The free version of Spotify offers music at 96kbps on smartphones and 160kbps on desktop. The Pro version goes the distance and offers 320kbps music quality. SoundCloud has capped the sound quality to 128kbps, which is even lower than the desktop quality of Spotify. Both services offer decent free tiers that let users use the service without needing to spend a dime. Of course, be prepared to be blasted with ads if you choose to go this route. Both Spotify and YouTube Music will play ads in between songs which can really get in the way of a good playlist.
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What bitrate does Spotify stream at? This is 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 have known that 320kbps is the highest streaming quality that you can get from Spotify, but I guess, you may be unclear on how can you get it. Don't worry, here is the full introduction of the Spotify bitrate comes 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 for enjoying the lossless audio streaming service. Apart from this, you will get extra tips on how to get Spotify music downloaded with high quality. Curious, right? Let's get started with the first part: What bitrate is Spotify use?
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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 as OGG Vorbis format. Following is the full table about all the bitrates that Spotify streaming at.
![Free Free](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133945560/125697688.png)
Bitrates | Streaming Quality | Free or Premium | Platforms |
24 kbps | Low | Both | Desktop, mobile and tablet https://mlmrenew.weebly.com/spotify-app-queue-not-loading.html. |
96 kbps | Normal | Both | Desktop, mobile and tablet |
128 kbps | Normal | Free | Web Player (AAC) |
160 kbps | High | Both | Desktop, mobile and tablet |
256 kbps | High | Premium | Web Player (AAC) |
320 kbps | Very High | Premium | Desktop, mobile and tablet |
Pay Attention: Low Streaming Quality isn't available on the Windows desktop app. |
According to the table above, the highest bitrate for Spotify Free users is 160kbps while the highest for premium users is 320 kbps. 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 Get High Quality Streaming on Spotify?
There are two ways for you to enjoy high quality on Spotify. The first method is to set the high quality, and the second is to use Spotify equalizer. Take these 2 methods together will be better for you to get lossless audio.
Method 1. How to Set High Music Quality on Spotify
Following we will take the Windows as an example. If you want to enjoy high music quality on your Mobile devices or MacBook, you can also follow the same operation to make it. Downloading the Spotify app first to prepare the following operation.
One Step to Set Your Music Quality on Spotify Spotify premium download apk.
- Run the Spotify app on your computer or mobile devices, and the whole main interface of Spotify will appear. Now click to 'Down-arrow' button to enter the Settings page.
- On the Settings page, scroll down to 'Music Quality'. Under the Music Quality, there is 'Streaming quality'. Hit to the 'Down-arrow' button to choose the high quality. Spotify Free users can choose 160 kbps high quality while Premium users 320 kbps.
If the high quality doesn't suit your needs on enjoying Spotify, then you can set the Spotify Equalizer to enhance the sound quality.
Method 2. How to Set Music Equalizer for Enjoying Spotify Music
Spotify equalizer is only available on mobile devices. In this post, we will take the iPhone 7 as an example. Operations are the same on Android and other mobile devices.
Two-Step to Use Music Equalizer for Enjoying Spotify Music
Step 1. Open Settings page of Spotify Music
- Run the Spotify app on your Mobile. On the main interface of Spotify, hit the 'Gear' button to enter the Settings page, where you can see various settings for Spotify.
Step 2. Choose Your Favorite Music Equalizers of Spotify
- On the Spotify Settings page, click to '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.
After learning how to enjoy lossless audio from Spotify, we would like to share you with an extra tips to fulfill your needs on the lossless audio streaming of Spotify. Keep reading to get the ultimate lossless audio streaming service from Spotify.
Extra Tips: How to Get Spotify Music Downloaded with High-Quality Bitrate?
As a premium users, you just need to press the button to get your music fully downloaded with the same bitrate. However, even though you have fully downloaded, the music is kept in cached files. Even harder if you are Spotify Free member. Here we would like to give you an extra tips on getting Spotify music downloaded with high and lossless audio parameter. So that Premium subscribers can enjoy 320Kbps sound quality while Free 160kbps.
To download Spotify Music for free, a best Spotify Music converter or downloader is required. And TuneFab Spotify Music Converter is such a handy music converter as well as high quality music downloader for both Spotify Free and Premium to download Spotify Music, playlists, albums and more with high quality (For Spotify Premium, reach up to 320 kbps, for Free users, reach up to 160 kbps) to various and common music file formats like MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC and more. Learn more from the following features of the TuneFab Spotify Music Converter.
Features of TuneFab Spotify Music Converter:
- Cover all kinds of Spotify music: tracks, songs, playlists, albums, audiobooks, even podcasts (Mac only), and more.
- Download Spotify music and store as common audio formats: MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AIFF (Mac only).
- Superfast conversion speed to speed up the whole conversion: 5X conversion speed. (Windows Only)
- Spotify Bitrate and sample rate can be adjusted as per your need. For example, the maximum reaches up to 320 kbps, satisfy Spotify Free and Premium needs.
- Various output settings are available for options.
- Keep original audio quality with metadata and ID3 tags preserved.
