Announcements
The Spotify Stars Program: Celebrating Values Week!

Help Wizard

Step 1

NEXT STEP

Sound quality on Google Home sounds like low bitrate MP3 (Premium subscription)

Plan: Premium (Family)

Country: UK

Device: Google Home

 

My Question or Issue

 

Over the past couple of weeks the sound quality through my Google Home and Google Home Mini have been terrible. Everything sounds like really low bitrate MP3 at high compression settings. My internet connection is >20Meg and playing from Google Play on the same devices sounds great. Are there settings for this? Is it a network issue? How do I fix it?

Hey there everyone,

 

We really appreciate all your reports and patience so far.

 

We've let our tech team know, and they're investigating this.

 

Right now, we're not able to provide an exact timeline for a fix, but we'd recommend always keeping your Spotify app up to date to ensure you're on the latest and best.

 

Thanks!

Comments
Peter

Hey folks,

 

Thanks for updating us on your situation.

 

Are you using a WiFi connection to connect to the Internet? If so, could you try switching your router from a 5GHz to a 2.4GHz connection, and then streaming your Spotify music through Google Home on this setting?

Let us know how that goes. We'll be here if you need any more help 🙂

 

b14ck7hund3r
Hi,

currently all my Google Home devices are connected via 5GHz WiFi.

Connection speed is >200MBit/s for the one furthest away.

Thanks for keeping us updated
Greetings
hurley182guy

All my Google Homes are on 2.4ghz band router...

Any song or album I’ve played in the past places in full quality, but any new songs or albums I try to play either casting from phone or asking with voice assistant is in terrible quality.

DanSmalley

I unlinked the GH from my 2.4 GHz connection and re-linked it to the 5GHz connection. It has made no difference.

i-boy

Same problem here. 

I'm a long- long- long-time Premium subscriber/user/streamer and have never had an issue like this. It was great, and now it sucks. 

 

Bitrate or default streaming quality or a codec or SOMETHING HAS CHANGED, and you need to FIX IT. 

 

This is NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT. There are reports of this ALL OVER THE PLACE. 

 

Thanks. 

Jemi
Status changed to: Need more info

Hey folks, 

 

We're seeing some reports on this, and we'd like to investigate further to see what's going on. 

 

If you're experiencing this, please try the following:

  • Unplug Google Home devices and restart them.
  • Reinstall the app and restart the device.
  • Unlink Spotify account from Google and relink it (check the steps here).
  • Make sure that the firmware on your Google Home devices are up-to-date. For further help with this, we suggest that you contact the manufacturer.

If that doesn't help, add a +VOTE and get back with:

  • Model/OS of your device.
  • Your Spotify version.
  • Does this happen with all your songs? Certain playlists?

Keep us posted!

Same problem here.

The problem is while playing music from Spotify through my Google Home and my Google Home Mini. Both have the issue dir weeks now. The audio quality seems to be like a bad compressed mp3 file.

Don't know what this should have to do with the App in my phone while this issue only is present with using the Google Home. But I tried all you described. No changes! Still the audio quality is bad, sehen using spotify with voice Control one Google Home.

 

So I Use Google Home, Google Home Mini. And my phone is a LG G6 -  but like I said: the problem doesn't appear listening with my phone. It's only there with listening via Google Home.

 

DanSmalley

Without doing anything different, sound quality had improved last night.

 

Edit: Actually, I rebooted the device. I've done some more listening today and I still think the audio has improved but it's still not great. But I can't do an A/B comparison.

Katerina

Hey everyone!

 

So we can get this reported to the right teams, could you let us know if you've tried the following:

  • Unplug Google Home devices and restart them.
  • Reinstall the app and restart the device.
  • Unlink Spotify account from Google and relink it (check the steps here).
  • Make sure that the firmware on your Google Home devices are up-to-date. For further help with this, we suggest that you contact the manufacturer.
  • If possible, try using different internet connection. If this works, see 'Check the connection' here.

If that do the trick, please let us know the following

  • Model/OS of your device.
  • Your Spotify version.

We'll be keeping an eye on your replies, thanks!

DanSmalley

Hi Katerina,

 

I've got Spotify on my phone, two tablets and Shield TV. Which app should I be reinstalling? Is it just the one on whatever device I use to setup the Google Home?

 

Thanks,

Dan