different audio quality for download and stream

[rennnix]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

all 

Device

all devices with spotify 

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

 Hi there 

I was wondering what happens, when I set, for example, extreme quality for stream and normal for download: does spotify automatically start streaming in extreme quality, when it is possible or does it just use the selected, downloadet file? 

If it streams anyway, whether  I downloadet it or not, then it wouldn't make sense to download it to save datavolume as long as the (possible) streamingquality is higher than the downloadet one... Or am I totally false? 

[Guido · Accepted solution]

Hey @rennnix.

Thanks for getting in touch!

If you set the streaming quality to Extreme, and the download quality to normal, you'll be streaming the highest quality whenever you are connected to the internet. But as soon as Spotify is offline, it will play the normal quality version which is saved on the phone.

However, If there is an extreme quality version of a song cached on your phone because you were listening to music while online, it will play that version instead. 

Hope this clarifies some things. Let us know if you have further questions.

Have a nice day!

[rennnix]

Thank you 😄 

[Urquhart]

Hi.
but Premium now (Oct 2019) has no quality choice for download to a computer only for streaming.
Does this mean that:

1. Quality of downlaod is same as that for the setting for streaming.
1. Quality is always the same for download irrespective of the streaming settings. If so what bitrate is it?

I have found no answer this question aftre trawwling the interent for a day so would really appreciate a clear defenite reply.
As an aside there used to be a code in Run (Windows) which opened a console to check bitrate but that doesn't appear to work anymore (Spotify opens without console) although clearing cache on a computer version of Spotify is not that easy as there are several caches to choose from so that could be the problem.

[jackdale3]

What about if you set streaming quality to "automatic"? If your download quality is set to "normal" but your streaming quality is set to "automatic", and say your network connection can handle the "very high" streaming speed required, will it stream in the "very high" quality over the cached "normal" quality stored on the device?

Hope you can help!!

[Alex · Accepted solution]

Hi @jackdale3,

Thanks for reaching out about this.

Whenever you have a song downloaded for Offline play the app will stream the cached version of the song, with the quality you have downloaded it in, even if you're connected to the internet.

If you don't have a song downloaded, the app will stream it depending on the quality setting you've selected and the network available.

Note that cache issues might affect this, so sometimes a downloaded song might be streamed from the internet and not from the downloaded file.

Hope this clears things up. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have more questions.

[jackdale3]

Ah damn, I guess I'll have to increase my download quality then as I was using the "normal" quality as a backup should I go offline, with the assumption that Spotify would preference streaming at higher qualities should I have internet access.

Thanks for clearing this up!