Sound is very flat and empty

I tested it with the streaming Napster music and i think then it is 128 kbps WMA.

The difference in sound quality (loudness and bass) when playing the same music in Napster or in Spotify is so obvious that i could tell you wether the music is played in Napster or in Spotify with closed eyes.

Perhaps Spotify is normalizing all available tracks to the same loudness level which lead to this flat sound experience???

I must agree the quality is not good at all. There is more to quality than what codec used. There quality is empty compared even to radio. Is the quality to be improved? Othervise I will cancel my account!

Same here, I connected the computer to my HK reciver, the sound is not good and I use the Creative SB X-Fi Elite Pro soundcard, so I can't blame the soundcard here. :(

It's not ok to pay for this sound quality. FIX!!!!

I tested Spotify with high-quality headphones (AKG 271 Studio) and the flat Spotify sound is very obvious (compared to e.g. Napster) even with such high-quality sound equipment!

Could you give some examples of tracks where this is particularly noticeable?

It is nothing wrong with the base...
Bass Speaker Test - DJ Bass Alliance
http://open.spotify.com/track/2XS7cDc...

I can only agree, the sound quality is much to low to be acceptable for me as a paying customer. It would be a great service if it wasn't for the low sound quality. Will this be fixed? When?

Hi! I agree with pellefisk, the sound must be much loader before I can pay for this. Hope it will be fixed soon...

wow you really use the words sound quality, notebook and loudness in the same sentence... if anything destyroys sound quality it would be to use loudness on a pair of notebook speakers.... I do agree that the quality could be better but it's good enough for now as far as i am concerned and what i pay for it. Better to add features and expand the music library

Here is the proof that there is something wrong with the sound since version 0.3.0, which was the first Ogg Vorbis version of the Spotify client:

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/...

The user mathiaswiberg describes the sound in version 0.3.0 "more hollow now" and he noticed "a big difference" to other music services (iTunes in his case) too!!!

It would be great if the Spotify staff could clarify this problem for us now:

- Why there is so little loudness?
- Why there is so little bass (in rock songs for example)?
- Do you use some kind of loudness normalization and if yes, how is it implemented?
- Do you use a loudness restriction in the Spotify player like some mp3 players have it implemented and if yes, why?

Re: The high quality sound equipment thing, as a rule of thumb, the better your sound equipment, the more the limitations of compressed, lossy formats are exposed.

I'm a bit of an audio quality freak myself, but you know what, for the most part I find Spotify's quality perfectly acceptable for casual listening. Obviously it'd be nice to have the entire catalogue streamed in MP3 V0 but we need to think about what we can reasonably expect in these early stages, no?

I personally don't have much problem with the sound quality. But I have a high quality sound card in my computer and not some integrated intel sound chipset. But I guess the main problem is that there isn't an equalizer option in the application, that for one thing would probably increase the quality for the cheaper sound cards out there.

The quality is “ok” but the level is NOT. If I play the same song in WinAmp or MP, the level is dramatically higher than in Spotify. This is a problem for me since my laptops head amp can barely push my in ear headphones (and definitely not my K240S and K601s...). Something is set wrong in some level parameter in the code of Spotify.

I agree. I just started to use Spotify and while it's an EXCELLENT service the first thing I noticed was lack of dynamics in the sound. I compared to 192kbps mp3 (same everything; same tunes, same volume level, same computer, same headphones) and the mp3s were clearly better.

So a little less compression is my number one wish.

There's nothing wrong with the "quality" or "compression (data), it's the VOLYME of the application itself that's set incorrectly somehow. Luckily, this should be easy to fix...

I agree, the quality is fine but the volume definitely needs to go up.

I'm now aware of the fact that it's due to the normalization process and have already made some comments on the topic on this blog:

http://brendancooper.com/2008/10/21/a...

In short: let the user decide if he/she wants to use this future or not.

Sincerely Jens

I would also like to take the opportunity to suggest an interesting product development for Spotify:

Imagine if DJs could download a DJ version of Spotify that supports audio interfaces with two stereo outputs or more. Could become quite popular I guess.

Personally, I’m waiting for the mobile version... then you’ll rule the planet!

You could try using SRS Audio Sandbox with Spotify. I don ́t listen to any streaming music without it, especially with my DJ headphones, as dull sound in headphones are horrible. The SRS program simply boosts and enhances the output audio on your PC.
http://open.spotify.com/track/2VFTOmx...
http://open.spotify.com/track/21KN7Qg...

I would like the idea of adding replay gain tags to the metadata of the files instead of normalising them. With a control dialog in the spotify client the user can decide if track/album gain or no gain is applied to the file.

Quality itself is hard to discuss cause it is a very subjective thing. Maybe boosting the quality to q7 will do the job!

