After hearing about Spotify finally getting ready to start streaming lossless FLAC on their Premium services, I redeemed an offer for two months of Premium service for six bucks. About a week later, lossless streaming came around and I began to experiment with it.
Lossless output from Spotify is not the default setting and will only be available in a supported device. While many devices are supported, many more are not so. Lots of folks will find that they cannot enable “Lossless” and will be limited to “Very High” quality. Some will not be able to select the quality of streams at all and will be locked into the “Automatic” setting.
There are many devices that feature the Spotify app. There are also many devices that support Spotify Connect. I experimented with all of my devices using Spotify to see what each of them would do with it.
Spotify Lossless supports 16/44.1 and 24/44.1 FLAC. Folks concerned with bit perfect output want those numbers unchanged during playback. Some do not care and know applied DSP is going to manipulate the signal anyway and anything over 16/44.1 is a waste of bits. But, some folks like seeing those numbers.
I installed the Spotify app in many devices I have that support it. These include a few iOS devices, an Intel iMac, a Mac mini M1, a Microsoft Surface 5, an Nvidia Shield TV Pro, an Apple TV 4K and an LG C1 TV. A Sony UBP-X800 I have supports Spotify Connect as does a Yamaha RX-V6A. Onkyo discontinued support for a built in Spotify app in their receivers but retained support for Spotify Connect as is the case concrrning my TX-NR777, TX-NR696 and TX-NR6050.
Some of my devices support Spotify Lossless using their own Spotify apps while others do not do so. Some of them support Lossless when using Spotify Connect while others do not do so. Some support Lossless using Google Cast(formerly Chromecast built-in) and/or Airplay. It’s all over the place.
After tinkering with all of those devices, only one supported “bit perfect” Lossless playback using Spotify Connect, Google Cast and Airplay. That device is the Onkyo TX-NR6050. Can I honestly say there was a very noticeable difference in sound quality playing lossy signals from the Spotify app in various devices compared to those that support Lossless? No, I cannot say so. I may continue to post here from time to time with the results of Spotify streaming using different devices. I welcome anybody to post about their experiences with Spotify in their own systems. I’d be interested in results from those who use Audirvana or Roon as I have not yet run Spotify through either of them.
