Spotify settings for best musical performance

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lejonklou
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Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by lejonklou »

During the recent holidays, my entire family was playing music on Källa in the living room, sometimes from the iPad mini 6 on the table and sometimes from their own phones.

At one point I sensed that it didn't sound quite as good as I am accustomed to, so I had to investigate exactly what was going on. It turned out to be Spotify playing from a phone and I soon discovered that my entire family had various suboptimal settings on their Spotify accounts. That included my own phone...

Therefore I decided to post a separate topic about what settings you should have on your Spotify app to get the best musical performance. These settings are valid regardless of whether you have a Källa or are listening through something else, like your headphones.

Start the Spotify app on your iPhone or iPad (when this is written, version 8.8.96.395 is the latest).
Click the photo of you in the upper left corner.
Choose Settings and privacy.

Choose Data Saver and turn off everything.

Choose Playback and turn off the following:
Offline
Picture in picture
Automix
Enable Audio Normalization
Mono Audio
Equalizer (click and turn off on the next page)
Play Feedback Sounds
Canvas

Choose Privacy & Social and turn off everything.

Choose Voice Assistants & Apps and turn off everything.

Choose Audio Quality. Set it to Very High on three places and turn off Auto adjust quality.
Set Download to Very High and turn off Download Using Mobile Data.

Choose Video Quality. Set it to Very High on two places.

Choose Notifications. If any of these are on (I happened to have everything set to Off, except 'Music & Artist Recommendations', 'In-person Concerts & Events' and 'Livestreams & Virtual Events'), then switch on both Push and Email.

Finally, quit the app (go to the Home Screen, swipe up from the bottom to see all the active apps, swipe the Spotify app up (or sideways) until it disappears).
Return to the Home Screen and start the Spotify app again.

Happy listening!

[Updated 2024-01-06]
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by markiteight »

Wow, that made a difference! Almost all my settings were wrong. I never messed with them so they must be the default settings.

Thanks, Fredrik!!!
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by tokenbrit »

lejonklou wrote: 2023-01-04 22:30 ...
Finally, quit the app (go to the Home Screen, swipe up from the bottom to see all the active apps, swipe the Spotify app up until it disappears).
Return to the Home Screen and start the Spotify app again.

Happy listening!
Thanks for the settings. I had them set, but quitting all background apps seemed to help...

I didn't pay enough attention when I was quitting all the apps, including Spotify: is clicking on the 3 dots at the top & selecting 'Close X' the same as quitting the app, or does that just minimise? (checked & 'Close X' appears to minimise rather than quit so it's important to swipe/quit)

As above, quitting a bunch of unnecessary apps seems to help in itself. Happy listening indeed - cheers and Happy New Year!
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by matthias »

Thanks Fredrik for this topic!
I am using your recommended settings in the Spotify desktop app for MacOS as well.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by jajo »

On macOS it is also important to turn off
  • Normalize Volume - Adjust the volume level for all songs and podcasts
  • Crossfade songs
And make sure the built-in volume control is set to 100% (in Spotify, lower right corner).
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by matthias »

jajo wrote: 2023-01-05 10:19 On macOS it is also important to turn off
  • Normalize Volume - Adjust the volume level for all songs and podcasts
  • Crossfade songs
And make sure the built-in volume control is set to 100% (in Spotify, lower right corner).
Yes, does make "Privacy" enabled any SQ difference?
Thx
Last edited by matthias on 2023-01-05 19:13, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by John »

Autoplay
When you reach the end of an album, playlist, or selection of songs, Spotify automatically plays similar songs so the music never stops.


This is a function of Spotify that I truly enjoy and has led me to some really great music finds. I will keep that one enabled.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by lejonklou »

John wrote: 2023-01-05 14:10 Autoplay
When you reach the end of an album, playlist, or selection of songs, Spotify automatically plays similar songs so the music never stops.


This is a function of Spotify that I truly enjoy and has led me to some really great music finds. I will keep that one enabled.
I have it enabled too and haven’t tested whether it makes any difference to sound quality. My guess is that it doesn’t.

Automix however, should be turned off. It runs a funny process that can fade songs into one another. This process is not good for sound quality.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by tokenbrit »

And Gapless Playback is still ok to leave enabled?
Last edited by tokenbrit on 2023-01-05 19:11, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by ThomasOK »

This would be a good thing to put in a document on the Källa section of the main website.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by John »

lejonklou wrote: 2023-01-05 16:28
John wrote: 2023-01-05 14:10 Autoplay
When you reach the end of an album, playlist, or selection of songs, Spotify automatically plays similar songs so the music never stops.


