"Enable high bitrate" does not change the quality on the songs.

A valid point! But compared to a month ago lots and lots of albums have been converted to the higher bitrate. ( Delete or Edit)

You may also want to make sure you haven't enabled volume normalization... ( Delete or Edit)

I disabled that several days ago... ( Delete or Edit)

Thanks but I tried it and am still definitely hearing noticeable artefacts from low bit rate on at least two of the tracks. It's most obvious on the quieter ones, for example spotify:track:13LMeyy5nz3phzWokSIToh ( Delete or Edit)

Wonder if you have some problem with your sound equipment. You will have to be a bit more detailed about what you hear. Time stamps etc. ( Delete or Edit)

Definitely not a problem with my sound equipment. For example, I bought the 192kbps MP3 version of this track from 7digital:

spotify:track:37sIATjMjD6R9otmqRzdaj

and the difference in quality between the MP3 playback and Spotify's playback is as clear as night and day - the former sounds great and the latter sounds awful. In the first few seconds of the track on Spotify, high frequency artefacts and quality loss are extremely noticeable. The same high frequency artefacts (not sure how to describe them other than tinny) are clearly audible in the first 10 seconds of spotify:track:13LMeyy5nz3phzWokSIToh mentioned above and in fact the majority of Spotify tracks I have listened to. It's more noticeable when there is more space in the music or when it's quieter. ( Delete or Edit)

The first example is probably not in high bitrate yet. As for the Monsters of Folk track, I just downloaded Temazcal in 320 kbps mp3 and it sounds almost 100 percent identical to the Spotify version. I would give the Spotify version a slight edge in sound quality though. ( Delete or Edit)

Hooray! I stumbled across the solution for me:

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/to...

Changing winecfg > Audio > DirectSound > Hardware Acceleration to Emulation results in the sound quality going from awful to excellent! Sorry Spotify for casting doubts over the quality of your service! ( Delete or Edit)

Great! :) ( Delete or Edit)

Hi JB, i can't hear any difference between 160 kbps and 320 kbps in the Monsters Of Folk album, could you please point me to some areas where the difference is clearly hearable? Or do i have to close and reopen Spotify after enabling high bitrate play? (volume normalization is disabled) ( Delete or Edit)

Could be a cache issue for you. I'll try it again. Will answer shortly. ( Delete or Edit)

Listened now and it's certainly not easy to pick tracks where you could really spot the difference. In general, though, I would say the higher bitrate is a bit warmer, has more space to it. An exampel is the first 15 seconds to this track: http://open.spotify.com/track/03VaSj7... ( Delete or Edit)

Listened to it in 160 and 320 kbps and i can hear no real difference, but perhaps you and others can. So i guess that if there really is a hearable quality difference then it is very minimal and only very few users could hear it. Right? ( Delete or Edit)

That could be. The more I dig into sound issues in general, the more confused I get. :)

A friend of mine said that, in his opinion, albums added to the free version now compared to albums added 7-8 months ago do sound better. Of course, that's a very subjective opinion, but maybe there has been a change in encoding. ( Delete or Edit)

I checked with downloads and those sound exactly the same from that source. This may indicate that the slight hiss is present on the original recording. To my ears it was hardly noticable though. ( Delete or Edit)

Hey JB, where did you download from and in what quality? ( Delete or Edit)

It was from a pirate source and in 256 kbps (I think..) ( Delete or Edit)

I prefer that, yes. Sometimes it can be a bit strange with different volumes, for example if you go from a very old release to a brand new one. I have no problem with adjusting the volume though. :) ( Delete or Edit)

Hi JB, could you please answer my question above too? Thank you... ( Delete or Edit)

Answered now. Didn't see it before. :) ( Delete or Edit)

Answered back, thank you ( Delete or Edit)

And back again. ( Delete or Edit)