Sound quality on Apple Watch vs iPhone

[ronmichael]

Are there any specifications as to the sound quality when listening directly from the Apple Watch? I've played with it a bit, using my Airpods Pro and Airpods Max and latest versions of all firmware and software and OSes, and it seems like the music quality is very low if I play directly from the Apple Watch. If I switch to playing from the iPhone, the quality is much better. Is there any way to control the quality that's played through the Watch?

[AppleG]

It seems to be in 96. 

[MattSuda]

The Apple Watch Spotify app is currently limited to a lower bitrate for sound quality. There are currently no options to change the sound quality for the Apple Watch app.

I think it's most likely so that each song doesn't take up too much space since the watch doesn't have lots of storage like the phone would. Also the watch usually has a slower internet connection speed than the phone has, so it could also be so that the songs load faster without a lot of loading.

[ronmichael]

I can understand and appreciate that the Apple Watch has technical limits. Although storage shouldn't be an issue. The recent watches all have 32GB I think? And my watch has over 25GB free right now. 

I guess what I was looking for was for Spotify to officially document what the quality of the songs are through the watch and consider providing some way to get better quality out of it. But I imagine that the # of people listening to music straight from the watch is pretty small and not worth a lot of development effort.

[MattSuda]

I checked the support article for Apple Watch and I don't see the quality listed.

https://support.spotify.com/article/spotify-on-apple-watch/

It's lower quality though for sure.

Hopefully they will add more quality options in the future.

[Koyali]

This quality issue is killing me, such a shame because the app ux on the watch is truly amazing. I hope this is not a marketing decision to push people to Apple Music instead because listening to Spotify from my Apple Watch (LTE so no bulky phone in a pocket or pouch to carry) while running was the reason number one i bought it.

Please fix this so at least one thing would be truly perfect in this world 😂 I love Spotify, it can't be over just like that...!?

[Buddy6]

Music from the watch is the same Apple Music, just played on a different device. A device, by the way, that contains more transistors then the classic iPods of ten years ago. Any difference in sound would be due to the playback app equalization, not the device itself.

[Koyali]

Ten years ago I used to encode my MP3 tracks myself in 320kbps and the quality was awesome although i'd fill up my 2Go pretty quickly haha!

[Koyali]

I can tell 100% sure that it's set to quite low (96kbps maybe?) if not lower while listening to music on Spotify from the Apple Watch itself. If you needed a description: it sounds trashy and has almost no bass at all as if you were hearing it over the phone... I like very bassy headphones and speakers so this is driving me nuts! Not using the equalizer though.

I tried listening to a bunch of identical songs on Apple Music and Spotify for comparison, headphones connected directly to the Apple Watch over Bluetooth, and the bitrate quality on AM is obviously better, by far. 💔

Same conclusion wrether the music is streaming or downloaded to the watch on either app. 

[Robijow]

Spotify 100% limits the quality of the audio on the Apple Watch, both for downloaded songs and streaming. You'd have to be deaf not to notice the quality drop. It's so frustrating.
On the opposite, Apple Music doesn't have that issue, the audio quality is great. 

I really don't get why Spotify would limit the quality. It would be nice to have an official answer to that, at least to know why and maybe give us hope on a future update, because this is a real deal breaker for me.

[Aileen4]

Apple Watch has the ability to store music and podcasts so you can listen to your favorite tunes without having to use your iPhone. You can also play any song or podcast that's stored on your iPhone, when you have the device nearby

[ninbura]

Got Apple Watch Ultra today, was excited to use while lifting weights for music and fitness tracking. 

I don't want my iPhone in my pocket while lifting weights because I frequently sit dumbbells on my lap. I walk far enough away from my phone in between sets that my earbuds disconnect. Seemed like Apple Watch was the perfect solution as I could use it as a timer in between sets, and connect my earbuds directly to the watch for music so I'm never out of range while doing laps between sets.

Displeased to find that music sounds much worse streaming from my Apple Watch. I disagree with others that this is somehow a lack in technological capability, it's simply a software issue that could be easily fixed by giving us the option to adjust stream  / download quality.

[user-removed]

Removed