This is a function of Spotify that I truly enjoy and has led me to some really great music finds. I will keep that one enabled.
I have it enabled too and haven’t tested whether it makes any difference to sound quality. My guess is that it doesn’t.

Automix however, should be turned off. It runs a funny process that can fade songs into one another. This process is not good for sound quality.
Frederick,

Thanks for the clarification, I’m glad to know I can keep that feature without compromising the quality of the music.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by matthias »

ThomasOK wrote: 2023-01-05 18:18 This would be a good thing to put in a document on the Källa section of the main website.
The rule of thumb for best quality is set "Audio quality" to "very high" and do not enable any other settings.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by jajo »

matthias wrote: 2023-01-05 22:55
ThomasOK wrote: 2023-01-05 18:18 This would be a good thing to put in a document on the Källa section of the main website.
The rule of thumb for best quality is set "Audio quality" to "very high" and do not enable any other settings.
But it is not always true so best is to verify everything by ear or trust someone who actually tried it.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by lejonklou »

Guests for the evening, music, cheese and pastrami. Spent most of the week working on multiple Tundra Mono 3 details and this is such an enjoyable Friday evening break.

Discovering new music when they play on Källa with their phones, aah this is good, is it Spotify? Can you please let me check your settings, there are some crucial ones that aren’t right as defaults.

Quick change of settings and oh boy, how come the defaults are so off? Night and day difference when they’re all correct. Never noticed these kind of detrimental settings on Qobuz or Tidal. Spotify really needs “the fix” described in the original post of this thread.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by Fred11 »

Hi Fredrik
Sounds like a well earned break. That was my experience too with the settings. Made me prefer qobuz on lots of music. Now that I am back with Spotify, It has made me paranoid so I check quite often. What is strange is that the last update did not change the settings. It’s unpredictable.
Have a nice weekend!
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by ThomasOK »

My iPad has upgraded a couple of times and the settings seem to have stayed the same. I think only one was not the optimal one. I tried to check the settings on my iPhone but it won't let me as it is communicating with the iPad. Since that is at home I'll have to disconnect it first before I can check the phone settings.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by matthias »

ThomasOK wrote: 2023-01-21 20:59 My iPad has upgraded a couple of times and the settings seem to have stayed the same.
Agree,
this is also the case with the Spotify desktop app for Mac. Even when upgrading from Spotify Free to Spotify Premium the streaming quality setting only must be changed from "High" to "Very high". But after the very first download of a Spotify app it is absolutely mandatory to check all settings.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by ThomasOK »

Yes, I did have to set the streaming quality to "very high".
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by Pierre@headonist »

Did all the settings. Noticed that music comes from a darker blackground, and that lows have a slightly higher presence.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by lejonklou »

One setting that I haven't evaluated is 'Canvas', which can be found at the bottom of 'Playback' settings.

Never had this enabled. Not sure whether it matters to sound quality.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by markiteight »

lejonklou wrote: 2023-03-10 01:48 One setting that I haven't evaluated is 'Canvas', which can be found at the bottom of 'Playback' settings.

Never had this enabled. Not sure whether it matters to sound quality.
I've always had it enabled. It's kinda fun, but I too have wondered if it affects musical performance. The video loops only appear on relatively popular songs that have/had music videos associated with them that Spotify could pull the loops from, so if it's the presence of the video loops that potentially affect performance it will only be on a limited number of songs.

Edit: I just tossed on a pair of headphones and did a quick comparison and yes, there's a difference. I'll post clips later tonight when I get a chance.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by springwood64 »

A1 and W1 for me. The '2's sound like they've been flattened. I'm guessing that the '2's are with the videos enabled.
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by lejonklou »

I think your system sounds awesome.

And I prefer A1/W1. Surprised the difference is so big. Did both of these songs have a video?
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Re: Spotify settings for best musical performance

Post by ThomasOK »

Sounding good there markiteight! I also definitely preferred A1 and W1. At first I thought it was more obvious on A1/A2 but this thought came while I was listening to W2 and thinking it wasn't that bad. Then I restarted W2 and went back to W1 and thought "Never mind! W1 is a lot better."

After listening to the second pair I was forced to go find this and listen to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifhcWeXIOZs

Maybe I should bring this album to the show?
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