Can't get lossless audio to work

[1215471410]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

iPhone 13

Operating System

iOS 18.6.2

My Question or Issue

I've tried everything to get Spotify to play lossless audio through the iPhone app, but it will only play "Normal" 96 kbps (not even High or Very High) streaming quality.

I chose Lossless Wifi streaming quality and unselected "Auto-adjust". But it still says the streaming quality is  96kbps. I clearly don't want that! What's the point of turning off the auto-adjust feature if Spotify is going to auto-adjust anyway?

My iPhone iOS is up to date. I uninstalled/reinstalled Spotify (version 9.0.84.1339). I tested my Wifi speed and its around 150 Mbps on my iPhone. I turned off audio Normalization and the Equalizer. I have plugged wired headphones (Meze 99 Classics) into my iPhone via a Fiio KA11 DAC dongle.

I cleared the cache and removed all downloads, restarted the app and re-downloaded the content I wanted to listen to, but it still says my songs aren't downloaded in lossless no matter what I've done. 

What am I missing? Is lossless audio just not working? I've been a Spotify subscriber for eight years but I'm so close to switching to Apple Music. 

[1215471410]

Update: it seems content only plays in lossless quality if I don’t download it. No matter how many times I removed and re-downloaded music, the app would tell me they weren’t downloaded in lossless quality. So I guess this is a bug I’m experiencing.

[MattSuda]

The Spotify app prioritizes downloads ahead of streaming. If you have songs that were previously downloaded with a lower quality setting than Lossless, then those lower quality downloads will play even if you are currently connected to WiFi and have Streaming quality set to Lossless.

Downloaded songs will be played in the quality that they were originally downloaded in, even if you are currently streaming on a WiFi connection. If you want your downloaded songs to play in Lossless quality, you will need to delete them first and then re-download them.

More info here:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Community-Blog/Spotify-Premium-Now-Streaming-in-Lossless-Quality/ba...

There's currently no setting to change this, however you can vote for this idea:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Option-to-stream-in-Lossless-quality-while-keeping-lower...

All you need to do is switch the "download" setting at the top of each album or playlist to OFF. Then turn the setting for download ON again and they will redownload in Lossless. Make sure to scroll to the bottom of the audio quality settings and change the download quality to Lossless first, that setting is separate from streaming quality.

In the settings there is also a way to delete all downloads. That might work better to start over again fresh, but make a note of which playlists you have downloaded first. At the top of Your Library there is a "downloaded" filter you can tap on and take a screenshot of that so it's easy to remember which to redownload.

[1215471410]

I’ve tried removing downloaded songs and re-downloading them multiple times
in the manner you described, while using WiFi, but it doesn’t work. Each
time Spotify says they aren’t downloaded in lossless quality and plays them
at 96 kbps.

[Billy-J]

Hey @1215471410,

Thanks for getting back to us. Can you send me a screenshot of your settings so I can take a closer look? Make sure to hide sensitive info when posting to the Community.

Also, can you let me know if this happens on a different WiFi network or network connection to see if that makes a difference?

Keep me posted. 

[1215471410]

Attached are screenshots of the media quality settings. I won’t be able to test another WiFi network until Friday but I doubt that will make a difference.

I just confirmed that the problem is still happening. I downloaded an album and started playing it, and it was only in “normal” 96 kbps quality. I removed it from my downloads and it started playing in lossless quality. 

[Stnate]

Having same issue on samsung galaxy s22 ultra 

[Billy-J]

Hey @1215471410 and @Stnate,

Thanks for the screenshot and additional information. Your streaming settings will override by what you have downloaded. Can you please check to see if your downloads are Lossless? The download setting can be found at the very bottom of the Media quality tab under Download quality.

Keep me posted.

[1215471410]

I’m such an **bleep**… Somehow I did not scroll down that far and didn’t see
the settings for downloaded songs. I think it’s because I’m an **bleep**.
Mystery solved, sorry Spotify.

[Billy-J]

Hey @1215471410,

No worries at all, this is great news! I'm happy to hear everything back on track. If you need help in the future, you can always start a new topic and the Community will be happy to help.

@Stnate, how is everything coming along?

[Stnate]

Had to delete all downloads and delete my cache, then re download lossless over the next couple days (slow wifi). Finally the downloads are all done and lossless is streaming. Tested streaming on my 2021 m1 MacBook pro and my custom PC. Both devices stream lossless no problem as well