Frustrating Issue with Spotify App

[bruejam]

I feel like my IT background generally makes me a pretty thorough troubleshooter when it comes to tech issues, so before anyone asks... yes, I've restarted my phone... yes, I've tried re-pairing several different ways... yes, I've dug into the developer menus of my phone and the Spotify app. Device is a Pixel 9 Pro. Here goes...

I have narrowed this down to an issue either with the Spotify app or how the Spotify app is treated by my phone. Audio played through Spotify is noticeably lower-quality and lower-volume than audio through any other app on my phone. In fact, the audio quality through my SiriusXM app is fantastic by comparison. The best way I can describe it is like there's some sort of volume protection interfering with Spotify. Frequently when I skip from one song to the next, the audio will very briefly be loud (like double the volume) and then go back to the aforementioned relatively low volume.

It's not just a volume issue, though. I've actually tested the exact same song back-to-back... first on the SiriusXM app and then on Spotify. The quality difference is dramatic - like Spotify is a worn out cassette and SiriusXM is sitting in the middle of a studio. I can't find a place to adjust playback quality in SiriusXM, but I do have Spotify on the highest quality for both wifi and cellular.

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[slowcountry]

It does seem like an app setting. Maybe turn off fade in / fade out?

 

[Victorofhavoc]

Are you using the lossless setting? Android auto on wireless or wired? There's a glitch on android auto and certain versions of android where volume will "dim" for other things to pick up the mic but then it doesn't return to standard. Requires clearing data on all the involved apps to resolve.

Spotify tries to honor the phones custom eq and settings. On my phone I had to disable dolby and flatten the eq via both the phone's settings and via Spotify eq settings. Once that was done, dts off, mids down a couple notches, bass up a bit, and things started sounding okay. Spotify quality in general sucks, but lossless has improved things a smidge (at the expense of a lot of data volume). I also went with the Rockford sub swap... Worth it.

 

[ChromaPop]

This may not be correct but I also have noticed that there are now separate volume controls for apps in play on the latest version of Android. Could it be that the individual volume setting for Spotify is just low and you need to fix it on your phone?

 

[bruejam]

Are you using the lossless setting? Android auto on wireless or wired? There's a glitch on android auto and certain versions of android where volume will "dim" for other things to pick up the mic but then it doesn't return to standard. Requires clearing data on all the involved apps to resolve.

Spotify tries to honor the phones custom eq and settings. On my phone I had to disable dolby and flatten the eq via both the phone's settings and via Spotify eq settings. Once that was done, dts off, mids down a couple notches, bass up a bit, and things started sounding okay. Spotify quality in general sucks, but lossless has improved things a smidge (at the expense of a lot of data volume). I also went with the Rockford sub swap... Worth it.

IT WAS THE SPOTIFY EQ!! I went in to the app, played around with different settings while it was playing, then turned the eq completely off. It instantly played at the correct volume and MUCH better quality. I never would have imagined that something intended to customize the sound would interfere to such a frustrating level. Thanks for this. Go ahead and take the rest of the day off.

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