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Re:Spotify Form F-1 by Nadya on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @05:32PM (#16487795)
The default quality for the desktop app is in OGG Vorbis at 160kbps and for the mobile app is 96kbps. With a Premium subscription you can change these to 'Extreme' (320kbps). The web player reaches is 128kbps AAC or 256kbps with Premium [0]. Many users might be unaware they can change the quality at all (or they don't use the desktop app but use the web player so can't change the quality at all).

I can definitely hear the difference between 96/160/256. Between 256/320/lossless I'd probably fail an ABX test [1] and I'm very doubtful of anyone claiming to hear the differences between 320/lossless regardless of how much of an audiophile they claim to be if they refuse to take an ABX test. I'd maybe believe telling 256 and lossless apart but still be doubtful without any ABX results.

[0] https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/system_settings...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test

Re:Spotify Form F-1 by fossuser on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @05:38PM (#16487865)
In that case given Spotify premium and just setting the config to use 'extreme' there should be no reason to pay for a separate subscription service? (At least for quality reasons).
Re:Spotify Form F-1 by stochastic_monk on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @07:43PM (#16488718)
At that point, you’re choosing between services based on content. And even without a quality issue, I have several artists I need one or the other platform to hear. I haven’t enabled the Extreme quality on Spotify (and was unaware).