There have been quite a few topics with people concerned about the bitrate that Google Chromecast Audio is streamed at. Here’s a couple of those posts that I’m referring to:
I was also curious about this, but it seemed as if there wasn’t a solid, verified answer out there. After an unsuccessful live chat with a rep who didn’t quite understand what I was asking, I emailed them with the transcript of my chat, asking to please further investigate the answer I was looking for. I finally received a reply two days later, and here it is copied and pasted:
Hi Reid,
Thanks for getting in touch. Your case has been escalated to the Executive Team, which is the highest level of Customer Support. We'll be handling your case from now on.
We understand you'd like to know the encoding process for files streamed in AAC 256kbps format. We'll be glad to provide you the information you need.
We accept audio files in either FLAC or WAVE format. When we receive audio files, we apply the following processes:
- Check they aren’t corrupt and that their format and container is known.
- Convert to WAV 44.1 kHz (keeping bit depth).
- Transcode the file into the following delivery formats for the quality options available to listeners:
- Ogg/Vorbis [96, 160, 320 kbps]
- AAC [128, 256 kbps]
- HE-AACv2 [24 kbps]
We hope this helps. If you have other questions, please don't hesitate to let us know.
All the best,
Kristel
Executive Team - Spotify Customer Support
"Music is the strongest form of magic" - Marilyn Manson
Did you know we have an extensive help section on our website?
My main concern was that they were transcoding the files from an already lossy source (Ogg Vorbis to AAC) instead of properly converting them from lossless. It turns out that they are properly processing the music files without lossy to lossy transcoding. I hope this helps anyone who was as curious as I was about it.
