When are Spotify stopping supporting Pioneer Receivers which support Spotify Connect?

[bradavon]

Hi,

I received an email yesterday to say Spotify are stopping support for my Pioneer Speaker soon.

- When is soon?

- Does stopping support mean Spotify just won't support it or it will stop working?
Stopping support means a company won't address issues but I believe Spotify are going to actually stop the feature from working.

- Why? There's no reason given why this is necessary.

The email rather bizzaely says:

"We want to make playing Spotify on your speaker and other devices better and easier"

How is stopping support better or easier? Why not just stop supporting it? So if it breaks too bad.

I only bought my receiver 2 years ago specifically as it supported Spotifty Connect. Spotify is in part more popular over rivals as Spotify works on so many devices, or did.

I guess like everyone else I'll need to buy a Chromecast Audio 😕

[5tratocaster]

Having lived with this for the last three days, I have been playing Spotify through my Amazon Fire TV stick into an HDMI socket on my Pioneer SC-LX57. I can say with some conviction that the quality of sound is not as good as it was when the receiver was streaming music directly using its native app. I can only assume that the same will apply to using a Chromecast. Presumably it is the quality of the DACs in these inexpensive devices, or perhaps because the path through an HDMI socket is not designed with hi-fi music in mind. Whatever, I miss the superb quality I was getting before and feel robbed and cheated. Don't even consider bluetooth as an option. It is far inferior.

I think all those affected in the UK should write to What Hi Fi and Home Cinema Choice magazines. Those in other countries to their own versions. If Spotify gets wind that the hi fi press is about to go public on this and condemn it, it might just change its mind.

[spotonbelgium]

for those of you who read Dutch this is quite a good explanation of what is going on

https://www.alpha-audio.nl/2018/01/spotify-en-nieuwe-serversoftware/ 

[user-removed]

Still sounds all like pure BS. I'm starting to believe that they just decided it wasn't worth the hassle to port the old devices code into 'legacy' due to time/money.

Basically, we've been all left out in the rain.

[meyster]

Fully agree to your statement @therealzgrav.

Implemeting a legacy standard into an updated system should be possible in any way. it is a question of time and cost connected. Spotify decided to go the "cheap" solution and have the customer pay the bill for it. Unaccaptable.

[user-removed]

Still hoping they'll backtrack this decision... I've sadly tried finding a workaround but they really just removed our devices from their internal API, so sadly, it's just a paperweight at this moment...

[megadro]

We should keep trying to contact Verge, Engadget, What HIFI etc.

People should learn not to trust Spotify/Pioneer when buying a new speaker/receiver in the future. Some features that you paid for may get discontinued abruptly. 

[markpettyuk]

With an IPO imminent, bad press won't be good for Spotify

[csmusicstudio]

Exactly, this is concerning when buying new hardware as well. Please let everyone know that this is now how Spotify is treating their customers. I am really outraged about this.

[Bakersdozen]

Another **bleep** off VSX-528 user here! Spotify Android app on phone still sees my amp as an option, but will not stream to it. Annoying, very fkn annoying 

[patvdameele]

This is not true. It affects amplifiers too. Feels like theft.

[deechtewber]

I've sent an e-mail to Pioneer asking them to fix this. Even when Spotify has caused all this, it's Pioneer who has sold us devices with certain features. Legally it's up to them to deliver upon this promise to their customers. Let them sort it out with Spotify or update their firmware/hardware.

[bradavon]

Last year it turned out Spotify were just removing Spotify support from their Pioneer mobile apps.

Reading back through this thread it never was clear this was definitely what the emails meant back in September/October.

Maybe it meant, as we feared, they were removing support for older Receivers 😕

[bradavon]

@ Meyster:

"But all I did was to restart the receiver by plugging the power cable and then go the "net" input setting. After that, the receiver showed up again in connect menu and plays music"

What does this mean? Has anyone else tried it?

[squarky]

And VSX-528 is still listed as a supported device on SpotifyGear.com. What the ***beep*** is going on... Pioneer should update their firmware to support the new Spotify Connect API or Spotify should leave the old one open... Just abandoning devices like this is simply not acceptable. 

[meyster]

This was a solution half a year ago. Spotify connect is dead now on our devices. 

[pvk1022]

Support of the Pioneer AV receiver we use (SC-LX57) and the
Pioneer speaker (Xw-sma4) have both stopped and we can now longer use spotify. I have unfortunatly had to cancel by premium subscription. Maybe if enough people do this and state this as their reason things will change. Probably not though.

Why would you buy anything on the current spotify gear support list now.

[meyster]

Will start to check alternatives now. Probability to cancel is very high. Fire TV and Chromecast (audio) support more than Spotify. 

[Danpp74]

I've switched to Chromecast Audio. Can't say I find the music quality lower than with direct streaming to the amp, but maybe I'm not enough of an audiophile.
Still.... I find it preposterous that Spotify unilaterally discontinues their service to premium subscribers, so will probably switch away from Spotify to a different provider on principle.

[rfdpina]

Hi , guys. Spotify connect also stopped today on my Pionneer lx-88.

Very bad service from spotify and Pioneer.

Roy

[JTONK]

I was a Spotify Connect Pioneer VSX-923 user. I've had an online chat with their support. The message basically was, hardware has to move on with development. I completely disagree with this, why fix something when it it isn't broken, the service was working fine, I loved it and I see no reason why they have to stop supporting 'legacy' devices of which some aren't even that old. They could build a spotify connection 2 platform next to it. Apple Airplay 2 will be backward compatible, why can't spotify be loyal to their customer who spend big money on hardware. This is really a bad corporate move, Spotify knows that hardware manufacturers will not update each of their firmwares, that's big money and it would prevent people from buying new hardware. I'm not saying this is ok either, but now it comes down to the customers, who in most cases have been loyal premium spotify users. Can't believe this is how you treat your customers.

I don't think our message will be heard but please leave your voice on the board and appstore reviews as well. In the meantime I'm shopping for another service, no need to stick around here.