How to instantly boost sound quality on Spotify

Do you ever wonder if you are enduring a subpar audio experience on Spotify? It’s frustrating when a song from your favourite playlist sounds different. Or when podcasts are either super dull or extremely loud. But why accept it when you can enjoy the simple joy of listening to your favourite music at its best?

Of course, new or expensive headphones could help, but what if we tell you that you only need to know what Spotify settings to tweak on your smartphone?

Spotify settings to play around with:

Once you open your Spotify and go to Settings and Privacy, you can change a few things to improve the sound quality. Here are a few things that you can try:

1. Data Saver

The ‘Data Saver’ automatically sets your music quality to low if it is on. If it has been left on the default setting in your app or by you previously, turn it off for higher quality audio.

ALSO READ: Spotify AI DJ: A comprehensive user guide

2. Playback

Under the playback section, these are the settings that you should keep an eye out for:

i. Normalize Volume: Switch this on. Some songs sound too loud, while others seem muted. What Normalize Volume does is it levels out the volume of every song to give you a more uniform audio experience.

ii. Volume level: This option lets you choose three volume settings. You can either opt for your songs or podcasts to sound Quiet, Normal, or Loud depending upon how noisy your surroundings are.

iii. Mono Audio: Check if your Mono Audio is on or off. With Mono on, both the left and right sides of your audio devices play the same sound, making the audio experience feel more balanced. When Mono is off, the audio that you hear is in Stereo.

Music or most audio files tend to be for stereo listening as it offers an immersive experience. You can try switching between these two to figure out what works best for you.

iv. Equaliser: There’s a manual equaliser which can be used to adjust to the bass, treble and midrange of your music to your liking. You can change these settings for genres like Classical, Acoustic, Hip-Hop, Rock, Jazz, and more. It’s recommended that you have a song playing in the background while you adjust these settings to help you know how it’s affecting the songs you’ll be listening to.

3. Audio Quality

i. Wi-Fi Streaming: You can choose to stream low quality (24 kbps), normal quality (96 kbps), and high quality (160 kbps). Obviously, go for a higher quality. That said, it is crucial to note that higher audio quality will result in more internet consumption.

ii. Cellular Streaming: The same applies to cellular streaming, however, choosing a higher quality may drain your data quicker.

Spotify Premium

We all highly appreciate the ad-free streaming offered by Spotify’s premium subscription, but it has so much more to offer than just downloads and unlimited skips.

Using the premium version provides an option for Very High audio quality (320 kbps) for both Wi-Fi and Cellular streaming. This enhances our listening experience even more, especially with the use of good headphones.