---
author:
    email: mail@petermolnar.net
    image: https://petermolnar.net/favicon.jpg
    name: Peter Molnar
    url: https://petermolnar.net
copies:
- http://web.archive.org/web/20190624130209/https://petermolnar.net/spotify-how-good-is-high-quality-streaming/
lang: en
published: '2015-09-11T12:41:46+00:00'
summary: Is there an actual difference between high and normal quality streaming on
    Spotify? How does Spotify high quality streaming compare to CD quality?
tags:
- music
title: 'Spotify: how good is high quality streaming?'

---

I've been looking all around to find a decent review that shows me how
good is the quality of Spotify's "High quality" streaming. No luck, so
I'll do one.

## CD RIP (flac)

This is the spectrum and wave of the original, 1996 CD version:

![spectrum, CD version](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.cdrip-flac.spek.png)
![wave, CD version](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.cdrip-flac.wave.png)

## 320kbps MP3 from CD RIP by ffmpeg

![spectrum, 320kbps MP3 from
CD](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.cdrip-mp3.spek.png) ![wave, 320kbps MP3
from CD](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.cdrip-mp3.wave.png)

## Spotify high quality (desktop) streaming

( Recorded with audio-recorder\[\^3\] into flac. )

![spectrum, spotify high
quality](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.spotify-high.spek.png) ![wave, spotify
high quality](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.spotify-high.wave.png)

## Spotify normal quality (desktop) streaming

![spectrum, spotify normal
quality](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.spotify-normal.spek.png) ![wave,
spotify normal
quality](enigma-tnt_for_the_brain.spotify-normal.wave.png)

Conclusions: high quality is still not CD, but is far ahead of the 320k
MP3 output of ffmpeg.