Spotify settings for best musical performance

[ThomasOK]

Did someone brave compare .44 to .43?
BTW, I have the impression that on macOS the version 1.2.13 is better as well.

I had not intended to. But my iPad, which as noted above hadn't been doing a very good job of automatically updating, just chose to do so last night. So it is now at 8.8.44.458. My first impressions are not wonderful. I started it playing a Chet Baker track and it was OK but not wowing me. (I will interject that my system is just all back up and running having just been plugged in about an hour ago after the storms last night had me unplug it. So it is not fully warmed up.) So I played the same track on the iPhone 8+ and felt it was immediately better. Wanting to make sure I was giving both units a fair chance I disconnected the iPad from the power in the back room and brought it up front to the listening room. This improved the musicality of the iPad, I'm not sure if it is the power connection or that the WiFi access point changed to the one connected to the Källa via the GS308T. It was now close so I went back and forth a few times but I still feel that .43 on the iPhone 8+ is a little more musical, I feel a little more connected to the music, than with .44 on the iPad Mini 6. Since the iPad should be the better control device this does not bode well for .44 vs .43. For now I'd keep things at .43. Is there any way to revert?

[springwood64]

Unfortunately Android and iOS app eco systems enforce updates to the current version for a variety of reasons. If you disable updates you still risk your app becoming unusable as a result of OS changes unless you disable iOS updates as well.

There is no way that I know of to revert to an earlier version, unless the app supplier makes it available via Test Flight and sends you the invitation for that version.

If you have found a particular app version optimal, and dont want to risk that version becoming unusable, you should probably disable updates to iOS as well as the app.

Any musicality that derives from a particular version of an app has to be considered fragile, because of this.

[matthias]

I mean if .44 is at least as good as .43 some algorithms or something else might have been changed by Spotify for better ones.
If not then it might be just a lucky coincidence that .43 is better.
As macOS Spotify user I am curious how the desktop app behaves with coming updates.

[ThomasOK]

A further, and positive, update on the Spotify versions. For starters I am aware that you can't just necessarily stay with a specific firmware version forever (I spent 14 years in the Mac world and am an Apple certified computer technician). After all, some updates are bug fixes so sticking with an old version could lead to problems, even if a new IOS hasn't come out requiring the update.

But just for the fun of it I left my iPhone 8+ at the 8.8.43 version so that I could play with things more. I finally did that playing around this week and was pleasantly surprised. I compared my iPhone to my iPad 6 Mini without checking the numbers first and the iPad was more musical. Checking the iPad it showed it was at 8.8.48. I updated my iPhone and found it was now at 8.8.54.544. So I went back to the iPad and had it do an upgrade and it sounded a little better yet but only a tiny amount. Checking the version number I was surprised to find it was only at 8.8.50? It wouldn't let me update it again through the app so I went to the app store. I did a search for Spotify, clicked on it and it didn't give me a button to update, just one to open the app. I clicked on that button and it asked me if I wanted to update it! So I clicked yes and then it updated it to 8.8.54.544 as on the iPhone. If you read one of my earlier posts you will see that this same scenario happened last time i upgraded the iPad: it hadn't auto-updated to the latest version even though it is supposed to auto update (my iPhone is set to ask me first), then manually updating it only took it part of the way to the current version and I had to go through some rigamarole with the app store to finally get the latest version installed. The good news is that 8.8.54.544 is even better than the intermediate 8.8.50 which was itself better than 8.8.54.544 on my iPhone. So everything is sounding very good and mostly seems to be making at least slight musical progress with most of the updates.

[ThomasOK]

This isn't Spotify settings but it is about Spotify so maybe not too off topic. I often play jazz in the background for Lily when I am not here or working in the back. But as I had done the updates I noticed some other recommendations so I decided to try something new. Upon doing so I discovered that Spotify has at least one very strange playlist. It was simply titled "60s" and started with "My Girl" by the Temptations so I decided to give it a whirl. After letting it play in the background a few times I noticed it was rather strange and took a closer look at the playlist. I found track 2 was "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival and 3 is "The Weight" by The Band. So far so good, three really solid choices from the 60s. However, these were then followed by 47 straight jazz pieces. They are good jazz pieces (things from Chet Baker, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Dave Brubeck and a Miles Davis track, etc., several of them with multiple tracks) but are the first three really the only R&B/Rock/Pop tracks of worth listening to from the 60s? Just seems like a strange mix.

[markiteight]

Posts about Spotify Hi-Fi have been moved here.

-Moderator

[markiteight]

It's been a while since I went through my Spotify settings to make sure they were still set properly. There's a new feature that's appeared since the last time I checked (so I don't know how long it's been there) called Picture in Picture. It's located under the Playback menu toward the top. Some quick backing-and-forthing using Avalon (thanks Charlie1 for the inspiration) and I prefer it off (it's on by default).

[lejonklou]

Thanks markiteight! I can confirm your finding.

We also made some other discoveries this evening:

Under 'Video Quality', we set everything to Very High.

Under 'Audio Quality', at the bottom there are settings called 'Download'. We set it to Very High and disabled Download Using Mobile Data.

Although we played music and didn't watch videos, didn't download anything and didn't use mobile data, it did sound better with these settings.

I updated the first post in this thread with the latest findings.

[springwood64]

Later my wife switched between the 3 services so I could test blind, and again you could easily pick out Spotify as the best and Tidal as the worst.... great effort! :)

Thanks for sharing, would be interesting how Qobuz rank in this competition.

I did that test today with Glen Campbell Wichita Lineman.

Easy test:

1. Spotify
2. Qobuz
....
3. Tidal

Spotify and Qobuz closer than Qobuz and Tidal. I've deleted my Tidal trial account.

[matthias]

Thanks Pete!

[lejonklou]

We've gone through all the settings on the Spotify app again.

I recommend that you check yours, because the difference in musical quality can be big. If you did check them a while back, you might need to redo it, because when the app is updated, some settings can change. And new settings are sometimes added.

Here's what we found optimal:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6130&p=67940#p67940