Spotify Audio Suddenly Extremely Crackly

[snowydawn]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

Desktop PC

Operating System

Windows 11

My Question or Issue

I can't pinpoint the exact date when this began happening but as of late my Spotify has been extremely crackly on songs that are bass heavy. I have changed none of my settings for this to occur and I have tried everything to pinpoint the problem. I have my equalizer completely flat, and volume normalization turned off. I'm well aware no volume normalization increases the dynamics in songs, I have it off because I prefer that. However it has never done it to the degree of unlistenability until around a couple days ago when the bass on every song became unbearable, producing loud crackly noises. I'm currently using a Logitech G Pro X Wireless to listen. To my knowledge I've ruled out the fact that it could be hardware issues because I've used my headset on a different device and used Spotify on there with identical sound settings on my G Hub and Spotify app and it sounded normal again/how it used to sound like on my desktop. Further, the sound on every app aside from Spotify has stayed the same and does not have those noises. Here's everything else I've attempted so far:
-Updated all my drivers

-Updated my whole OS (I was initially using W10, now on W11)

-Did multiple clean reinstalls of Spotify
The following clips are what this song sounds like from two different devices with the same exact settings in both Spotify & the Logitech G Hub.

[Joan]

Hi there @snowydawn,

Thanks for reaching out and for the detailed information, as well as the videos.

To make sure we've covered all our bases, could you please check out the following:

1. Let us know the exact Spotify Version you use
2. Did you get the app from the Spotify site or the Micorsoft store? Whichever it is, uninstall the app and reinstall it from the alternative source.
3. Try turning off Hardware Acceleration and see if the behaviour changes.
4. Does the same happen if Volume Normalization is turned on instead?

Let us know how it goes.

[snowydawn]

Hello,
This issue is still occurring for me on version 1.2.57.463.g4f748c64. The current bandaid solution for this issue for me so far has been reverting back to 1.2.49.439.gfae492c7, the latest possible version of Spotify where this issue does not occur. I have tried everything on that list to get it back to normal. I initially downloaded Spotify through the site and later uninstalled it and reinstalled it through the Microsoft Store, still no change. Hardware acceleration on or off makes absolutely no difference. And while this issue does go away if I turn on Volume Normalization, it comes at the cost of my enjoyment of my music as so much dynamics are lost on all the songs I enjoy. Why should I have to turn off volume normalization and make my songs sound worse to solve the issue on a newer version of Spotify when everything functioned just fine beforehand? It's all very frustrating as I've had the app pestering me to update it for the past couple months.

If there is any other solution I would really love to know 😞

[MihailY]

Hey @snowydawn,

We're sorry to hear the issue persists for you. We'll do our best to help!

As a next step, can you check the troubleshooting suggested here and in addition to that, see if you get the same behavior when logged in a different account.

Let us know how it goes.

[aelshatshat]

I just solved this issue myself. I guessed that the equalizer settings I set in Spotify were causing issues with the equalizer settings I had set in Logitech GHub; I'd check those settings on both apps, and only keep the one you prefer, as that was what fixed it for me. Also make sure that you haven't loaded the equalizer settings onto the on-board memory of your headset, if you choose to stick with the Spotify equalizer.