How much data does Spotify use? It depends on the sound quality you choose. The higher it is, the more data the streaming service will burn through. In any case, Spotify uses way less data than video streaming services (more on this later) and probably less than most people think.
The Spotify Android app lets you choose between five sound quality settings: Low (24kbps), Normal (96kbps), High (160kbps), Very high (320kbps), and Automatic (dependent on your network connection). You can access these options by heading to Settings > Music Quality on your Android phone.
![Spotify ipad sound quality Spotify ipad sound quality](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134144267/602010364.png)
Apple Music: Is there a difference in sound quality? The streaming-music wars are on, with Apple Music and Spotify now locked in a battle on price, features and artist selection. I then air played Spotify through to Apple TV, and hey presto, the poor sound quality issue was gone. Great to see Apple has finally allowed Spotify to have an Apple TV App, but absolute B.S. That the sound quality is.bleep. poor, and there is no way to adjust Bass/Treble/Equalizer settings, some skulduggery is obviously afoot. Spotify Sound Quality Like the rest of music streaming services, Spotify uses compressed audio files so that you can stream and download music without pauses or interruptions. Streams are in OGG (Ogg Vorbis) at 96 kbps on mobile, 160 kbps for so-called 'High' quality on mobile and 320 kbps on mobile and computers for Premium subscribers. Hi, I'm new here. Just want to ask a few question about the sound quality difference between desktop app and web player. From what I'm listening the sound on the web player has a deeper sound compared to the desktop app. I don't know the jargon used to discribe it since I'm not really an audiophile but u can just tell that it's better on the web.
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To simplify things as much as possible, I’ve prepared an overview of how much data each setting uses per minute and hour as well as how long you’d have to stream music for to burn through 1GB of data. Keep in mind these numbers are approximate. Spotify can cache songs you’ve previously listened to, meaning they may not eat up the same amount of data the second time you play them.
Low (24kbps):
- Per minute: 0.18MB
- Per hour: 10.8MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 92.5 hours
Normal (96kbps):
- Per minute: 0.72MB
- Per hour: 43.2MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 23.1 hours
High (160kbps):
- Per minute: 1.2MB
- Per hour: 72MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 13.8 hours
Very high (320kbps):
- Per minute: 2.4MB
- Per hour: 144MB
- How long until you reach 1GB: 6.9 hours
Now that you know how much data Spotify uses, let’s see how the numbers compare to video streaming. Watching HD content on Netflix uses up to 3GB of data per hour or as much as 7GB when the resolution gets bumped up to Ultra HD. Medium quality (SD) is a lot less data hungry, burning through 0.7GB per hour. Still, that’s almost five times as much as streaming music with the best sound quality available (320kbps).
Apple Music vs Spotify vs Google Play Music
For well over a decade, the music industry has been trying to figure out the Internet and they have failed more often than they have succeeded. Declining music sales and the rise of free sources …
What about Spotify’s competitors? Google Play Music and Deezer both offer a maximum audio bitrate of 320kbps, which uses approximately 144MB of data per hour. So does Tidal, although it also has a Hi-Fi plan with a bitrate of 1.411kbps for improved sound quality. It’s a lot more data hungry, using around 635MB per hour. Apple Music, on the other hand, has a maximum bitrate of 256kbps, which translates to around 115MB of data per hour.
An important thing to keep in mind is that Spotify — as well as other streaming services mentioned in this post — lets you download songs to your phone, which means you don’t have to use any data at all when listening to music.
How many hours per week do you listen to music on Spotify or other streaming services? Let us know in the comments!
Spotify has a range of audio quality options to suit your device, plan, and preferences.
Music quality
Spotify free | Spotify Premium | |
Web player | AAC 128kbit/s | AAC 256kbit/s |
Desktop, mobile, and tablet | Automatic: Dependent on your network connection Low: Equivalent to approximately 24kbit/s Normal: Equivalent to approximately 96kbit/s High: Equivalent to approximately 160kbit/s | Automatic: Dependent on your network connection Low: Equivalent to approximately 24kbit/s Normal: Equivalent to approximately 96kbit/s High: Equivalent to approximately 160kbit/s Very high: Equivalent to approximately 320kbit/s |
Sound Quality Monaghan
Change music quality
Turn music quality up to hear the finer details or turn it down to save data.
Note: You can’t change audio settings when using Spotify Connect to play on another device.
You can have different settings for listening online (streaming quality) or offline (download quality).
Higher streaming quality uses more data, and higher download quality uses more space.
![Sound Sound](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134144267/787597797.jpg)
Car Audio Sound Quality
- Tap Home .
- Tap Settings .
- Under Music Quality, select your preferred settings.
- Click in the top-right corner and select Settings.
- Under Music Quality, select your preferred settings
You can’t adjust music quality on the web player. Download the app to get more features.
Podcast quality
Podcast quality is equivalent to approximately 96kbit/s on all devices except the web player where it’s 128kbit/s.
Youtube Vs Spotify Sound Quality
On mobile/tablet, if you change the music quality to low, the podcast quality will also lower to approximately 24kbit/s.