How to Improve Spotify Bitrate for Lossless Music Quality

What bitrate does Spotify stream at? This might be the first question that you may take a deep consideration before choosing Spotify music as your music streaming service. Generally speaking, you may know that 320kbps is the highest streaming bitrate that you can get from Spotify, but you may be unclear on how you can get it. Don't worry, here is the full introduction for you.

In this post, we will share you with the details of the bitrate of Spotify Free and Premium and the full tutorial to adjust Spotify bitrate to enjoy the lossless audio streaming service. Apart from this, you will also get a guide on how to download Spotify music to MP3 with the highest 320kbps quality. Just follow the post to make your high-quality music playback possible.

Part 1. What Bitrate Does Spotify Stream at?

Spotify offers automatic, low, normal, high, and very high quality with different bitrates for different users by formatting the music in OGG Vorbis format. The bitrate that Spotify uses depends on the subscription plan and the device you are using. Following is the full table about all the bitrates that Spotify streams at.

According to the table above, the highest bitrate for Spotify Free users is 160kbps while the highest for premium users is 320kbps. After learning about the Spotify bitrate, you can set about setting the Spotify bitrates to enjoy the high quality of Spotify. Keep reading.

Part 2. How to Stream Spotify at a Very High-Quality Bitrate

There are four ways for you to enjoy high quality on Spotify. Taking these methods together will be better for you to get lossless audio.

Method 1: Adjust Spotify Bitrate on the Spotify App

The first method to stream Spotify at a very high-quality bitrate is to adjust the Spotify streaming quality.  By setting the Spotify bitrate to Very High, you can make your music playback clearer and more enjoyable. But remember that only Spotify Premium members are available for 320kbps, a Spotify very high quality bitrate. While Spotify Free users can only get 160 kbps as the highest Spotify bitrate.

Below are the steps to enhance Spotify bitrate on the desktop Spotify client and the Spotify mobile app respectively.

On the Spotify desktop client:

1. Run the Spotify app on your computer, and the whole main interface of Spotify will appear. Now click on the "Down-arrow" button to enter the Settings page.
2. On the Settings page, scroll down to "Audio Quality". Under Audio Quality, there is "Streaming quality". Hit the "Down-arrow" button to choose the high quality.

On the Spotify mobile app:

1. Launch the Spotify app on your mobile devices. Tap on the profile icon.
2. Go to Settings and privacy >> Audio Quality. In the "Streaming" section, choose "Very high" for Wi-Fi streaming or Mobile streaming to improve the Spotify bitrate.

Method 2: Toggle off Auto Adjust Quality on the Spotify App

If you have set the Spotify bitrate to "Very high" by following the above method, but still feel the Spotify sound quality is a bit off. You should check whether the Auto Adjust Quality feature is on. Auto Adjust Quality is a function designed to automatically adjust Spotify music quality based on your network conditions, aiming to offer you a smooth listening experience.

That is to say, under weak network connections, Spotify will downgrade the Spotify bitrate to 160 kbps or even 96 kbps, but maintain consistent playback. Therefore, if you have a stable network, to always have "Very high" Spotify streaming quality, you'd better toggle off the Auto Adjust Quality feature.

On the Spotify desktop client:

1. Run the Spotify app and click on the profile icon >> Settings.
2. Scroll down to the Audio Quality. You will see "Auto adjust quality" in this section. Toggle its button off.

On the Spotify mobile app:

1. On your Spotify app, tap the profile icon >> Settings and privacy >> Audio Quality.
2. Navigate to Streaming >> Optimise listening. "Auto adjust quality" is right below "Optimise listening". Just turn the button off to enhance Spotify bitrate.

Method 3: Adjust the Volume Level to Match the Environment

By default, the Audio Normalization feature is set up on Spotify. This function will adjust the dynamic ranges of Spotify music, setting the same volume level for each song. It eliminates the hassle of turning the volume up or down from time to time, but the dynamic details in some songs might be diminished. So you may think the Spotify bitrate was adjusted down.

You can completely turn the feature off. Or you can adjust the base volume of Spotify music to match the environment for a better audio quality experience. There are three levels of the volume setting:

• Quite: This level will make songs clearer and quieter, which is better for sleeping or reading.
• Normal: At this level, you can play Spotify at a medium base volume, which means the sound will not be as crisp as that of Quiet, and this is most people's choice.
• Loud: This is the loudest choice compared with the two above. If you are at the gym or in another noisy environment, then this level is better for you.

