Marantz M-CR610 Streaming Quality with a Premium Account

[hannes14986]

Dear Readers,

I am the happy owner of a M-CR610 and connected it to Spotify last night, after registering for a Spotify Premimum Account in order to enjoy in 320 kbps. Why buying high-end devices when the music source is rubbish?, I thought. But then: At the device I cannot set the streaming to the highest quality manually as it is the case with iOS or android devices. When contacting the support of Marantz, I was told that the streaming quality automatically is the highest available. My ears tell me something different, but I can be wrong.

In short: Please, Spotify, how can I make sure I get the streaming quality I am paying for on my M-CR610? Is it really automatically the highest? Is my premium account detected automatically?

To be honest, the higher streaming quality is the only reason worth paying 10 bucks/month.

Best

Hannes

[hannes14986]

Anyone?

[Peter__]

Marantz support are correct, as far as I am aware it will always play the highest quality available in the Spotify catalogue (and Spotify say more than 99% of content is now available at 320kbps).

[indoorsman]

I just started streaming spotify through a marantz sr5008 (new reciever and speakers)

It sounded terrible. It sounds "crunchy" on the low end especially almost like the woofer in my speaker (I have bookshelves) is struggling with the input, it would appear there is a lot of lower frequency information loss. As there is no way to check the bitrate, I have no idea how to really prove anything to anyone about it. Maybe there is a network monitor that can test the data coming down through my airport express?

I have two options at the moment - I can play spotify through airplay on an ipod (I used an ipod touch as a streaming/ music playing solution anyway) or I can fiddle with settings on the desktop application for streaming quality and see if that does anything in the quality on the marantz.

I already did option 1 - streaming through airplay on the ipod sounds much better. I want to try a second time tonight to conifrm. On top of that, it is much easier to browse and you get spotify radio - the spotify implentation on the marantz is very bare bones and is overall an unfriendly implementation. So although its a solution that gives me more flexibility I am still getting an audio source transcoded for transport through airplay - not a perfect solution theoretically. The flexibility overides that, but in the end there are two problems - on marantz's side a poor implentation of spotify, and on spotify's side no way to change (or just double check) streaming settings for the marantz.

Option 2 - I did change the settings on the desktop application, but I didnt have a change to retest spotify direct from the reciever. If anyone has a chance to try this and can give a second opinion on that it would be helpful.

[Patrickovitsj]

I have the same result. if I stream spotify from my Mac via airplay, it sounds better then via connect on my Matantz sr6009. Can't find any option on my receiver to select quality.

[bobjwatts]

Same result here on Marantz sr6009. There are ways around it but it's dissapointing.

[hannes14986]

What of ways around, bobjwatts?

Sadly, noone at Spotify or Marantz has an ear for this issue. Appears to have been (poorly) implemented only to be able to feature it on the box in the shop...

[bobjwatts]

I just installed the latest up date and I'm happy to say it's fixed the issue for me! Spotify is nice and clear now.

Anyone else get this?

[hannes14986]

Hi,

as far as I know there has not been an update for my Marantz M-CR610.

Happy to hear what others experienced.

[Fozzie55]

I have an M-CR510 which is an M-CR610 without CD and DAB. I would like to know am I streaming the best quality from Spotify or else I am sending it back! My Roberts Radio Stream 93i shows Spotify streaming at 320 kbps. I should just plug that in an Amp.

[SHADEYMAN-GB]

Hi Fozzie55.

I had a similar issue, have a read of THIS it may help.