I agree with Mattias, the compression is far to great. Being an audiophile 160kbps is not enough, the old LPs I have are much better in terms of quality. Will the quality be improved in the future?
Have you compressed the whole liberay or do you have high quality version of all the tracs?

For me, a member of the Swedish Studio Engineering Society (SSES). This is my view after listening through a brand new Mac with AKG 240 headphones that I'm used to mix with.: The sound quality is acceptable for background music but slightly to low for me to become totally addicted to spotify. I can hear unclarity mostly in the high end treble area. For the mid and bass I think it sounds ok.

as the simple man i am i dont mind at all the normalization or the quality, but, the level should be alot higher

If you think that the level needs to go up, then you do care about the lack of option to turn "normalization" (the lowering of gain on high RMS songs compared to low RMS songs) off.

Have no problem with the dynamics of the sound, it's just very low compared to other sounding applications.

It would be nice if an employee could tell us about the progress regarding this issue (low level due to "normalization” and the lack of option to turn it of).

If you want to get the best possible quality from your soundcard, you need to feed the DA-converter with a unity gain signal (full level) since you don’t use all the bits if you lower the level in the digital domain. If the level from Spotify is at -12dB, you’ll end up listening to music with 14 bits resolution instead of 16 bits and this means higher noise and THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) levels. A user option to turn it off is the only way to go and it should be a simple thing to add so I really don’t understand why no one is responding to our request. I’ve recommended Spotify to a lot of people and many of them has had complaints about the quality but it’s always the level difference compared to other players that makes them think that the quality of Spotify is bad.

Spotify team:

Pleas add a tick box for “Equal loudness playback” that can be unchecked!

For me the problem was solved by adding a good software equalizer. (Adding stuff to an arbitrary audio stream is easy in Linux, but probably not so in Windows.)

After this the sound quality is good enough to my ears. I even A/Bed Spotify and Audacious w/o other effects, using monitor headphones from my studio (Sennheiser HD280 Pro and AKG K240). Not that much of a difference to be upset about it.

I hope you won't add any effects to the audio stream like other music services appears to be doing. That would surely spoil the fun for the "audiophiles". Many people would probably be happy with a good built-in equalizer though.

This isn't really a problem with Spotify, its a problem with some computers having poor sound amplification. I use an external amplifier for my headphones and sound quality overall is much better than other web-based music services (thanks to ogg vorbis). I have no problems turning up the volume to a level where my ears will fall apart.

I thing the quality has improved some since this tread started, but it's not a problem with the amplification, or anyway not only, have a 3000$ hifi stereo so that should not be the problem, I simply thing your have lover expectaions Skom..

Please add the possibility to remove the normalization and also add an EQ, then it would probably be much better for many of us that think this is a BIG problem.

Still no reply from Spotify regarding the “level” issue. I’ve sent an email on the 4th of November but still no reply. I’m starting to think that maybe they HAVE done the foolish mistake of normalizing the tracks destructively (but I don’t think that they are that stupid). Still a mystery that they don’t want to at least comment on whether or not they are planning to add a user selectable option for this.

First of all, I’m not ”pissed off” (yet...:), and any reply is better than no reply since you at least know that they got the message.

I haven't read all the replies, and if this has been said somewhere else, I apologize, but you're comparing Spotify that does ogg with napster that uses mp3? Since mp3 is a flat stream you have an Equalizer that enhances the sound and gives it bass..etc.. that's how mp3 music is supposed to be, while ogg delivers with the musics studio recorded eq settings, right now, there's no equalizer settings to change in spotify, so it'll play everything "normally" which may see flat to you, if you're used to an EQ with "rock" or something (like on winamp).

If you have an ok soundcard it should also have a built in eq setting in the options, try changing that and see if you "hear" any diffrence, because frankly .. that Iron Maiden song you showed as an example, if I put the original disc into my computer and play it in winamp and turn off the EQ it sounds the same, *shrug*

Just to clarify what I mean, the song you linked to from Maiden is from 1981, I wouldn't expect that to sound less flat unless it was a remaster, for example:
http://open.spotify.com/track/1Dk5dX4...
This is Iron Maiden - For the greater good of god .. it's recorded in 05 or 06 (released in 06), and it sounds completly diffrent then what you linked to..

Just got Spotify Premium and I must say that the sound is indeeed dead. There is no power in it, no bass, very low sound. As most of you describe, flat, hollow.

And then I am using high end sound card (X-Fi) and high end sound system. Even 128kbps MP3s sounds better then this.

The sound quality appears to be fine but the volumes are seriosly messed up. It sounds weak even if I turn the sound up very loud. And this comes to ALL the music I've tested in spotify so far, it's not just some songs.

I'm looking forward for a solution to this because Spotify is not acceptable for me at the moment.

Listen to what Jens said he explains it all.

