Audio streaming through external soundcard

[grigu69]

Plan

Premium

Country

 Romania

Device

Asus ROG G56jk upgraded to 8GB ram with 1tb HDD 7200 RPM and i7 4710HQ processor

Operating System

(Windows 10)

My Question or Issue

Hello Spotify community. I have a big issue with my app. Usually it didn't happen so often but now it happens everytime i open my laptop.
I'm using an external sound card (Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 2nd gen with all drivers updated!!!) and for about 1-2 month i experience this thing: the audio playback is slowed down, and there are cracks and pops throughout the entire song. sometimes this thing lasted for..10-20 seconds and then dissparears but now everytime i play a song those cracks and pops annoy the h*** out of me. I didn't watched the clock to see for how much these things happen but i can clearly tell you that it's more than 5 minutes. Right now i'm playing a 3 minute song and changed like 2 tracks and the problem persists. Even though i reconnect the usb cable and so there's no improvement, however if i unplugg the external soundcard, the sound coming from the laptop's soundcard is just fine. I will attach a video with my problem so you can understand what i'm talking about.
Thank you.

(So far i uninstalled spotify twice, reinstalled the audio drivers twice and also the windows is freshly installed with the HDD formated (i had a problem with the windows and i had to format the entire HDD like 1-2 months ago MAX)

*untill i managed to upload a file with the problem, the audio streaming is WORKING. and i didn't do nothing. luckily i managed to record the thing that's happening.
**ok so i can't shrink the mp4 file size, please make a 10MB limit for file uploads..
https://youtu.be/_xfs0vXdSwU

[Sebasty · Accepted solution]

Hey @grigu69

The audio issue sounds a bit like insufficient buffer size. Have you tried increasing the buffer size from ASIO control panel?

Was the issue present before the formatting too?

Let me know how it goes! 🙂

[grigu69]

The problem was present but not like this. it lasted first 10-20 seconds and then it was ok. Also there was one time when the problem was the same even without the soundcard. I have spotify for 6-7 months or so and it didn't happen to me until october or november. The soundcard doesn't make this kind of sound if i playback something from youtube or facebook or mp3 from my HDD. so i guess it just adjust it's buffer size automatically.

*i found the asio panel and the buffer was at maximum. 1024 at 44.1 khz. changed it to 512 and now there's no problem whatsoever. maybe the buffer size was too large for spotify?

[Sebasty · Accepted solution]

@grigu69

Buffer size 1024 with 44.1kHz for me causes omnipresent and really crazy audio clitching in all audio that's played back. Maybe your computer is a little better than mine and it only resorted to this relatively mild (well, compared to mine) but still annoying issue in Spotify.

For example, my ASIO settings are at 1024 with 192kHz, because my laptop is old and needs big buffer, otherwise it has audio glitches. 192 comes from my local library.

I'd say your ASIO settings were simply not very good. Spotify should handle all buffer sizes (except very small) and bitrates up to 192kHz.

Have a nice day 🙂

[grigu69]

I don't have the issue anymore..seems like the 1024 buffer size was the problem. now i'm using 512 and it works just fine everytime.

[dki89]

I also found LOWER buffer sizes to better prevent glitches. 1024 on my Clarett+ 2Pre frequently causes dropouts and seconds-long slowdowns as if turning down the speed on turntables. Whereas I experience no issues with buffer sizes of 16 or 32.