Among the various music streaming platforms, YouTube Music stands out by providing a wide range of unreleased songs, covers, and remixes that may not be available elsewhere. Its integration with YouTube adds value by allowing users to easily transfer between music video and audio. However, users have expressed different opinions on the audio quality of YouTube Music, with some finding it satisfactory while others feel that the music lacks details.
Audio quality can be a key factor in your listening experiences. In this article, let’s explore what audio quality YouTube Music can offer, how to adjust YouTube Music quality, and which one is superior in quality between YouTube Music and Spotify.
YouTube Music provides three levels of audio quality: Low, Normal and High. They also offer an option called Always High, which maintains high quality even in poor network conditions. However, YouTube Music currently does not offer lossless audio.
YouTube Music premium members can choose from all three audio quality options for both streaming and downloading experiences. In addition, they can also choose Always High when listening to YouTube Music online.
YouTube Music Free users can only listen to the music in the default Normal settings.
The table below outlines the YouTube Music audio quality options for users to choose from.
| Audio Quality | Streaming (Premium) | Downloading (Premium) | Streaming (Free) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low – 48kbps | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Normal – 128kbps | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| High – 256kbps | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Always High – 256kbps | Yes | N/A | N/A |
YouTube Music Premium members can select the audio quality settings. If you haven’t manually chosen an audio quality, it will automatically be set to Normal.
Here is how you can select the audio quality for your streaming with YouTube Music:
YouTube Music allows Premium users to download music for offline playback. Before downloading, you can choose the audio quality for your offline music with the following steps.
As mentioned earlier, YouTube Music provides 4 audio quality options for its Premium users, with the highest quality at 256kbps: Low(48kbps), Normal(128kbps), High(256kbps), and Always High(256kbps).
On the other hand, Spotify allows Premium members to choose from 5 options for sound optimizations: Low(24kbps), Normal (96kbps), High (160 kbps), Very High (320 kbps), and Automatic Mode (depending on internet connection). The highest audio quality provided by Spotify is 320 kbps.
For Free users, YouTube Music provides a maximum quality of 128kbps, and users can only change between Low and Normal from the web player. In contrast, Spotify allows users on free accounts to choose from Low, Normal, High, and Automatic, offering up to 160kbps for Free users.
Technically speaking, Spotify offers better audio quality for both Free and Premium users. However, the audio quality difference between the two platforms is minimal and in most cases is imperceptible during listening. Some users find Spotify has a warmer bass while YouTube music has a more natural sounding. YouTube may sound louder, as Spotify uses normalization on all of the tracks. For better and louder audio quality on Spotify, you can turn off the “Normalize Volume” under the Audio Quality settings.
| Audio Quality | YouTube Music | Spotify |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | – Low: 48kbps – Normal: 128kbps – High: 256kbps – Always High: 256kbps | – Low: 24kbps – Normal: 96kbps – High: 160kbps – Very High: 320kbps – Automatic: depending on internet connection |
| Free | – Low: 48kbps – Normal: 128kbps | – Low: 24kbps – Normal: 96kbps – High: 160kbps |
YouTube Music offers audio quality of up to 256kbps for its Premium members and 128kbps for Free users. You can adjust the music quality when streaming and downloading YouTube Music with a Premium account. Technically speaking, YouTube Music may seem inferior in audio quality when compared to Spotify. However, the difference is often unnoticed by listeners.
YouTube Music Premium subscribers can download songs for offline playback. However, these downloaded files are limited within the YouTube app and cannot be transferred to other devices or played by other applications. For free users of YouTube Music, the download feature is not available.
Fortunately, a reliable software tool, Pazu YouTube Music Converter, offers a solution to overcome these limitations. This tool allows you to download YouTube Music songs, albums, playlists, and podcasts in various formats like MP3, M4A, and WAV on your Mac/Windows, regardless of whether you have a free or premium YouTube Music account. In addition, the downloaded tracks can be transferred to other supported devices, offering more convenience and flexibility in accessing your favorite music or podcasts offline.
With Pazu YouTube Music Converter, you don’t need to copy and paste YouTube/YouTube Music links manually, as it features a built-in YouTube Music web player. You can search for your favorite songs within the YouTube Music catalog and download them in lossless quality with full ID3 tags. Let’s look at the detailed steps for downloading YouTube Music to MP3 using Pazu YouTube Music Converter.
To get started, download, install and run Pazu YouTube Music Converter on your Mac or Windows, which features a built-in YouTube Music web player.
After installation, launch the YouTube Music to MP3 Converter. If you have already purchased a license, click the key icon to register the converter. Otherwise, continue using the trial version.
You don’t need to sign in to your YouTube Music account.
Click on Settings (the gear icon) in the upper right corner to customize the output format, quality, folder, file name, language, and more.
Browse or use the search function to find the songs, albums, or playlists you want to convert to MP3, then click the red Add to List icon to load the songs.
All songs in the playlist/album will be selected by default. You can uncheck the songs you don’t want to get.
Click the Convert button and the program starts converting the YouTube Music songs.
After the conversion process is complete, click on the clock icon in the upper right corner to access the converted YouTube Music songs. To locate the the converted YouTube Music songs:
Download and convert YouTube Music to MP3, M4A, etc