Spotify’s New ‘Exclusive Mode’ Can Make Your Music Sound Better, but There’s a Catch

When digital music first began to emerge, the vast majority of us didn’t care much about audio quality. Some of the least legal methods of downloading music offered terrible audio quality, while even the best options (i.e. iTunes) only supported MP3, a relatively low quality codec. Times have changed: even though most of us aren’t necessarily audiophiles, we expect high-quality tunes from the streaming services we use, especially if we pay for them. It may not be “benchmark”, but streaming sounds good, even with wireless headphones.

But there’s a clear ceiling in audio quality for those of us who listen this way. Bluetooth can only support 320kbps, which is good enough for many of us, but it means you lose detail originally present in the mastered track. If you have the right setup, including the right streaming plan, you can listen to your home in better quality, preserving those details. Spotify may have been late to the game, but it now supports lossless audio for Premium subscribers, which can play at up to 24-bit/44.1kHz. With a good pair of wired headphones, you may hear finer details than usual.

Today, Spotify is back with another great booster, at least for a very specific type of subscriber. The feature, called “Exclusive Mode,” is aimed at Windows listeners to get the most out of their lossless audio playback. (Spotify says a Mac version is in the works.) But even if any increase in audio quality seems like a good deal, you probably won’t notice too much difference here.

How Spotify “Exclusive Mode” Works

According to Spotify, Exclusive Mode is intended to get “Bit Perfect playback” from your PC. It does this by designating Spotify as the only audio processing source on your PC. Typically, when you listen to Spotify on Windows, a number of other apps and services run their audio sources through the Windows Audio Mixer. This could include notifications from Slack or Teams, Windows alerts, video playback if you click on a YouTube link; everything that makes noise on your PC is routed through the same mixer.

Spotify says that the music you listen to in its app could be changed before it reaches your DAC (Digital Audio Converter), either because Windows resamples it, changes its volume, or mixes in those other sounds. Exclusive mode then disables all of these other audio sources, so that Spotify’s lossless audio is never compromised in this automated mix. If you’re the purest, this might be a welcome change: You’ll know that the 24-bit/44.1kHz audio you’re paying for comes out of your headphones or speakers exactly as it left your Spotify app.

You probably won’t notice a difference with Spotify’s exclusive mode

There are some caveats and drawbacks here, however. First, to achieve this, Spotify must disable all other audio sources on your PC. This means that when you use exclusive mode, you will not be able to hear anything else on your computer. You might miss work messages or important Windows alerts if you don’t pay attention to your notifications. If this doesn’t matter to you, you can ignore this issue, but it’s important to know before you start using Exclusive Mode, well, exclusively. This includes non-music playback within Spotify itself, including music videos, podcasts, previews, and canvas clips. These may also work through Windows’ default audio source, and if so, you’ll need to disable Exclusive Mode to use them.

Spotify says no need a DAC or audio interface for this feature to work, but it works best with one. A DAC converts a digital signal into an analog signal, to transmit it to wired headphones or speakers. Spotify says that if your PC has a headphone or speaker port, it may have a built-in DAC, but you may want to confirm this if you want to listen in the best possible quality. Otherwise, you’ll want to get a DAC or audio interface.

Of course, the biggest downside is that even with a perfect setup (a DAC, excellent wired headphones, an exclusive lossless audio playback mode), you may not notice the difference. The higher quality the audio files, the better the music will sound, yes, but as with many media formats, the returns of what you notice diminish as you upgrade your setup. Switching from MP3 tracks with a pair of cheap headphones to AirPods with 320kbps playback on Spotify is going to be night and day; On the other hand, switching from the latter to a wired headphone setup with lossless audio via a DAC might be a slightly sunnier day.

If you already have such a setup and like to listen to your music in the best possible quality, this is probably a worthwhile setting to try. At least you can see if you notice an improvement in quality, and if not, you can turn it off and get the rest of your Windows sounds back.

How to enable exclusive mode in Spotify

Again, this feature is currently exclusive to Spotify Premium members on the Windows desktop app. Next, connect your DAC to your computer. (Skip this if your computer has a DAC.) Now open Spotify, then head to Settings > Playback > Output. Select your audio device in “Device,” then click the button next to “Enable exclusive mode for this device.”

Spotify recommends that you return to the playback settings and turn off the following features when using Exclusive Mode: “Crossfade”, “Automix”, “Normalize Volume”, and “Equalizer”.