Premium account is 320kb when played in Desktop app? 256kb in Webplayer?

[Cajingo]

I have the settings in the desktop app set to "high quality". So if I play a song through the desktop app, it is for sure coming in at 320kb quality? Do I have to download it to get that quality?

Also, I see no change in the webplayer, but I read that with Premium account the files will play at 256kb automatically. Is this correct? How can I verify the quality?

Thanks.

[Sebasty]

Hey @Cajingo, welcome to the Community!

Regarding the web player, when you're on Premium it will automatically switch to streaming at 256kbps AAC. It's also not possible to choose the streaming quality in that interface, so it sticks with either 128 or 256 depending on your subscription status.

The desktop client will stream and download at whichever quality you've chosen.

Refer to this table below:

Also, note the file formats: 256kbps AAC is equivalent to 320kbps OGG and there is no audible quality difference between the two.

If you'd like to learn more about Spotify's audio options, check out this article. 🙂

Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with;

Have a nice day!

[Cajingo]

I think they're downloading way too fast to be 320kb. But this is the only reason I got Premium. If they're not at least 256kb, I'd like to know.

[Sebasty · Accepted solution]

@Cajingo 

There is a way to check what the audio quality is that you're streaming. It's using the console and you have to be rather fast to catch the right moment when the console outputs this. I'll show you what mine put out:

If you want to see what it shows on your end, do this:

1. Close Spotify.

2. Open the Run app (hit Windows Logo + R)

3. Write this in it:

%appdata%\Spotify\Spotify.exe --show-console

Now Spotify will open  along with a Command Prompt window that puts out pretty much everything the client is doing and it can look like a cascading river at first.

Now, you can hit play on any track and see what the console says.

If you want time to read, take a screenshot of the right place (you can scroll a limited amount in the commandline) and paste it in MS Paint or something to take a closer look.

Note (small, but important): Closing the command line will also close Spotify.

Let me know if you need more help with this! 🙂

[Sebasty]

Also, for downloading tracks, the console puts out this:

Just in case you have trouble with finding anything useful for downloading songs.

All this will work perfectly fine with Spotify downloaded from spotify.com. If you have a Windows Store client, however, the client won't be in %appdata%.
I can't tell if it's possible to run that command on Windows Store Spotify because it'll run in a different mode (inside 'app containers'), but if needed, I can look into it.

: )

[Cajingo]

That was very helpful. Thanks. I did find it in the console to say 320kb.