Music streaming services like Spotify use compression to reduce data usage, which can affect audio quality. While some services like Apple Music and Amazon Music offer high-quality lossless audio, Spotify’s HiFi tier, originally planned for late 2021, remains unavailable as of 2024.
Looking to maximize your Spotify audio quality for now? Spotify currently offers four audio quality settings on most devices, with “Very High” being the best available. This guide will show you how to enable “Very High” audio quality to elevate your streaming experience.
Spotify’s “Very High” audio quality offers a bitrate of approximately 320kbps. The service provides a range of audio quality options to fit your device, subscription plan, and personal preferences. Here’s a breakdown of the available audio quality settings on Spotify:
The 320kbps Very High quality is exclusively available to Spotify Premium subscribers. Spotify Free listeners are limited to the High-quality option, which has a bitrate of 160kbps. In other words, to unlock the highest quality audio on Spotify, a Spotify Premium subscription is needed.
| Spotify Audio Quality | Spotify Premium | Spotify Free |
| Web Player | AAC 256kbit/s | AAC 128kbit/s |
| Desktop and Mobile Apps | Very high (320kbit/s) High (160kbit/s) Normal (96kbit/s) Low (24kbit/s) Automatic | High (160kbit/s) Normal (96kbit/s) Low (24kbit/s) Automatic |
Before you begin, keep in mind that “Very High” audio quality is only available with a Spotify Premium subscription. In the same menu, you can also set separate audio quality settings for WiFi, Cellular Data, and Downloads. In addition, the Automatic option allows the music quality to be dynamically adjusted based on your current network connection for a smooth listening experience.
Please note that you can’t adjust the Spotify music quality on the web player. Here is how you can enjoy the highest audio quality of Spotify with the mobile and desktop apps.
By default, Spotify automatically adjusts audio quality to prevent buffering or stuttering. However, you can turn off this feature if you prioritize the highest quality sound and have a strong internet connection.
Here’s how to disable “Auto Adjust Quality” and ensure Spotify streams music at the maximum 320kbps (Very High) quality:
Spotify does offer a download feature, but it’s exclusively available to Spotify Premium subscribers for full albums and playlists. If you wish to download individual songs, you’ll need to add them to a playlist and then download the entire playlist.
Regarding download quality, you can adjust it to the 320kbps Very High setting as well. However, downloaded content from Spotify can only be accessed through the Spotify app when you have an active Premium subscription. Reinstalling the app or canceling your Spotify subscription will result in losing your downloads.
To download Spotify songs in 320kbps without a Premium subscription, you can explore a smart Spotify music downloader — Pazu Spotify Converter. This tool is designed for both Spotify Free and Premium users, enabling you to download all Spotify songs, playlists, or albums for offline listening. It can extract Spotify music and convert it to various high-quality formats, including MP3, M4A, AIFF, WAV, FLAC, and AAC. This allows you to enjoy Spotify Premium features within a free account. Furthermore, after downloading, you can transfer the downloaded tracks to any other compatible device for offline enjoyment even after your subscription ends.
Key features of Pazu Spotify Converter:
Now, let’s learn how to use Pazu Spotify Music Converter to download and convert Spotify songs with a free subscription from the following tutorial.
Download, install, and run Pazu Spotify Converter on your Mac or Windows. Log in to your Spotify account with the built-in web player.
Click the gear icon on the top right corner. Here you can select the output format (AUTO[M4A], MP3, AAC, FLAC, WAV, or AIFF), choose output audio quality, customize the output path, organize the output files in various ways, rename output files, and more.
Use the integrated Spotify web player to search the songs, albums, or playlists, you want to download. Click the Add to List button to load all songs in the album or playlist.
Click the Convert button to start downloading the Spotify songs to your local computer.
You can download individual songs or batch-convert the entire playlist.
To download individual songs or specific songs of your choice, simply uncheck the ones you don’t want to download.
Check all the songs in the playlist or album to download them all.
Once the conversion is done, you can find your Spotify songs downloaded as local files by clicking the folder button or directly going to the output folder you customized in the previous step.
Note: The free trial version of Pazu Spotify Converter enables you to convert the first three minutes of each song. You can remove the trial limitation by purchasing the full version.
Spotify’s highest audio quality setting is “Very High”, offering a bitrate of approximately 320kbps. This provides the best possible sound quality for music streaming on the platform. However, please note that higher quality streaming uses more data. Be mindful of your data usage if you’re listening on cellular data.
Unfortunately, the Spotify web player does not provide the option to adjust music quality settings. The audio quality for Spotify Free users is typically around AAC 128kbit/s, while Spotify Premium users enjoy AAC 256kbit/s.
If you are a Spotify Premium user seeking to experience Very High quality streaming, it is advisable to download the Spotify app to access this feature.
Please keep in mind that Spotify’s “Very High” is only available for Spotify Premium subscribers. Spotify Free users can adjust streaming audio quality with the best “High” option equivalent to approximately 160kbit/s.
Download and convert any Spotify songs, albums, playlists to MP3/M4A etc.