Spotify quality from PC.

[nthall]

Does Spotify stream a lower bitrate to PCs than mobile devices? It sounds like muddy compressed garbage through my PC, and nearly lossless from my phone using the same DACs.

I don't think it's RF noise from the PC, or AC noise. It's dead silent when nothing is playing. FLAC files sound the same on both. I have a gigabit connection so it's not a bandwidth problem. I don't have the issue with Pandora and it's supposedly lower quality.

[nthall]

Streaming it from my phone to the PC improves the quality.

[CageyH]

Do you have premium?
If not, it is a lower bit rate.

If you do have, have you turned on the setting for the high bit rate files?

[alphaGT]

I have done Google searches on Spotify and Tidal, and I can't find any technical anywhere. They act like everyone already knows that stuff. I see their sites, and frankly Spotify's website is just plain terrible, it tells you nothing about their product, how it works, what songs do they have? Nothing, poorly done. Tidal has a much better website, but still it gives me almost no technical information about how it works, what hardware do I need, seems almost purposely vague.

Same with Nathan's question, you'll not find the answer on their site! I find it all very disheartening. Am I missing something?


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[Rothchild]

From memory (and this may have changed over the years) Spotify streams using Ogg Vorbis (an open source version of MP3, which bit-for-bit generally sounds better) there is also an underlying use of a protocol like Bittorrent (it might even be bittorrent) to reduce network strain (the Spotify app is essentially a peer-to-peer node). High rez is 320kbs, I'm not sure about low but I suspect it's 192kbs.

It seems unlikely that they'll be any real difference between phone, desktop or web app they are all just interfaces sitting on top of a core platform/service (libspotify)

It's also the case that by default, even with premium, you have to switch up the quality setting (by default it's on 'low' quality) so you might need to turn it on in the PC app. It's definitely odd that it sounds better streamed from your phone to the PC (seems to suggest it being a settings issue in the pc app).

[cyclopse]

There is a setting to check for Premium users to ensure you are playing at the highest quality 320K I think it is.

[Stratmangler]

https://support.spotify.com/uk/using_spotify/search_play/what-bitrate-does-spotify-use-for-streaming/

[alphaGT]

https://support.spotify.com/uk/using_spotify/search_play/what-bitrate-does-spotify-use-for-streaming/

Thanks, I've learned a few things!


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