Now, follow the tutorials to change the Volume Level setting or turn it off:

On the Spotify desktop client:

1. Run your Spotify app on your computer, then navigate to Settings.
2. In the Audio quality section, you will find the "Normalize volume" feature. You can select the option you want or toggle it off.

On the Spotify mobile app:

1. Open the Spotify app, go to the profile icon >> Settings and privacy >> Playback.
2. Scroll down to find "Enable Audio Normalisation". If it's on, you can choose the suitable "Volume Level" below. Or you can disable the feature by switching the button off.

Method 4: Use Built-in Spotify Equalizer to Increase Audio Quality

There is a built-in equalizer on the Spotify app, which allows you to adjust the levels of bass, treble, and other frequencies in the music you are listening to. Since different genres of music have unique audio features, if you haven't adjusted the frequencies or set the wrong one, you might perceive that the Spotify bitrate was decreased. Customizing the configurations on Equalizer to match your favorite type of music certainly can improve Spotify audio quality.

Follow the below instructions to change the Equalizer settings to improve Spotify music quality:

On the Spotify desktop client:

1. Launch the Spotify app. Click the profile icon and choose Settings.
2. Moving down the page to the "Playback" section. You will see "Equalizer" and turn it on. You can choose to use the Presets or manually adjust the frequencies.

On the Spotify mobile app:

1. Run the Spotify app on your mobile. On the main interface of Spotify, hit the profile icon to enter the Settings page, where you can see various settings for Spotify.
2. On the Spotify Settings page, click "Playback" for the following operation. Scroll down to "Equalizer" then press the "Button" to open the Spotify equalizer. As a Hip-hop fan, I will choose Hip-hop as my music equalizer of Spotify.

Method 5: Download Spotify Music to the Highest 320kbps MP3 Files

After learning the above methods to get Spotify's high-quality bitrate, you can learn that only Spotify premium users can access the highest 320kbps Spotify bitrate. For Spotify Free users, you can only get the highest Spotify bitrate of 160kbps. So, what if you are a free Spotify user and still want to get high Spotify streaming quality? Luckily, the answer could be yes. You can directly use the third-party Spotify to MP3 converter, like TuneFab Spotify Music Converter, to convert Spotify songs to MP3 files with the highest bitrate.

Available for both Spotify Free users and Premium users, TuneFab Spotify Music Converter is a trustworthy and full-featured tool that can help you convert Spotify to MP3 and other mainstream formats. Before converting the Spotify songs, playlists, albums, or podcasts you like, you can go to "Preferences>>Advanced" to customize the bitrate and sample rate to the highest 320kbps and 48000hz to enhance audio quality for better playback.

1. Download and install TuneFab Spotify Music Converter on your computer. Run the software and log in to your Spotify account.

2. Find your desired Spotify track/album/playlist. Drag and drop it to the green icon.

3. Go to Settings >> Preferences to customize bitrate up to 320 kbps, sample rate up to 48000 hz, and other parameters.

4. In the converting queue, choose the output format as MP3. Click "Convert All" to download Spotify music to the highest 320kbps MP3 files.

Part 3. FAQs About Spotify Bitrate

Q1: Can you get Spotify Premium bitrate without paying a penny?

If you want to enjoy Spotify premium bitrate, you need to subscribe to Spotify's premium account, which means you need to pay for the premium plan. But actually, there are ways for you to get Spotify Premium free to enjoy the Spotify with the premium 320kbps bitrate. For the detailed methods, you can get from this passage: How to Get Spotify Premium Free Forever.

Q2: Is Spotify's very high-quality bitrate better than Tidal's?

Spotify's Very High-Quality (VHQ) bitrate is 320 kbps, while Tidal's HiFi bitrate is 1411 kbps. This means that Tidal's HiFi bitrate is technically better than Spotify's VHQ bitrate. However, the difference in audio quality between the two bitrates is not always noticeable, especially to the untrained ear.

Conclusion

Understanding Spotify's bitrate options can significantly enhance your listening experience. In this article, we introduce 5 proven ways to help you stream Spotify at the highest 320kbps bitrate. By following these methods, you can make the most out of Spotify's streaming capabilities. Hope you grasp the ways to improve Spotify bitrate and have a lossless music playback time on Spotify!