Look into using Breakaway multiband compressor to boost the audio quality of all music on your computer. It does normalizing and fixes levels, gives boost to the bass and opens up the high-end. I've been using it for a while and it really makes a difference! Spotify could maybe consider running some sort of compressor in the software. Why not licence breakaway and include it in the player. That would be cool!

Anyway, I recommend trying breakaway.(and i have no affil. with them any way) it's here: http://www.claessonedwards.com/winmor...

Storm in a teacup, anyone?
You ́re discussing bad/flat sound on computers... Simple solution: BUY the music! Either on CD or better off, on vinyl. End of !@#$ story...

I’m having a hard time understanding why this is so hard for people to understand?

We (me at least) DO NOT consider the quality of the stream bad when it comes to compression (data, ogg). All we are saying is that the output level of the application is lower than others (gain in digital domain) due to the “level normalization” and with it comes pros and cons. The option for the user to decide for them self whether to use “normalization” or not, is what we are requesting. We (me at least) are not interested in EQ’s compressors or other sound shaping tools, we just want to be able to get normal (full) level from the software.

If you agree, use the “I have this problem to”-button. If not, give us some arguments.

Yes. However, there is a slight difference in the music sounding "flat" and just having an over all low level. From my experience every kind of compression makes the dymanic properties of music worse, and makes them loose some life. The reason I like the multiband compressor is that it seems to restore some of these aspects, as well as normalize the sound to near clipping levels, thus maxing everything out. It's true that some sound shaping occurs, and you have to dial it in to suit your taste. I guess it's all about taste really. But I agree with you Jens, the bottom problem is just the normalization level.

I agree with you that the the very low volume level of the Spotify player has to be solved first.

And it has to be solved by Spotify themself and not with any thirdparty audio enhancers!!!

After solving this problem we will see if the sound is still flat and empty...

The sound from Spotify is flat and empty. But this can be changed!

Because Spotify is the future! ;)

Spotify needs to add a preamp. Normalizing with ReplayGain is good, but as people have noticed, it makes the volume universally too low. In my Foobar2000 I use +10 dB preamp. ReplayGain normalizes all the music to the same (low) level, and the preamp raises the volume to my preferred loudness.

The most basic fix to avoid being blindsided by other apps' noise!

I’m getting really tired of all the reply’s that suggests that a compressor/preamp/gain-thingy-whatever will cure this problem!

THE ONLY THING that will solve this issue is to give the user the option to turn the feature off, NOTHING ELSE!

So in the future, please; If you think that the level of Spotify is to low or you are bothered with the reduced playback quality this results in (bits, THD and noise floor), then use the “I have this problem to” or write something if you have to but NO MORE suggestions that only proves to the rest of us that you do not understand the cause of the problem.

...and I’m sorry of I offended someone...

The sound quality isn't good enough. If you have a decent sound system, you could easily hear it.

I.e. Norah Jones - Not too late album, wich is very dynamic and good sounding in the first place, doesn't sound very good with spotify.

I see some complaints about the volume. Well... it depends how you see it. If higher volume is gained via more compression, it will reduce quality (dynamics) even more. If volume is gained via "replaygain", it would solve the problem without distorting the sound even more.

I have a suspicion that most users are "too used to" the music business loudness war. And when something is played back at "normal" gain, they complain aobut too low levels. Those users should be "detoxing" from the loudness war and start to listen to music as it should be listened to (and was before the loudness war started). In other words: Use the volume button on your stereo/speakers. On big headphones, you CAN'T normally get high volume from a small laptop for instance without reducing sound quality/dynamics, or use an small headphone amplifier.

I hope you will focus more on quality. If you do, spotify WILL be biggest digital audio revolution since mp3. It's almost the only thing that's missing for it to be perfect! :)

It's very easy to get addicted the music industry's loud mastering, and therefor even more important to understand the problem.

If you don't understand this, please catch up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness...
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/stor...

I'm really sorry. I suddenly got painfully aware of the real problem... hehe.

I'm letting the previous post stay anyway, since it's kinda related anyway?
If not, a moderator is very free to remove it :P

Please please please Spotify, please provide an option to disable the normalization.

As others have noted, normalization based on the RMS of a wide range of sources will basically lower the number of bits used for the tracks with an over average RMS, which will in turn increase the noise floor when people adjust their amplifiers to compensate (not to mention all the people who are maxing their sound card amplifiers already and don't have that option).

If it's punch and power for your advertisements you want, just compress/limit the hell out of them and I can assure you they will cut through the music -- radio stations are doing this every day (and they usually compress the whole stream, including the music, so you would even have and advantage here since you, hopefully, don't compress our precious audio material).

As for paying users the advertisement argument is effectivly moot, so there I see absolutely no reason not to provide that check-box, unless you actually did destructively process the audio files.

