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Upgraded to Premium-not hearing sound quality difference

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Upgraded to Premium-not hearing sound quality difference

Hi,

 I upgraded to the Spotify Premium Account in large part for the improved audio quality. When I go to the preferences panel and toggle the "High quality streaming" button on and off, I can't hear any difference at all in the sound quality.

 Should there be an immediate change in the streaming quality, or do I have to wait for a minute or restart the program to effect the change?

 I am listening on a custom built PC, less than one year old, with a nice soundcard, running Windows 7, and listening thru some Sennheiser HD 202 headphones.

Thanks in advance!

Dave

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60 Replies

You should get what you pay for. This is pissing me off, there should be a system to check what kind of quality the songs are and if you enabled High Quality Streaming or not and then RE-CACHE the cachefolder AUTOMATICALLY

 

All this should be on auto, you shouldnt need to delete the cache by yourself, thats ridiculous.

 

I will call the Swedish Consumer Agency and hear what they say about this. I mean, how many people delete their cache-folder when upgrading to premium and enable High Quality Streaming? Not alot.

you're making this out to be a lot more than it is.  Everyone of my friends, we are all audiophiles of a sort and we never have a problem.  i've never even had to clear the system cache.  i just switched to extreme quality and it changes instantly. 

YOU have a problem and reporting spotify will get you no where as they live up to their word.  

 

Hey folks,

 

Before user start to hear difference, user need to select High quality in Edit - Preferences. Removing cache is optional, because, however Spotify should automatically choose the best available quality and replace cache automatically with better quality.

 

And after this if user still can't hear difference, it's not Spotify fault. For example in notebook speakers you can't hear any difference between 160 kbps or lossless. 😉

 

Cheers.

"Removing cache is optional, because, however Spotify should automatically choose the best available quality and replace cache automatically with better quality"

 

THAT'S exactly what i wanted to hear, thanks. So when i enable High Quality Streaming, Spotify automatically changes the quality after a while, even though alot of songs are cached in normal/low quality? It will eventually re-cache everything into high quality?


Best regards

S

Yes, it works this way.

 

Currently 100% of Spotify catalogue is in 320 kbps. All converted from lossless format.

 

However keep in mind not all tracks sound as good as they should. Some tracks are just old and remastered or some tracks just sended to Spotify in this horrible lossless quality.

 

If you find some tracks that are horrible to listen, just send feedback to Spotify and Content team will ask from record labels to resend tracks in better quality.

Yes i know. But i just want to know if the cache will re-cache into high quality if i choose High Quality Streaming, or if it will be cached in normal quality (since having spotify free when making the playlist) for all eternity (even though i now upgraded to premium) IF i dont delete cache.

 

 

PS:

Noticed exactly what you just said. For instance, the song "On Every Street" By Dire Straits has really good quality on the Album "The best of Dire Straits and Mark Knopler - Private investigations"

 

But on the album "On Every Street" the song "On Every Street" is not as good and has a significantly lower volume-output.

 

 

Spotify will play automatically best available sound quality when you choose High quality in settings in your PC.

 

I can confirm however this takes time before you may hear a better quality because Spoitify firstly try to stream from cache and then after some time it may replace cache item to new one. So best way is to delete cache and then start to listen HQ with empty cache.

k.

If i have Spotify Premium, and cache alot of songs in High quality, and then downgrade to Spotify Free, will the songs instantly downgrade to a lousier quality?


@Saaa wrote:

If i have Spotify Premium, and cache alot of songs in High quality, and then downgrade to Spotify Free, will the songs instantly downgrade to a lousier quality?


Yes.

I'm reasonably sure that it won't.

How come its not the same way around? that songs instantly get best quality if i upgrade to premium

A suggestion here would be that spotify automatically recognize the difference between a q5 and q9 song in the cache, then the whole problem wouldn't exist. When a user plays song ABC with high quality, then spotify should search for a q9 ABC entry and if it doesn't find it, it should buffer it. When a user changes quality, remnant cached songs of different quality will expire just like any other unused cache entry. Playing a q5 when it's set to q9 doesn't make any sense, you're effectively retrieving the wrong file from the cache.

 

I'm not even a programmer but this is pretty basic stuff.

 

PS Just got spotify it's really cool, will definitely get the premium!

 

Oh and one other thing, 160kbps is not "lousy", most mobile phone / mp3 player DACs operate lower than that anyway. The 3rd gen classic iPods used to run at something between 96 and 128 kbps and I couldn't tell the difference on their standard headphones (which admitedly weren't very good). The audible difference between fixed 160kbps and lossless in blind tests is small. There is a difference of course by I think 160kbps is probably the lower end of what I would call sufficient quality.

I was really disappointed to see that Rhapsody has better sound than Spotify. I am playing the same songs via each service and the sound of Rhapsody is much much better. I have Spotify set to high quality streaming and started fresh. This bums me out because I love the spotify UI and price compared to Rhapsody. 

 

Oh well 

The sound quality on my iphone is very poor.. I switched to high and extreme stream and still does not work

Marked as solution


@mikenice wrote:

The sound quality on my iphone is very poor.. I switched to high and extreme stream and still does not work


Have you tried a clean reinstallation?

 

Peter

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

worked..thanks bud..happy holidays

You too 🙂 have a good one!

 

Peter

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

Please tell me exactly how to clear the cache.

 

I tried to clear item by item, but they reappeared in sub directories! Smart trick by Spotify?

 

I tried to reinstall but the cache was still complete!

 

 


@rmsandblom wrote:

Please tell me exactly how to clear the cache.

 

I tried to clear item by item, but they reappeared in sub directories! Smart trick by Spotify?

 

I tried to reinstall but the cache was still complete!

 

 


What platform are you using?

 

Peter

This is the non-Super User account for Peter, some posts made by this account are for testing purposes only.

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