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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
DanSmalley

I've tried the above steps on my which is an LG Q6 on Android 8.1.0. Spotify is v8.4.75.670.

 

Quality doesn't appear to have changed. I don't think it's as bad as it was at its worst but it's still not great, as if it's a lower quality audio file rather than low quality speaker.

 

Edit: Quality is definitely not good. It's more obvious on some songs than others.

What I'm wondering now, is whether it's something to do with having Spotify on more than one device. I've tried reinstalling my desktop Spotify and will report back with what I find.

 

Edit 2: Quality is still poor. I should add that I'm on the beta firmware stream for the GH mini.

Mortenofdenmark

I have the Google Home Mini

Horrible sound quality, sounds like 24kbps.

Its on all songs.

Samsung Galaxy S7

Android 8.0.0

Spotify 8.4.77.779

I tried rebooting, reinstalling and so on as advices in the thread, but sound is the same.

wrongpete

@Katerina wrote:

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!


Hi @Katerina

 

As others have said, this issue is unrelated to phones, Macs/PCs etc. I don't mean to sound rude but it feels like all the mods are missing the point here. This issue exists purely on the Google Home devices and presents when requesting music via voice command. Smartphone OS/App version etc has no relevance to this issue whatsoever. I can illustrate this issue without involving a smartphone at all. 

 

To prove this point I have just completed the following steps:

 

  1. Uninstall Spotify app from my smartphone
  2. Unlink Spotify account in Google Home app
  3. Reboot Google Home device
  4. Relink Spotify account in Google Home app
  5. Ask Google Home device to play song
  6. Song plays, sounds terrible (Remember, no smartphone or desktop app involved at this point.)

So:

 

  • Model/OS of your device: N/A (Spotify smartphone app not installed.)
  • Your Spotify version: N/A (Spotify smartphone app not installed.)
  • It is not possible to manually update firmware on Google Home, updates are pushed automatically by Google. https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7071791?hl=en-GB

This issue is present across a variety of songs. A good example is 'Wishing Well' by Blink 182. The low bitrate/overcompressed sound is very evident on the intro. Listen to the cymbals.

 

If it's a firmware issue I'd suggest Spotify getting together with Google. You're both big companies. If you guys can't get it sorted there's zero chance of us getting anywhere. 

hurley182guy

Agree with the guy above, has nothing to do with App versions or reinstalling the app on phone.

Im not using my phone to operate Google Home I’m using my voice.

I’ve got GH and a mini and a LG WK7 google assistant speaker and all 3 of them play the same songs in bad low quality.

anything new that I play from say a month ago onwards is in low quality.

where as anything I’ve played over the last 6 months prior plays in good extreme quality as that was back when it worked correctly.

ia there some sort of Spotify account cloud cache that we can clear somehow?

0nse

I can confirm, the sound quality is horrible. If this isn't resolved soon, I'll have to return to Google Play Music.

hurley182guy

Agreed that Google Play Music works in perfect high quality. I’ve got a 3 month trial account with them so I could A/B test the quality since Spotify went down hill.

Google Play Music plays in full high quality all the songs that Spotify plays in low quality.

if this issue doesn’t get sorted I’ll probably look at moving to Google Play Music too after my trial ends.

sort this out Spotify!

Katerina
Status changed to: Under investigation

Hey folks, 

 

Thanks for all your reports. We've reported this to our tech folks.

 

If you're experiencing this, please first 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?

We'll let you know as soon as we've got any updates 🙂

Guido
Status changed to: Under investigation

Hey folks, 

 

Thanks for all your reports. We've reported this to our tech folks.

 

If you're experiencing this, please first 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?

We'd also like to ask you to report this issue to Google by saying "OK Google, report feedback" and then "Spotify playback quality is bad"

 

We'll let you know as soon as we've got any updates 🙂

Teamtrax

I have to agree with all the comments above. The quality sucks right now!!! 

Nobody at Spotify is even acknowledging the problem.

Asking for phone/device details is irrelevant.

 

I can listen on my phone and it sounds great. I can ask my Google home mini to play the same and it sounds garbage. 

If this is not fixed pronto I'm moving to another provider 

 

 

 

 

Katerina
Status changed to: Under investigation

Hey everyone, 

 

As we mentioned, we've reported this to our tech folks and they're looking into it.

 

If this issue occurs to your Google Home device, make sure to click +VOTE.

 

We'd suggest in the meanwhile to follow these steps on your Google Home devices:

  1. Say"Ok Google, report feedback" 
  2. Then make sure to report that "Spotify playback quality is bad"

We'll let you know as soon as we have any further updates.

 

Thanks for bearing with us 🙂