- Fully compatible with Windows 10/8/7 and macOS 10.10 to 10.15.
- Dig out more.
We will take Windows as an example. If you are running the macOS system, please keep reading since the whole operation is the same.
Step 1. Run TuneFab Spotify Music Converter
- Choose the right version from the button above to download and install TuneFab Spotify Music Converter on your computer. After the installation is over, hit the 'iCon' to run it on your computer. Then you will see the main interface as follow.
Step 2. Add Spotify Music/Playlists/Albums to Spotify Music Converter
- On the main interface of Spotify Music Converter, there is an 'Add Files' button. Click to 'Add Files' button, then you can add the Spotify music by copying the Spotify URL and paste it onto the main interface or dragging the Spotify Playlists/Albums and dropping them onto the Spotify Music Converter.
- We highly recommend Spotify users to add Spotify Music via dragging and dropping methods. When all the music has successfully added, bear in mind to click on to 'Add' again.
Step 3. Set Output Folder & Output Format
- Now, click to 'Options', next to 'Add Files' to set your output settings.
- On the 'General' tag, you can choose the output folder and customize the output files. Hit the 'Select…' button, you can choose the output folder according to your need. If you don't make any changes, then all the Spotify music will be stored in the default output folder.
- Move to the below of Output Folder, you can see 'Output Files', where you can customize the way that your output files display. Besides you can choose the sorting way of the output folders like Album. More output file settings are available to select as per your needs.
- Now, move to the 'Advanced' tag, next to the 'General'. On the Advanced page, you can adjust the conversion speed, reaches up to 5X, and Spotify bitrates and more. Besides, you can choose audio formats from the drop-down list. MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG are available for selection.
Tips: We highly recommend choosing MP3 or M4A with 320Kbps bitrates and 44100 Hz for output the high audio quality.
Step 4. Download Spotify Music with High-Quality Preserved
You are one step closer to fully download Spotify Music now. Just click to 'Convert' and then to download Spotify Music with High Quality. Just waiting for several minutes, then you can enjoy Spotify Music with high quality fully downloaded.
Spotify Free Vs Premium 2019
That's all for today. It is time for you to make up your mind on choosing your favorite music bitrate that you want to enjoy on your Spotify Music, one of the best streaming services. However, no matter what bitrate you may be going to choose, I am sure that you can free from the problem with downloading Spotify Music with the High quality now. Thanks for reading, hope you will enjoy Spotify freely right here. See you!
How Pandora and Spotify Work
When a user visits Pandora and creates a radio station based on, for example, his or her favorite artist, Pandora searches for similar artists and songs using the complex algorithms of the Music Genome Project, a music database that Pandora has patented. The Music Genome Project compiles information on songs, first categorizing each one by genre. A musician then analyzes every song for up to 30 minutes at a time, finding unique characteristics with which to further categorize the music by (e.g., types of instruments used, gender of lead vocalist, rhythm, tonality, etc.). Most songs have hundreds of attributes that help Pandora determine the similarities and differences between one song and another.
Pandora users can further customize their personal radio stations by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to songs that are recommended to them. They can also share their stations with friends; however, linking to specific songs directly is impossible due to licensing restrictions.
Spotify is less about new music discovery than it is about replacing traditional music players, like iTunes or Windows Media Player, with streamable music. Spotify depends on a large catalogue of roughly 20 million songs to accomplish this—a sticking point in some countries when major record labels have not wanted to make deals with the company. In theory, users should be able to create an account on Spotify, search for any song or artist that they like, and begin streaming that music with Spotify's online player.
Playlists
On Pandora, radio stations are really just playlists (and vice versa) and come with the same limitations that all Pandora stations come with. Users can build their own stations/playlists based on their favorite music, use friends' shared playlists, or take advantage of one of many public Pandora stations that are based on genre. However, manually adding individual songs or albums is not supported.
Playlists on Spotify work in the same way that playlists in traditional media players work. Music is manually added or removed by the user. The only difference between Spotify's playlists and traditional media players' playlists is that Spotify's can be easily shared (and even co-edited). This has made Spotify a popular choice among those searching for a free or cheap and legal way to share their favorite artists and songs. It has even led to the creation of full websites (e.g., Playlists.net) dedicated to sharing and rating spotify playlists.
Pandora allows users to create up to 100 unique stations/playlists, while Spotify puts no limit on the number of playlists a user can create.
Phone Apps
Pandora has mobile phone apps for Android and iOS, as well as some limited support among Windows Mobile devices and Blackberries. On the iPhone, the Pandora app can only be installed using a U.S., Australian, or New Zealand iTunes account.
Spotify has apps available on a wide variety of mobile devices around the globe. Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile and Windows Phone are all supported.
Free vs Paid Subscriptions
Relatively few restrictions are placed on non-paying Pandora and Spotify members. The most jarring difference between free and paid memberships on both services is the presence of ads; paying members experience no audio ads on Pandora or Spotify.
Pandora's premium membership is known as Pandora One and costs $4.99 a month. Spotify's subscription is known as Spotify Premium; at $9.99 a month, it is more expensive than Pandora One.