Please consider these arguments, and if you have the time comment on them that would be an added bonus :)

Thanks!

Not only do you have the same idea I hade regarding a nice, easy to understand explanation to include in the app but you actually made it!!!

My hat goes off for you!

The only small detail I would change is the part “some are raised” since this is not the case (peaks would clip since they are at 0 dBDF (or very close to 0) even in the RMS-level is low.

So, Spotify: This is how you do it... PLEASE!

The output level is way to low. It's almost impossible to use headphones connected to the computer when using Spotify. It's a pitty cause it comes quite handy when travelling around as I do.

Please look in to this matter!

I definitley agree with Jens and tornarv above, the normalisation feature should be optional!
As a musician with music on Spotify, studio owner and producer I hope that I have credibiliy to say that, apart from being annoying when listening with equipment made for listening to music (i.e. NOT notebook speakers and such), any normalisation or dynamics-altering is directly damaging to the original musical idea. Both inter track-dynamics and the level between tracks on an album is carefully chosen by the producer to maximize the experience for the listener.

By all means, keep the normalization feature. I would even go as far as to say you should add a compressor also, the more these kind of functions moves to the user level, the less compression is needed in the production stage.
But still, not without the ability to choose if you want it or not, allowing those who can and want to enjoy the original dynamics of the music to do so and those who don't won't have to.

Carl-Axl: I am a premium member. Great new music service, but read this. If I would currently be able to choose between MusicGiants (http://www.musicgiants.com/musicgiant...) and Spotify (http://www.spotify.com) I would NOT choose Spotify! The only reason for going with Spotify is that MusicGiants is not availble outside the U.S. People that love music, love the emotions contained within the music. All these emotions are removed and lost when you degrade the sound quality. At least implement an option in the settings where you can choose uncompressed WAV as the streaming format. Then users of all bandwidths and audio quality preferences are able to choose. That would make your service survive in the long term... Thanks!

Oscar, I understand your point. I would easily pay twice as much per month if I would be serviced with lossless audio. There will be significant competition within this business domain very soon. People can live with a short buffer latency before each lossless tune is played. How to realise the bandwidth and storage needs for being able to stream lossless is a challenge for Spotify worth a lot for them to think about. Now Spotify has the chance of taking this service to where it needs to be and really win the race.

By going mobile they clearly address the users' needs, that's good. The next step must be to really focus on the quality and invite ALL users to this service. The audio quality discussion related to Spotify should be eliminated once and for all. Just think about the significant marketing advantages that would create: "We deliver music wherever you are, the way you really want it." :)

Oscar, I totally agree! Great points! :)

Well, I don't think it's possible to stream wav och lossless because of limited bandwith. But I'm pretty sure that there will be possibilities in the future to increase the bitrate and perhaps even supply a lossless alternative. But I guess the record companies has one or two things to say about that.

I don't know what format Spotify uses to store the music, but since they have changed the streaming format one time it should be a lossless format. I really hope so. Then it's pretty easy to increase the bitrate when the bandwith is available, if the record companies can accept it.

At the moment the biggest problem with the sound quality on Spotify is not the bitrate but the normalization feature. But I know they are working on it. I hope they will give us the possibility to disable it completly.

But I would be very happy with a higher bitrate, but I don't think it's possible at this point.

I have now been doing some catching up by reading through this entire post .. and I have thereby also realized that I do not need to add another comment regarding these sound issues :)

BUT i am very curious about this beta test for the "lucky" 20 people. What's up with that? Could you test-guys give us some feedback of what is being tested, changed? Have ya'll received any beta version yet? Im just curious.

I agree it sounds flat. For a fair comparison, I listened to Franz Ferdinand's new album both on mp3 at the same bit-rate and on spotify, and I have to say there was more clarity on the mp3s, even when I adjusted the two applications to the same volume. On the mp3 the attack of the individual instruments stood out. Can anyone record the output from their sound card and post the sound waves comparing CD, mp3, and spotify? Because I suspect Spotify have compressed (as in increased the loudness) the sound, which is why everything sounds washed out.

Yah, wots da beta 'bout?

The fact you can turn it off now in options,.. sort of works like a charm :P

This doesn't help at all! I still can't hear a thing. I got a loud beep when entering the wrong password at the login screen but once I'm logged in and starts playing the music the volume is gone. Even though my volume is turned up to maximum. I'm having this problem only on my work computer that uses xp 64mb on my home computer that uses Vista 32mb there's no problem. I've tried turning off normalization but i makes no difference!

Yes, I'm famliliar with that but that's hardly the issue here. The sound is fine in every other application and I'm not hte only one listening to music on my computer. the sound was perfectly fine in spotify until maybe one or two moths ago. Besides my employer don't mind us listening to music.. When sitting in an open office landscape the option of listening to music in headphones actually helps concentration since it blocks out other souinds.