Thread: Lumin Spotify

I'm making a beta firmware to improve sound quality for Spotify Connect.

Spotify users please let me know which Lumin model you're using.

I'm using an A1.

While a sound quality bump is welcome, Spotify just doesn't sound as good as almost any other service in my subjective comparisons. So as it is, my expectations are low when I use Spotify.

Unrelated to Spotify, I also subjectively found that enabling MQA diminishes overall sound quality. I have a handful of MQA compact discs ripped but based on what I heard with the MQA feature, I'll only enable it when playing those MQA titles. Does sound quality with MQA enabled vary on Lumin players from model to model?

Originally Posted by Rnrmf

While a sound quality bump is welcome, Spotify just doesn't sound as good as almost any other service in my subjective comparisons. So as it is, my expectations are low when I use Spotify.

My findings were the opposite. Spotify sounded outstanding on my Esoteric. I think the Esoteric and Lumin share some common network audio DNA.

Peter, Lumin U1. Thank you for always being mindful of improvements!

After weeks of re-examining the Spotify Connect SDK and its interfacing with our architecture, I’ve been able to find several areas for sound quality improvement for Spotify Connect.

This work is now released in Firmware 15.3, and will be gradually released to the whole Lumin lineup.

For Spotify, I believe that we surpass those competitors that only did a standard integration.

I encourage users to create a Spotify Free account and try it out. You may be able to discover new music to your liking with it. Note that only streamers with certified and authentic Spotify SDK can play Spotify Free - those competitors using the open source reverse engineered library cannot.

Dear Peter many thanks for your usual support and improvements. I will check it out this evening on my A1 and will let you know. Greetings from Buenos Aires

Originally Posted by No Quarter

Today I updated my P1 to the latest firmware and played around with Spotify for half an hour.
To me it sounds pretty decent, just using the free version right now. I did switch back to Tidal right after, played the same songs, and it was better for sure.

Spotify's free tier offers 128kbps AAC for web playback, or up to ~160kbps on desktop/mobile/tablet. Spotify premium offers 256kbps AAC and up to ~320kbps AAC for those same categories, respectively.

Tidal's free tier is up to ~160kbps AAC but if you are paying then their HiFi tier is up to ~1411kbps FLAC and HiFi Plus is up to ~9216kbps "stuff".

So comparing Spotify to Tidal is not really the best way to determine if Spotify is sounding good or better than other Spotify implementations.

Lumin firmware 15.3 improves the sound quality of both Spotify Premium (320kbps OGG Vorbis when using Lumin) and Spotify Free (160kbps OGG Vorbis when using Lumin).

At 160kbps it cannot compare to lossless streaming.

At 320kbps some Lumin users think it sounds quite close to lossless streaming.

Spotify sounds pretty good, and the total Spotify experience wins hands down for me.