Sound quality vs Google Play is terrible. Why??

[Xaxas]

I know there's plenty of threads out there regarding sound quality, but nothing has solved my issues.

If it matters I have the 2014 Moto X.

Problem: I can pick any song, doesn't matter - songs I've never listened to and songs I have, play them in Spotify and they sound "meh"... pause it, open Google Play Music, find the same song, play, without changing anything at all it sounds way WAY more full, and like I just turned my stereo up about 10 notches.

YES - Spotify is set to stream in Extreme quality. (What's worse, Google Play is only set to stream as "Normal" quality, not even their "Highest" setting.)

YES - I have cleared the cache.

YES - I have the equalizer enabled on both apps, and it shares the same EQ so they should sound the same in that regard.

So what is the deal? The disparity between the two is just unbelievable. Honestly, it's bad enough that I've canceled my subscription and switched because of the sound quality alone. You'd have to be near deaf to not hear the difference.

Is there anyone that can offer some legitimate, factual insight here?

[MIKELE1982]

nope, normalization isnt exactly changeing sound quality at all. 
volume does change listening perception and the phisicality of more volume is more "vibration' intesity for the senses (your ear) and the vibration of the speakers.

i would test google vs spotify, playing the same sone, in the same volume level as you can. 3-5 tracks and see on which one you feel less ear fatigue and less sizzeling highs, and better nice round bass. 
http://www.hometracked.com/2008/04/20/10-myths-about-normalization/

[Joe]

I'm going to pop in here. I've been a GPM subscriber for 4 months after years with Spotify as a premium subscriber. For mainstream music, I perceive no difference in the quality of both services - they both sound like 320 kbps streams should. However, I also enjoy listening to classical music and Spotify wins hands down. GPM's classical recordings are often badly distorted.

Of course, "music quality" is very subjective unless you can afford expensive analytical gear.

[Jimster480]

Volume does indeed affect sound quality especially with normalization. It
loses bits of resolution with digital quantization.
This is why digital volume controlled in this matter does directly affect
sound quality.
If the volume was controlled in the analog domain then you are reducing the
current and not the quality.

I have compared several tracks from Google music and spotify and there is
no difference (actually in some songs spotify has a bit more micro detail)
and this is tested with a high end audio stack (Topping DX7 and various
Amps) with Denon Ah-7200 and AH-MM400 headphones or 1more quad driver IEMs.

If I can't tell the difference without analytical listening and some tracks
sound better on spotify.... I'm not sure what your case is.

I listen to 250-400 hours of spotify a month literally for years now.
Once I thought there was a real difference I was going to switch.
But turning off normalization removes any difference.

[Xaxas · Accepted solution]

FYI to anyone that comes across this thread in the future... Glad to see others came in with the answer. I was just going through my old posts and realized I never came back to say so, but that was exactly the issue. Their "Normalize Volume" setting was doing it. Turning that off absolutely solved the issue.

I understand what they're trying to do with that setting, but for me at least, it may as well have been called a "Compress the **bleep** out of everything" setting.

[Mtee]

I completely agree that Google Play Music has a more dynamic sound with far more details and less noticeable compression.

I have a background working with high-end car audio but that´s almost two decades ago.

Using Spotify for 7 years has somewhat clouded my judgement but listening to Google Play Music for the first time just made me instantly realize how songs are supposed to sound (and still there is a huge gap between Google and a normal CD).

You make it seem like people should notice - but I think that most people´s ears aren´t that sensitive to music quality. And as long as the quality is better than FM radio most people are satisfied.

[Jimster480]

if you disable the volume normalization there is no difference for most
tracks. In the end it will depend on which source file was used for each
base encode on either streaming service.
Also there is no difference between either one and CD quality in 99% of
cases (provided you have premium).

[user-removed]

.

[Jimster480]

I agree that the quality of spotify tracks does vary greatly, but since Google music has such a small portion of what Spotify has.... i haven't done extensive comparisons.

But the quality of both in HQ is not discernable.

I have a Topping DX7 and a Mrspeakers Aeon and honestly if I can't tell the difference with such top quality and top measuring audio gear.... 99.9% of other people cannot either.
What I did notice is that alot of the "poor quality" music that is on Spotify, isn't on Google music at all. While there are exceptions, this really depends on what you would rather have....

Also the Spotify web client has AAC vs OGG so you can try Spotify premium on the web too which might affect the quality for some songs.

[user-removed]

This might help if you have a Huawei device...more precisly P9 Lite or P10 Lite.

It worked for mine.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-auto/nCX0IhMoNYc/nZEu0SHoDQAJ