Audio distortion in all songs

[Niklas_mp3]

Hello everyone,

I have a problem which has annoyed me for more than a year now which makes the music listening with the desktop app almost unusable. After any song playing for around 1 minute, the audio gets distorted / crumbles (like in the attached MP3) for around 1 second, resumes for 1 second and then crumble again until I skip to the next song or pause and resume it. I have tried the following things:

- restart Spotify

- restart computer

- reinstall windows 10 (clean)

- reinstalled/uninstalled audio driver

- tried different spotify settings

- tried different windows settings

- switching accounts

I only have this problem on my main PC and not on my laptop. I have had this problem since I switched from Intel to AMD (Ryzen R5 1600 on an Asus B350 Mainboard).

Has somebody experienced this problem themselves or has a solution for me to try? I've searched all around the internet but haven't found anything that describes my problem. Thanks in advance 🙂

Plan

Premium

Country

Austria

Device

Custom-built PC

Operating System

Windows 10

[badumtss]

Is it happening when you're listening your downloaded songs too? If yes, i think the problem is your Spotify PC version. Is it up to date? The problem is can't be your hardware i think. If it is, you'll hear same sounds when you're listening songs on YouTube etc.

[Niklas_mp3]

Hello nactigi,

Yes, the problem is present when listening to downloaded songs, Spotify is up-to-date, so is Windows and all the drivers.

[badumtss]

Okay i'm trying to solve your problem 😄 Have you tried Spotify Web Player? Is there same problem too?

[Niklas_mp3]

No, the web player works perfectly fine and I used it as a temp solution because of the limited feature-set.

[Bobins]

Whilst the symptoms reported are not completely identical this does seem the most relevant post to what im experiencing... It's only been a recent occurrence but recently all music that I play at any sort of "decent" volume becomes harshly distorted... I've had to dial the volume back below half to prevent the distortion... which is Not ideal... My system is the same as it's always been... so is my audio equipment, "Creative" speakers plugged into my computer. which remains capable of playing localized music with high Bass levels at high volume with Zero distortion.

Prior to today, everything I've played through Spotify on my computer, be it heavy metal, rock in general or trance/dance anthems has sounded true to the original... with full, deep Bass and no distortion.. yet over the past few days its all distorted at volume above 50%...

I'm baffled as to why this is happening... as all my favorite tracks previously played pure and clear on the same system upto and including 100% of the capable volume of my system.... Ive gone through the settings and changed quality from Auto to Highest, incase it was an auto misshap... causing my recent issues, but im still having the same problem with audio distortion... this is very frustrating!

[Alex]

Hi there @Bobins,

Thanks for reaching out about this.

Could you try running a clean reinstall of the app? This involves deleting the app cache, which can sometimes cause issues. Follow the exact steps from this Spotify Answer here.

If after the clean reinstall, the sound still gets distorted, could you try playing music with headphones or another speaker (if possible) and tell us if you experience the same behavior.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply. 

Thanks.

[dgreen97]

I'm having the same issue now that I switched to AMD ryzen 5600x. I wasn't getting this problem before on spotify desktop. All audio works fine, even Spotify web player, except for spotify desktop where the audio plays and then soon after I get distortion that cuts in and out of the audio for all songs. Any ideas on how to fix this? I've uninstalled spotify multiple times now and hasn't fixed it.

[CarlosE]

Hey there @dgreen97,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community.

Just to confirm, did you make sure to follow these specific steps for a clean reinstall?

It's also a good idea to make sure that your audio drivers are updated. You can try reinstalling those as well.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

[dgreen97]

Ive updated audio drivers for my focusrite scarlett solo and I tried this on my headphones too which are plugged into the motherboard jack and have the same issue. I don't have distortion on any other audio on the system except for spotify desktop. I clean uninstalled Spotify twice too.

[CarlosE]

Hey @dgreen97,

Thanks for your reply.

Can you try the solutions mentioned in this thread? Maybe they're helpful for you too.

Keep us in the loop.

[Lasion]

Hi,

just chipping in to say that I'm experiencing the same problems and this also started after I went from an Intel based rig to my new AMD 5600x rig.

The PC is barely 2 months old and I've never experienced similar problems before.

Songs can play fine for about 10-15 minutes before it suddenly becomes immensely distorted for a good 2-3 seconds then fine for 5-10 seconds and distorted again - until I skip song.

Tried;
deleting temp cache

reinstall spotify

reinstalled audio driver

From what I can read off of the previous posts, this seems to be a problem for AMD users

OS is Win10 H2, all up to date.

[Alex]

Hi @Lasion,

Thanks for the info!

Can you let us know if you've tried removing any entries containing Spotify from your host files? You can do this by following the steps from this post.

Let us know if that makes a difference.

[Lasion]

Hi,

there are no lines in the HOSTS file that relates to spotify, it's pretty much vanilla.

This is the entire content of the file;

"

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

"

[Jeremy]

Hi @Lasion,

Thank you for your reply and confirmation.

Can you confirm if you tried the solution in this thread?

It would also be great if you can log in with another account on the device - such as a friend's or a family member's to make sure it's not account related?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[Lasion]

Hi,

I'm sorry but I don't see how that suggested solution is of any relevance.

That thread is about someone using an external audio card with 3rd party software where the 'Accepted Solution' is to adjust the settings in ASIO (3rd party) settings?

This problem is with integrated sound.

On that note - I've swapped from USB audio to Jack-in audio now and so far haven't had any problems so that might be related. 

Will follow up.

[Novy]

Hi @Lasion, 

Thanks for letting us know about this workaround and apologies for the confusion. 

Just to confirm, is this happening with other apps or only with Spotify? 

Also, do you notice the same behavior when you're using the web player?

We'll be on the lookout. 

[dgreen97]

are you overclocking the 5600x?

[Lasion]

Hi,

First I'd like to say that for the last days the audio has been fine, both with USB and Jack-in... which is kind of nice but also kind of frustrating since it would be nice to consistently recreate the problem.

Secondly yes that is a very good point. I use MSI Gameboost and XMP which overclocks the CPU on high loads, and from memory I can recall a few times that the noise problems with spotify has occured at the same time as high load tasks (intense gaming mostly).

When those problems occured, I would swap to Youtube playlists which would work fine, so its not a 'general' problem but specific to the spotify app.

Specs are;

AMD Ryzen x5600

MSI Tomahawk WiFi X570

Corsair Vengeance 2x16gb 3200mhz

MSI RTX Ventus 2x 3070

[Ver]

Hey @Lasion,

Thanks for keeping us in the loop 🙂

In case the PC is overclocked we'd recommend that you run a factory reset as we cannot assure intended functionalities on such devices. 

Let us know how it goes. If you have questions, you know where to find us.