Ideas: Higher Audio Quality

[pboser]

How about higher audio quality?  Amazon has introduced this feature, and others have been ahead of Pandora as well.  It would be great to have the Genome Project advantage with higher audio quality.  Do others agree?

Moderator Edit: Edited title for clarity

[BreenX]

Any movement on this? Oooooooooo, and it makes me wonder.

I think this is a very important "upgrade" that needs to happen to be competitive in this new world of lossless music streaming that is now being offered by Amazon and Tidal. At the very least, for now, Pandora needs to be competitive at a minimum of 320kps(ish) and not their 192kps, especially for Premium subscribers, like I am. When I'm listening with Pandora, I don't feel like I getting the best audio of what's out there for what I'm paying for. I also have a Tidal account, and there I know I'm getting the best audio for what I'm paying for. Pandora, don't underestimate the "warm and fuzzies" people get when listening, whatever the reason. Win the audiophile, and the rest will fall in line.

[KevinEyewanders]

@BreenX Given that this has been a promised upgrade for the better part of the last decade, I'd be surprised (pleasantly though) if anything comes of it. It seems Pandora is far less responsive since the Sirius/XM ownership occurred to be honest. 
Try out Qobuz - so much better than Amazon and Tidal in my opinion. Between that and ad-supported Pandora for occasional radio listening (cuz Genome algorithm prediction just can't be beat, still) I've been amazingly happy for the past month or two since leaving Premium Pandora behind. Sad but true.

[Blazin383]

So I see a ton of questions about resolution but don't see a single response from Pandora in answer to the inquiries.  Is this just a place to vent, or is Pandora providing any input?  I like Pandora's format better than the others I've subscribed to, but I didn't pay thousands for high end audio equipment to listen to overly compressed streaming!  Come on Pandora... what say you?

[Troy]

Dear pandora. Turning down the volume for us is a bad idea here’s why. We are all gonna turn up the volume on the physical device we are listening on then When you go to another app you will blow out your eardrums. You turn it down we turn it up. As an music producer I’m aware of the volume regulation pandora and other platforms use to help regulate the volume between songs. But you guys are over doing it. Please set this to the same number LUFS as Amazon/Spotify/Apple Music/YouTube or at least an average there of. This is so annoying and makes pandora not “sound “as good as the other platforms out there. Just tryin to help everyone. This doesn’t matter which device my earbuds or AVR or car it’s all the same I have to crank the volume on the playback device then when a call comes in it’s crazy loud( the phone call that is) or if I switch apps. We would all really appreciate it and it will help pandora sound better to the people who don’t understand that to the human ear louder always sounds better (within reason) please fix the volume regulation on all iOS android and browsers thank you ever so much

[KevinEyewanders]

Moderators - whoever just merged the last comment from Troy didn't understand that comment. It has little to do with higher bitrate file requests that this thread/topic is about. 

[Bri-an]

Hello Everyone!

If you haven't given this thread a like (click the heart), please do so we can get this to the top of the Feature Requests list!

It's at 37 likes right now.

https://community.pandora.com/t5/Feature-Requests/Higher-Audio-Quality/idi-p/1046

Thanks.

P.S. here is a helpful thread on Pandora audio quality: https://community.pandora.com/t5/Other-Devices/Highest-quality-playback/td-p/16267

[boulderskies]

the decision makers at Pandora already know this is something customers are asking for; we've been asking for it for years.

they could at least issue a response to those of us who have taken the time to repeatedly request it.

[dkodko]

Hello People at Pandora,

Could you get 24-bit audio?  Amazon Music HD is at 16-bit audio, and I did hear 24-bit audio before on Tidal, and it sounds excellent.  If you need to charge me a reasonable increase in price I would definitely buy.  Thanks.   

[ktorster]

I have noticed that the standard bitrate is louder than high quality, and depending on the situation almost sounds better.

But, we really need higher quality for sure. An EQ wouldn’t hurt either  

[Music123]

I love pandora but will be dropping the service and using amazon and Spotify (even though it’s not a high quality as I would like).