  Oh well, it will probably sound ok on my phone but i really wanted it to sound good on my deskop too

[ebg25]

I have the same problem on my macbook air (MBA) 2011. The same songs sound better thru Spotify on my iPhone than my MBA, why is this? Isn't  the option "high quality streaming" on the desptop version of Spotify as high as the "extreme" setting on the iOS app? This really bothers me.

[Ginger817]

Yes, it never sounded good to me so I canceled my premium membership. I love the concept of Spotify but high quality is NOT high quality.  When I play Pandora at the higher quality it sounds 10 times better and what I expected on Spotify.   Perhaps it is a contractual agreement with the musical artists in return for being about to play anything on demand....if so it should be disclosed exactly what the quality is.

[iben301]

Then wait for the "Exclusively streaming on spotify"

[philmg]

Guys,

I am using and iMac with basis Klipsch 2.1 speakers and the sound is Excellent and definitely sounds like a 320kbps stream.  There is something not right with your setup.  Also the sound from my iPhone 5 streaming via bluetooth in my car also sounds excellent.

On my iPhone to reduce data usage, I download to my phone using high quality and it sounds really good.  I have used the the higher quality Pandora, and Spotify and MOG both sound much better.

I suggest you send an email to support@spotify.com and they will help you resolve this issue.

Thanks, Phil 

[ruccola]

Both Macbooks in my household (one from 2009, one from 2012) produce excellent sound with Spotify. Must be something other than the application, methinks.

[Ginger817]

Well, I followed their instructions about deleting files , etc and nothing changed.  Configuring a laptop/hardware for a simple sound app reminds me too much of a PC - eek -- I left the Windows world last summer and I ain't goin' back 🙂  It's not a big deal, I didn't need another monthly payment anyway.

[Digger]

I'm running my premium account on a mac mini and the sound is great but I have these distortions that kind of ruin it for me. Just momentary but on a regular 26 second cycle. Either it's something that just cropped up or when I upgraded to some better speakers, I'm hearing it now. If it's that noticeable upgrading my computer speakers, I don't know what it's going to be like when my Rec/Amp and hi end speakers get here next month.  Sounds like the service is dropping a packet on a regular basis. If it doesn't clear up I think it may cause me to rethink this so called "premium" service. Great sounding music that has distortions, either induced or not, is crummy music.

[Digger]

I finally got fed up and ran onyx and restarted the mac. My online backup has been running all day so I shut it down and didn't start all the programs I had running before. Don't know what the problem was but Spotify is now not distorting like it was. Could be I had Crashplan with too much CPU and bandwidth and too many things going on. Not sure and will limit the number of programs running when I'm listening to music. Now I'm getting what I pay for and hope it continues to remain glitch free from here.

[GFSinPhilly]

To get high quality sound from Spotify or any other app  on the Mac, you must launch the Audio Midi Setup Utility (in the Applications Utlities Folder).  

Select headphone output (or your built in speaker output) and select 96K output, 24 bit 2 channel from the output tabs.     (It usually defaults to 44K which doesn't sound too good.)   I think it will solve your problem

[crosswire]

Noticed this too.  Apple has basically abandoned the mac in regards to certain things.  Audio quality is better on iOS mobile devices because that where Apple is throwing in the basket most of its eggs, MOBILE.  So, it's not only the outdated sound drivers, but also the audio hardware itself.  Apple = high margins, cheap chipsets for premium price.

[ravi0lli]

I think I've solved this. I had the same problem and here's what I did.

1. cmd + space to open search
2. search for audio MIDI setup
3. click the output device and change the format to 48,000 hz
4. profit.

[Mmagnet]

I have the same experience!

I have a Macbook Air (mid 2011) and IPhone 7

Both spotify on mobile and desktop is connected to my audio system through Apple Tv.

High quality streaming is ON on desktop and Extreme is set on mobile. 

Quality through the mobile is much better than through the desktop, why is that?

[GFSinPhilly]

Go to your Applications folder, then the Utilities folder.   Inside the Utilities folder, find the app, Audio Midi Setup.  

Select your output and change the output settings to 48 Khz instead of the default 44 KHz.     See if that improves things.