Google Play Music, poor quality playback

[jlgraham]

Has anyone else noticed that Google Play music will sometimes play back files that are really poor quality? Sounds like a 64kbps MP3. I use all access, as well as play some locally stored files, and it seems to happen only with streaming music. I have the settings set to High quality since I have unlimited data, and at times some songs will play back as high quality, others are really poor quality. Have tried resetting my Gnex, battery pulls, clearing the app data and cache, everything I could think of, and every once in awhile the music I stream will switch to low quality, and it goes back to high quality after a random amount of time/reboots. Running stock, unrooted 4.2.2.

 

[EvilMonkey]

It will auto-adjust the quality based on your connection. So even if you have it set to High Quality, if you enter a low signal area, it'll adjust it down to low-quality to allow the music to continue streaming. Very similar to how Netflix works (it auto-adjusts the quality up and down depending on your connection). This helps eliminate buffering.

As far as I can tell, there is no way to force it to always be high-quality (buffering or not).

 

[geronco]

I was wondering that myself, I'm a spotify user but I've been thinking about switching to Google Music unlimited, and I noticed the quality of some songs dropping. It almost sounds like it was uploaded using a low quality track. I have mine set up to high quality, and I had 4 bars on my Verizon LTE, still low quality sound at times. Hope this is fixable, I really like the app and the service.

"William G"
Galaxy Note 2

 

[jlgraham]

@Geronco

I've noticed the same thing, I thought about it possibly being an auto setting for those low bandwidth times, but it happens even when my phone is reporting a full 4G signal. Although with the radios in the Gnex I wouldn't be surprised if the service indicator was inaccurate.