Sample Rate on Spotify iPhone vs Mac Desktop version using Chord Mojo greatly differ

[soundmuse]

HI, 

I recently bought a Chord Mojo DAC, but i am unable to get expected sample rates on my iphone using Spotify.

I am a premium Spotify customer and have the settings on my iphone set to "extreme" for download etc and have resync to ensure all music files are downloaded as Extreme

On my Mac Desktop with the same cables and Mojo attached via USB i get reasonable sample rate of 192kHz

But the same songs played on my iphone version of spofify the Mojo can only detect 44kHz

Why is theiphone version not able to output at the same rate as the desktop version ?

I have tested other application such as Onkyo which can drive FLAC 768kHz DSD so i beleive i cant be a hardware or cable problem, bit an iphone application issue ?

If anyone else has exprience  or advise of why iphone Spotify application is sampling at lower rate to the desktop version it would be greatly welcomed

[lenkiatleong]

I have the same problem with iPhone and Android Sony Z5 running on 5.1.1.
It seems that both iPhone and Android uses 44kHz 16 bits natively. If one wants to stream HD audio to mojo, one has to buy USB audio or Onkyo apps which will then bypass iphone or android native audio.
With this, i believe Spotify app currently do not support HD streaming to external app. It uses mobile native audio, i.e., 44kHz 16 bits which is very disappointing.
Would be good if Spotify support could verify this and in near future support HD audio to premium uses like us who cannot stand lossy audio.

[Alexmails]

I'm also having this problem. Sadly only finding out having bought the product. I have all the hugest settings for downloaded music but only capturing 44. Spotify why is there this difference? Is there another way to output that captures the quality I have theoretically downloaded into my phone? Given iPhone 7 moved to lightning connector for all audio output does this means all audio from iPhone 7 is now 44?

[ChordElectronic · Accepted solution]

Hi Guys - Chord Electronics team here, we will try to give you a quick run down on whats happening. 

Neither your phone or Mojo is defective, and spotify is not at fault here, it is all to do with the difference between Sample Rate (Wiki on Sample Rate) and transfer rate (Bit Rate).

Let me clear this up a little bit more, all the music you can stream currently (using any service at all, including Tidal, Spotify, Quobuzz etc) all stream at 44.1kHz. All of these will apper RED on Mojo's sample ball (or any of our products). 

Now the difference between the Spotify's "extreme" and standard account is the transfer rate (bit rate), this is the rate at which the music is streamed at (or how compressed it is). So the standard is either 128kbps (kilo bits per second) or 256kbps, and the premium account offers 320kbps. 

Both Tidal and Quobuzz both offer what is called CD quality streaming, this is still at 44.1kHz, but with a much higher transfer rate of 1.4Mbps (1400kbps) which is what is classified as uncompressed.

The difference may be noticable, however you are still getting the most out of your music by using a Mojo! 

If you wanted to actually listen to "Hi-Res" music, so above the standard sample rate of 44.1kHz, (upto 192kHz), the only option is to buy it online, download it onto your phone, and use an app like Onkyo to listen to it.

I hope this clears things up and puts your mind at rest!

[Alexmails]

Thanks Chord. Much appreciated the explanation on the phone last night and very useful for the community to have it here. The Chord makes a big difference and it's great to know we're not missing a trick. 

All the best 

Alex

[Alexmails]

The Chord team also pointed out that on a Mac if you're not careful it will try to upsample the music which you don't need for Chord. Explanation of how to adjust below from Tom at Chord who walked me through it last night. 

1, hit cmd + space together
2, type “audio midi setup”
3, on the left hand side select Mojo as the output
4, where it says 192000 Hz on the drop down box, change that to 44100Hz
5, Mojo should now have a red ball lit up instead of the blue

[androxylo]

About sampling rate: read the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem and use the fact that most humans over 25 y.o. cannot hear anything beyond 18 kHz. That will give you the maximum sampling rate you need.

[peter-imrich]

I wonder why Spotify people do not make the sample rate clear ..

We have 44.1kHz / 16 bit. Please set your settings on your machine accordingly