Technologies

Spotify Audio Settings You Should Change Now

You can improve your Spotify listening experience in a few easy steps.

With more than 195 million subscribers, Spotify is arguably one of the most popular music streaming platforms in the world. CNET also ranks Spotify as one of the best music streaming services on the market, and gave it an Editor’s Choice Award.

Spotify lets you listen to music wherever you are, recommends new songs based on your activity and provides fun, personalized streaming data at the end of every year. If you were gifted a Spotify subscription for the holidays, you can also make and share playlists with friends on social media, or with the whole world through the app.

If you feel like something is missing from your listening experience though, Spotify lets you take control of various settings to make your music sound more superb. That way whether you’re in a quiet library, on your morning commute or pumping some iron in the gym, your music will always fit the mood.

Here’s how to crank your Spotify listening experience up to 11 no matter what the situation.

Adjust your base volume to match your environment

Volume is pretty easy to figure out, but did you know Spotify lets premium users adjust the base volume of the app depending on their environment? You can select either Quiet, Normal or Loud, and each has its own benefit.

Quiet will make songs a little quieter and sound cleaner, making it a good choice if you’re relaxing at home. Normal makes songs play at a medium base volume, and the sound is less crisp than Quiet. This is a good choice for most people and situations. Loud is — you guessed it — louder, but you might lose some audio quality because of the loudness. This option is good if you’re at the gym or other similarly noisy environments.

Here’s how to adjust the base volume on your iPhone:

1. Open the Spotify app.
2. Tap the gear icon in the top-right corner of your screen.
3. Tap the Playback option near the top of the menu.
4. Beneath Volume level there are three options: Loud, Normal and Quiet.

If you’re using the Spotify app on a Mac, here’s how to adjust the base volume:

1. Open Spotify.
2. Click the down arrow in the top-right corner.
3. Scroll down until you see Audio Quality.
4. Under Audio Quality, you should see Volume level.
5. Click the drop-down bar to the right of Volume level.
6. From here, you see the same Loud, Normal and Quiet options. Pick whichever one works for you.

Here’s how to adjust the base volume if you’re using the Spotify app on an Android device:

1. Open Spotify.
2. Tap the gear icon to access Settings.
3. Scroll down to Playback and you should see Volume Level.
4. Next to Volume Level you should see the Loud, Normal and Quiet options. Pick the one you want.

Finally, here’s how to adjust the base volume in Spotify while on a Windows computer:

1. Open Spotify.
2. Click your account name in the top-right corner.
3. Click Settings.
4. Under Audio Quality, you should see Volume level. Click the drop-down bar to the right.
5. Select either Loud, Normal or Quiet.

Use the Spotify Equalizer for more control

If you prefer being more hands-on with how your bass and treble come across in each song, you can adjust the in-app equalizer. Adjusting your bass affects lower-frequency sounds, making your music sound deeper with increased bass or flat with less bass. Treble affects the higher sound frequencies, making your music sound brighter and crisper with increased treble, or duller and kind of muddied with less treble.

Here’s how to access the equalizer on your iPhone:

1. Open Spotify.
2. Tap the gear in the top right corner to access Settings.
3. Tap the Playback option.
4. Scroll down the menu and tap Equalizer.

Here’s how to access the equalizer on your Android device:

1. Open Spotify.
2. Tap the gear icon to access Settings.
3. Under the Audio quality heading — not under Data Saver — tap Equalizer.

This opens the equalizer page on both systems. Here you can find the manual equalizer slider and a handful of premade genre-based equalizers.

You should see the manual equalizer slider that looks like a line graph with six dots. When you first get to this page, the equalizer should be flat.

Each dot on the graph can be adjusted for more or less sound. The far left bar represents your bass, the far right bar controls your treble and the middle bars control — you guessed it — your midrange. You can tweak the bars as you see fit.

There are also genre-based equalizers on this page. You can pick which genre you’re listening to and the app automatically adjusts the sliders to optimize for that style of music. After picking one, you can further adjust the sliders for the perfect listening experience.

If you want to reset the equalizer, there’s a genre-based equalizer called Flat. This will reset the equalizer to its default.

The Mac and Windows versions of Spotify don’t have an in-application equalizer. But you can search for an equalizer application to help you in your journey to find the best sound.

Adjust the quality of your music for a clearer sound

You can also adjust the audio quality of your music. This is handy if you’re using mobile data and don’t want to bump up your phone bill. Reducing the audio quality will use less data.

Here’s how to change the audio quality on mobile and tablet:

1. Open the Spotify app.
2. Tap the gear icon to access Settings.
3. Scroll down until you see the heading Audio Quality — not under Data Saver.
4. Under WiFi streaming and Cellular streaming, you can select Low, Normal, High or Automatic. The Automatic option adjusts the audio quality to whatever your signal strength is. If you’re a paid subscriber you’ll see a fifth option under both WiFi streaming and Cellular streaming called Very high.

