HiFi audio on Spotify is finally available. Recently, the music streaming platform launched its lossless audio quality for Spotify Premium subscribers. This new option allows you to listen to music in the best possible quality: 24 bit / 44.1 kHz FLAC format (2116.8kbps).
Now, while this is great news for subscribers, the reality is that many are wondering whether it’s worth turning on Spotify’s lossless audio. A large number of Internet users report a excessive storage space and mobile data consumption because they activated this quality.
Is it really true? Well, we have put to the test all the audio qualities that Spotify offers how much lossless audio consumes compared to the others, comparing storage space consumption for downloads, mobile data and cache.
How much does Spotify lossless audio consume?
Spotify lossless audio consume much more compared to the other qualities offered by the platform (MP3 at 320, 160, 96 and 24 kbps)… How much longer? Well, to find out, I tried downloading the same amount of content (9 albums and 1 playlist) in the five available qualities: lossless, very high, high, normal and low.
Now, downloading content isn’t the only way Spotify consumes storage space. THE hidden (temporary data that Spotify stores on your device so that music you’ve already listened to plays immediately) is other key consumption in daily use from Spotify and is proportional to your mobile data spend.
Well, I’ll leave you below differences in the consumption of audio qualities Regarding storage space, cache generation speed and mobile data usage:
|
Spotify audio quality |
No leaks |
Very tall |
High |
Normal |
Baja |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tasa de Bits (approximately) | 24 bit / 44.1 kHz. | 320kbps. | 160kbps. | 96kbps. | 24kbps. |
| Downloaded content | 9 albums + 1 playlist (161 songs in total). | ||||
| Storage space consumed in downloads | 4.18GB. | 2.10GB. | 1.24GB. | 791MB. | 458MB. |
| Storage space saved compared to “No loss” | – | 50%. | 70%. | 80%. | 90%. |
| Streaming cache speed and mobile data consumption | 1GB / Now. | 150MB / Now. | 100MB / Now. | 60MB / Now. | 25MB / Now. |
| Comparison of consumption vs “No loss” | – | 7 times more. | 14 times more. | 20 times more. | 100 times more. |
Conclusion: Spotify lossless audio multiplies data consumption… 7 to 100 times more!
As you can see in the comparison table, Spotify’s lossless audio quality it significantly increases data consumption in every way. It spends twice as much on download as the best MP3 (320 kbps) and almost ten times more than the worst (24 kbps). Furthermore, in equivalent hours of streaming, it generates 7 times more cache than in very high quality and 100 times more than in low quality. This also applies to mobile data spending.
In practice, Most people automatically set the quality to Very High.. This is what Spotify chooses for you automatically if you have a good Internet connection (fiber optic WiFi or 5G/4G mobile networks). So, For the average user, consumption is up to 7 times more if you turn on lossless audio.
And now knowing this… Will you have the courage to activate Spotify’s lossless audio?
