[Chromecast] Stream highest possible Quality to Chromecast

[hevaKmaI]

After casting Spotify from my iPhone or Android phone onto my new Chromecast audio device(s) I was disappointed to discover that I could not set the device to extreme quality, even though I am a premium member. It would be good to allow a default extreme quality setting on all devices used on my account or to allow setting the quality in the iOS/Android app.

Support says Spotify transcodes from their native Vorbis codec to 256kbps AAC, which further reduces audio quality, especially since Chromecast Audio seems to natively support Vorbis.  Spotify should strive to make their service use the best possible audio quality on any platform, and that doesn't seem to be the case right now with Chromecast.

[trankillity]

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately Deezer doesn't have nearly as many integrations that are important to me. The ability to play Spotify on almost any device, while controlling what's playing on almost any other device is one of the biggest draw cards for me.

I can be sitting on my PS4 playing games while listening to Spotify, yet controlling what's playing and the volume of it through my watch.

[prombo]

Adding my voice to this too... because I am really thinking of switching again, but would rather not.  As most people here (and many others who are not) my Spotify casts to a fairly expensive sound system.  On the same system I have a Nvidia shield which can play the native Spotify app, but it is a pain to open all the time, casting is so easy (when it works that is, known issue casting to android TVs these days that Google still hasn't fixed after two months, but i digress and use my Chromecast dongle instead).  Anyway, just to say that there is a significant difference in quality between casting and the Spotify app, and this also applies to my four other systems around the house on Chromecast audio dongles.  Casting at 256k is good, but put the same track on Google Play music and the native Spotify app and you immediately remember why you paid so much for your audio systems.  For some reason, Spotify's English page has changed to not mention Chromecast quality, but at time of writing the French one at https://support.spotify.com/ca-fr/using_spotify/system_settings/high-quality-streaming/ still confirms the 256 on Chromecast bitrate, as do my ears!   I was amazed by the functionality of Spotify at first, but now I am just frustrated by hearing what I was missing.   I would really like to see Spotify blast the others out of the water on the casting quality issue.  Come on Spotify, as the comments above indicate there are options for squeezing out a bit more juice for your Premium users.

[siu07jn]

This has been a problem for years, there doesn't seem to be any desire from Spotify to fix this issue. 

[TheFishPuncher]

Want to add my own experience briefly on here -

I didn't notice how much of an issue this was until I hooked a decent quality soundbar up to my TV. 

To put it bluntly -

The difference in audio quality between connecting bluetooth to the soundbar and using "very high" quality versus audio played from the chromecast is night and day. It's enough of a difference that I can't actually bring myself to use it, and I'd rather go through the extra step of switching to bluetooth.

I'm not sure what is going on the background - but the audio is playing from Chromecast is just....bad.

If this could be fixed, I would be very happy.

[Snurz]

Deleted as unrelated. 

[gobeiljl]

We are now at the end of January 2020.....20 Still I have not found any answer or correction from Spotify nor Google to fix this issue.  I have been a premium member of Spotify for many years now and proud and proud of telling all my friends how nice this system is.  I understand that Google is a huge machine to deal with and apply a fix, but this is really unfortunate as each time I am using my HIFI Sound system with Spotify and have to disconnect it from my Chromecast and use my Apple TV and iPad to get the the highest sound quality - defeat the purpose and my payment.  Frustrating at best, especially that I rarely listen to music on my phone, and use my HIFI system.  Please let us know if you are at least working on this fix ?

Merci à l'avance - from Canada !

[MattJThompson]

I still see lower bitrate quality when casting to a ChromeCast Audio, really noticeable on a higher quality stereo.

On the original post https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Enable-best-Quality-for-Tracks-on-Chromecast-Audio-Dev... for this item it says 

"The latest version of the Android app allows control of the quality level over chromecast in settings. This issue is solved."

Has anyone worked out how to do this?

[trankillity]

If you keep reading that thread you linked, you'll find that it's NOT actually solved. "High Quality" for them is 256kbps, as opposed to the 320kbps you get from Spotify Connect or directly in the app. I still feel like the casting is doing live transcoding too, which makes it sound closer to 128kbps than 256kbps. So, still **bleep**ed and no one at Spotify cares.

[williamthrill]

Is there any update on this? It's been a couple of years and I'd really like to be able to just use chromecast to stream 320kbit/s ogg. I'm going to build headless raspberrypi so that I can use spotify connect for the time being but it doesn't integrate nicely with the rest of google home/nest stuff. 

Maybe offer an experimental feature for chromecast that we can play with? It would be super cool of you guys to do this in 2020; we're all spending a lot more time indoors these days 😥. 

[scarbonarra]

I second the above. I've just started a free 3 Month Deezer Membership and can confirm that, with a high end soundsystem, Spotify's cast function is noticeably lower quality than Deezers 320kbit/s. 

I love Spotify - its one of the only subscriptions I see leave my account monthly and think 'yeah, 100% worth it' but i'd really rather not get to the end of this 3 month Deezer trial and have to cancel my Spotify subscription, as I cant un-hear the difference now.