How to change the audio quality on your desktop:

1. Open Spotify.
2. Click the down arrow in the top-right corner.
3. Click Settings.
4. Scroll down to Audio Quality.
5. Beneath Audio Quality you should see Streaming quality. Click the drop-down menu to the right.
6. Choose between Low, Normal, High or Automatic options, and the Very high option for paid subscribers.

For more on Spotify, see which Spotify plan is best for you and how Spotify stacks up against Apple Music.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for May 18, #707

Hints and answers for Connections for May 18, #707.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections puzzle is a mix of difficult and easy. The purple category does what most purple categories do, and makes you really break down how you think about the words. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: School days.

Green group hint: About there!

Blue group hint: Sure, let’s go.

Purple group hint: The Scarlett Letter.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Tasks for a student.

Green group: Encouraging responses in a guessing game.

Blue group: Up for anything.

Purple group: What «A» might mean.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is tasks for a student. The four answers are assignment, drill, exercise and lesson.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is encouraging responses in a guessing game. The four answers are almost, close, not quite and warm.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is up for anything. The four answers are easy, flexible, game and open.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is what «A» might mean. The four answers are area, athletic, excellent and one.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for May 18, #441

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 441 for May 18.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands will probably be easier if you have some basic knowledge about a certain type of vessel. You don’t really need to have ever been on one, since the answers show up in books and movies all the time. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Riding the wind.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: famed song by Christopher Cross.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

DULL, TILE, TILER, SEER, GALE, GALES, HAIL, SAIL, LEEK, GLUE, HALL, TALL, HEAT

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

HELM, HULL, KEEL, MAST, STERN, RIGGING, RUDDER, TILLER

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is SAILBOAT. To find it, start with the S that’s four letters down on the farthest row to the left, then wind across, up and down.

Technologies

Google I/O 2025: How to Watch and What to Expect

With Android 16 out of the way, Google I/O will certainly be all about AI.

Google I/O 2025 takes place on May 20 and 21 with Google’s big keynote happening on day 1. We expect Big G to talk about its myriad innovations across its ever-expanding portfolio of products — almost certainly with a huge focus on AI every step of the way. If we collectively cross our fingers, promise to be good and eat all our vegetables then we may even be treated to a sneak peek at upcoming hardware.

Read more: Android 16: Everything Google Announced at the Android Show

Google also hosted a totally separate event that focused solely on Android. The Android Show: I/O Edition saw the wrappers come off Android 16, with insights into the new Material 3 Expressive interface, updates to security and a focus on Gemini and how it’ll work on a variety of other devices.

By breaking out Android news into its own virtual event, Google frees itself to spend more time during the I/O keynote to talk about Gemini, Deep Mind, Android XR and Project Astra. It’s going to be a jam-packed event, so here’s how you can watch I/O 2025 as it happens and what you can look forward to.

Google I/O: Where to watch

Google I/O proper kicks off with a keynote taking place on May 20, 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. BST). It’ll almost certainly be available to stream online on Google’s own YouTube channel, although a holding video is yet to be available. There’s no live link on the I/O website yet, either, though you can use the handy links to add the event to your calendar of choice. Expect links to a livestream to be available closer to the day.

What to expect from Google I/O 2025

Little chat about Android 16: As Google gave Android 16 its own outing already, it’s likely that it won’t be mentioned all that much during I/O. In fact at last year’s event, Android was barely mentioned, while uses of the term «AI» went well over a hundred.

Android XR: Google didn’t talk much about Android XR during the Android show, focusing instead on the purely phone-based updates to the platform. We expected to hear more about the company’s latest foray into mixed-reality headsets in partnership with Samsung and its Project Moohan headset, so it’s possible that this is being saved for I/O proper.

Gemini: With Android being spun out into its own separate event, Google is evidently clearing the way for I/O to focus on everything else the company does. AI will continue to dominate the conversation at I/O, just as it did last year (though hopefully Google can make it more understandable) with updates to many of its AI platforms expected to be announced.

Gemini is expected to receive a variety of update announcements, including more information on its latest 2.5 Pro update which boasts various improvements to its reasoning abilities, and in particular to its helpfulness for coding applications. Expect lots of mentions of Google’s other AI-based products, too, including DeepMind, LearnLM and Project Astra. Let’s just hope Google has figured out how to make this information make any kind of sense.

Beyond AI, Google may talk about updates to its other products including GMail, Chrome and the Play Store, although whether these updates are big enough to be discussed during the keynote rather than as part of the developer-focused sessions following I/O’s opening remains to be seen.