Spotify - how to get best quality ?

[Bourney]

I currently use tidal through an Auralic aries bridge streamer. Tidal sounds good, not as good as my cd player and if I'm honest I've never really gelled with the user interface and can't easily find plstlists and albums etc.
Now spotify I really like the interface using an ipad as the source and connecting through the Auralic shows the notable difference in quality (and volume bizzarely!) Spotify sounds thin and a bit empty in comparison.
Is there a way to get better quality out of spotify?
Would a streamer with spotify embedded into it be better sounding?
Ready knock tidal on the head.

[narabdela]

Have you checked your Spotify settings to make sure that you're set to the max 320kbps output?

[Sherwood]

Spotify will not sound as good as Tidal because its files are compressed. Despite repeated claims that it will offer CD quality streaming, Spotify has yet to do so.

If anything, buying a better quality streamer will only make the quality differences more obvious.

[struth]

Spotty will not go to uncompressed afaik. Their 320 is pretty good tho for what it is.
Qobuz is imo better than tidal overall. Cheaper too I think.

[Macca]

Possibly/probably the difference to your CD player is because Spotify have a different mastering of whatever album you're comparing.

Spotify is lossy but most people can't tell the difference when tested. But you have to compare apples to apples i.e the same master on both.

My advice - buy the best masterings on CD while they are still cheap, use that for serious listening. Spotify for background music and checking stuff out.

[willbewill]

Spotty will not go to uncompressed afaik. Their 320 is pretty good tho for what it is.
Qobuz is imo better than tidal overall. Cheaper too I think.

Quobuz (£12.99) is better if you really want hires and cheaper than Tidal (£19.99) if you do. Otherwise Tidal has a more extensive library and a cheaper plan if you are happy with CD quality (£9.99) - I am. I use Tidal for serious listening and Spotify ($duo plan for my wife and me) for travelling, sharing, playlists etc - yes Spotify is streets ahead for ease of use and probably has the largest library.

[Kit1cat]

Are you using the free or paid version of Spotify? The paid version has better audio quality.

[Bourney]

I use the paid one.when I was using Spotify through apple TV into my dac, it wasn't too bad, its just noticeably poorer than Tidal hifi (25.99 a month!) Now I'm using the auralic. I could buy a lot of cds with that money nowadays.
I'm just wondering what is the best quality you can get out of spotify in terms of hardware and how it is configured really or am I already there?

[Macca]

Lots of 'Get the most out of your spotify' type videos on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=congigure+spotify

No idea if their worthwhile or not.

[Stryder5]

Go to settings...playback

Turn off....enable audio normalisation
Turn off....mono

There’s equalisation, mine is turned off......play with it on and adjust if you want.

Settings...audio

Streaming.....very high

Turn off......auto adjustment

If I remember correctly this should get you good quality

Gary

Forgot this is Spotify app, no idea on your hardware.

[beadlesabout]

Just in case anyone’s not aware, the settings in the app have no effect on streaming when using Spotify Connect.

Spotify Connect is always 320kbps and is unaffected by app settings for playback and quality.

Unlike (for example) Airplay where your iPhone sends the data over your local network to your streamer, with Spotify Connect your phone simply gives an instruction to your streamer to pull the stream direct from the Internet.