Streaming quality does nothing

[whyitnowork11]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Operating System

Manjaro Linux

I check audio quality with:

➜ ~ rm spotify.log; spotify --log-file=spotify.log

No matter what I do it always streams at "bitrate: 160000 bits/s".

Things I've done:

- Double checked my account is premium (unless it's bugged or something, not recent premium, have had it for awhile).

- Tried the official snap version and also arch AUR build.

- Toggling stream quality in settings does nothing. Auto, high, very high, low all does the same thing and streams at the same bitrate. (I restarted app after everything change).

Can argue maybe I can't hear the difference between high and very high. But for sure I can tell the difference if it actually set the quality to low! So the logs are reporting correctly, and the setting doesn't do anything.

[Sebasty]

Hey @whyitnowork11 

The quality settings affect the bit rate, not the sample rate.
Currently you're on 160kbps bitrate, which is equal to High. Very High is 320kbps.

Spotify client set to Very High streams 16bit 320kbps Ogg Vorbis. There is no higher sample rate available than 16bit.

See this for more information about bitrates across platforms Spotify supports.

Does it still streams at 160kbps when you set the client to be Very High?

Let me know how it goes, have a nice day 🙂

[whyitnowork11]

Thank you for reply, there is some confusion, I never was talking about sample rate. This is completely about bitrate, it's stuck at 160kbps no matter the setting.

Low, normal, high, very high, auto = 160kbps always according the log. Even if log is misreporting, I can hear there is no difference. Even to the average person the difference in sound quality between low vs high would be noticeable. But there is no difference, it always streams at 160kbps.

[Sebasty]

@whyitnowork11 

Alright, thanks for clarifying! This is indeed weird.

What version of Spotify are you on?

Did this start happening recently, or has it always been an issue for you?

Try turning off Volume Normalization, unless you already have done so.

See if your audio quality is what it should be by running

 pacmd list-sinks | grep sample

in the Terminal.

Keep me posted 🙂

[whyitnowork11]

Spotify version 1.1.55.498.gf9a83c60, Copyright (c) 2021, Spotify Ltd
I've tested both AUR & snap version.

Turning off Volume Normalization doesn't affect anything. Also I'm using pipewire by the way. And I've tried `rm -rf ~/.config/spotify`.

I'm convinced it's a bug. I swapped to OS X (big sur) and did the same tests, it is "stuck" there too. The setting does not do anything. However I am getting 320kbps on OSX. Changing it to "low/normal/high" does nothing to the bitrate.

So I am very convinced now the quality setting is stuck on AUTO (default). It defaults to 160kbps on my Linux system, and 320kbps on my OSX system.

Try it yourself @Sebasty try changing to low, does your bitrate change?

[pengull · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I've run into the same problem but I've somehow managed to fix it by editing the prefs file located inside the spotify folder, which, in my case (flatpak version), can be found in /home/user/.var/app/com.spotify.Client/config/spotify/Users/user/prefs

Make sure these parameters are set as follows:
audio.play_bitrate_non_metered_migrated=true
audio.sync_bitrate_enumeration=4
audio.play_bitrate_enumeration=4
audio.play_bitrate_non_metered_enumeration=4

Let me know if everything works now 🙂

[b4al]

Thanks for posting this @pengull, it worked for me!

I had the same problem using Spotify on Arch Linux from AUR. Only 'automatic' music quality was available with no option to select other. After adding these lines to my user preferences config set the music quality to 'very high'.

/home/<username>/.config/spotify/Users/<userid-user>/prefs

#add these lines
audio.sync_bitrate_enumeration=4
audio.play_bitrate_enumeration=4
audio.play_bitrate_non_metered_enumeration=4

#spotify --log-file=spotify.log
08:11:44.373 I [f:742 ] Opening driver (0x7f6cd84df4a0)
08:11:44.374 I [f:743 ] sample rate: 44100 Hz
08:11:44.374 I [f:744 ] channels: 2
08:11:44.374 I [f:745 ] sample format: 32-bit-float-pcm
08:11:44.374 I [f:746 ] stream type: default
08:11:44.374 I [f:747 ] audio content type: music
08:11:44.374 I [f:748 ] paused: false
08:11:44.375 I [f:281 ] Opening sink for playback.
08:11:44.375 I [f:282 ] codec: vorbis
08:11:44.375 I [f:283 ] bitrate: 320000 bits/s
08:11:44.375 I [f:284 ] sample rate: 44100 Hz
08:11:44.375 I [f:285 ] channels: 2
08:11:44.375 I [f:286 ] sample format: 32-bit-float-pcm
08:11:44.375 I [f:289 ] duration: 360319 ms

[billyq82]

I have a similar issue with the mobile app. No matter the quality setting bit rate is always stuck at 160kbps.

I’m using a Qudelix 5k Bluetooth amplifier and the provided app is reporting the bitrate in realtime

[Jixbo]

The solution above works great!!
I wonder how long will the menu be broken, as it's been like this for a few months. I used to like spotify because linux support was decent, but it's sad to see basic functionality not working now.

[rick_music]

I agree totally with Jixbo. Yeah, very disappointing.

Spotify Ltd was the pioneer of a new and modern way of software development. The so called "Spotify Agile Model". In fact, rapid adaption of Spotify's ideas changed the software industry almost overnight.  Well, in less than ten years, but that is very quick. Agile development, continuous integration of changes in products, etc... it got worldwide attention by the pioneering efforts at Spotify.

Considering this it is very, very disappointing that Spotify clients (I mean persons who pay money every month, not software), persons who happen to use Linux as their favorite desktop are treated like second-class citizens. To implement the little change as described above is *peanuts*.

What has remained of the innovative agileness of Spotify Ltd.?