As of 2014, students can subscribe to Spotify Premium for $4.99 a month provided they have a .edu email address from an accredited college or university in the U.S. that they can prove they are enrolled in. This reduced pricing is available to students for three years.
Restrictions on Free Membership
Both Pandora and Spotify put restrictions on non-paying users. The restrictions have changed numerous times over the years as both companies have tried out different pricing models and been affected by changing licensing fees or laws.
At present, Pandora's restrictions on its free members are as follows:
- Audio advertisements that last for 15 to 30 seconds periodically interrupt music. The number of ads served up in an hour varies depending on the operating device (i.e., whether listening to Pandora via computer, mobile, or car).
- Restrictions on how many songs can be skipped in a day. Six skips are allowed, per hour and per station; only 30 skips are permitted across all stations in a 24-hour period. Clicking the 'next' play button, selecting 'I'm tired of this track,' or downvoting (giving a thumbs down to) a song while it plays all count as a skip.
- Reduced audio quality. Music for free members plays at 64 kilobits per second in an AAC+ format. Built-in apps for televisions and other non-mobile devices, like Roku, may receive a slightly higher quality of 128 kbps.
- Timeouts. To avoid paying royalties on songs that users might not be listening to, Pandora periodically times out if the player has not been used in a while.
Spotify places similar restrictions on its free members:
- 15- to 30-second audio ads.
- Reduced audio quality. However, at 160 kbps in the Ogg format Spotify's free version offers a higher quality sound than Pandora does.
Premium Membership Benefits
Pandora One's benefits include the following:
- No ads.
- Higher audio quality of 192 kbps.
- Downloadable desktop application. Users are no longer limited to using Pandora on their mobile devices or in the browser.
- Custom skins for the web application.
- Fewer timeouts, allowing users to listen for longer periods of time without having to interact with the player.
Spotify Premium benefits include the following:
- No ads.
- Ability to download music for offline listening.
- Higher audio quality of 320 kbps for some songs.
- Use of Spotify Connect, which allows users to hook up other hardware to Spotify's mobile app.
Library Size
In 2011, Tim Westergren, a founder of Pandora, stated that the service had over 900,000 songs in its library catalogue at the time. More recent statistics are difficult to find, but it is likely Pandora has well over a million songs in its database as of 2014. Pandora has a good track record of finding and adding obscure independent artists, which aids users in discovering new music.
Because Spotify depends on having songs available on demand, the company has been more aggressive about making deals with major labels as well as well known independent labels. In 2012, its catalogue was said to hold about 20 million songs; however, the size of the catalogue varies by region due to licensing restrictions.
Social Features
Pandora and Spotify provide users with several ways to share music, but Spotify has more widespread, general sharing capabilities than Pandora does.
On Pandora, users can share links to stations via email, Facebook, or Twitter. Users can also share links to individual tracks, but the web address points to general song information—lyrics, purchase info, and a link to create a station based on the song, not listen to it directly (see an example).
With Spotify, users can share individual songs, full albums, and playlists. This is done via special links that target the Spotify application itself. This flexibility has led many third-party websites to adopt Spotify links as a method to legally share music. And as of 2014, Spotify has teamed up with Last.fm, an online music statistics and recommendation service, to try to compete with Pandora.
Parental Controls
For parents who are concerned about the music their children might listen to, Pandora is the better option, as it offers parental control options that will play censored versions of songs and exclude others entirely. Because every song is analyzed by real people, Pandora's parental controls are very reliable and do not simply rely on 'Parental Advisory' labels.
In contrast to Pandora's rigorous parental control system, Spotify offers no such capabilities. This means that explicit, uncensored music is available to anyone who signs up to Spotify.
Spotify Free Vs Premium 2020
Other Features
While Spotify's flexibility may make it more universal on the web in some respects, Pandora is found a lot more frequently beyond computers and mobile devices. Not only do many audio-video receives, media players, and HDTVs carry default support for Pandora, but so too do many modern automobiles that have digital radio systems.
Spotify can be found on or downloaded for many mobile devices and media players, but it is rarer on HDTVs and is not built in to any vehicle's digital radio systems by default. In some cases, Spotify Connect can be used to join Spotify with a device or set of speakers, which are controlled via the Spotify mobile app, but Connect requires a premium membership.
Free Spotify Vs Premium
Availability and Popularity
Pandora is much more popular than Spotify in the U.S.
Pandora has more users than Spotify does, but Spotify's service is available to more users around the world. Whereas Pandora only serves users in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, due to licensing issues, Spotify reaches dozens of countries and territories (click here for a full list). This has made Spotify popular outside of the U.S., but Americans remain loyal to Pandora according to statistics.
In 2014, Pandora reached 200 million users, with nearly 70 million active each month. By comparison, Spotify has about 40 million users as of 2014, 10 million of them premium subscribers.
Both Pandora and Spotify depend on banner advertisements, music-interrupting ads, and premium member subscriptions for funding. However, as of 2014, both companies operate at a net loss.