Technologies

Spotify Setting Tweaks That’ll Change How You Listen to Music

Volume isn’t the only setting you can adjust on Spotify. Here’s how you can make listening to your favorite playlist even better.

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 Mini Crossword Answers for Monday, May 19

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 19.

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

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword is pretty easy. 5-Across, «one for whom every day is Boxing Day,» stumped me because I really wanted the answer to have something to do with cats. (Spoiler: It did not.) Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Network satirized on «30 Rock,» for short
Answer: NBC

4A clue: Sport played on horseback
Answer: POLO

5A clue: One for whom every day is Boxing Day?
Answer: MOVED

6A clue: Like correct letters in Wordle
Answer: GREEN

7A clue: Blend together
Answer: MELD

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: «Invisible Man» or «Little Women»
Answer: NOVEL

2D clue: Run in the wash
Answer: BLEED

3D clue: What bourbon whiskey is primarily made from
Answer: CORN

4D clue: Tiny hole in the skin
Answer: PORE

5D clue: Longtime movie studio acquired by Amazon in 2022
Answer: MGM

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 19, #238

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 238, for May 19.

Looking for the most recent regular 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 and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition might be tough today if, like me, you don’t know what «loge» means. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

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

Yellow group hint: Brag.

Green group hint: Where’s my seat?

Blue group hint: City that never sleeps.

Purple group hint: Opposite of go.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Boast

Green group: Stadium seating sections

Blue group: New York Knicks

Purple group: ____ stop

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

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is boast. The four answers are crow, gloat, grandstand and showboat.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is stadium seating sections. The four answers are bleacher, loge, suites and upper deck.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is New York Knicks. The four answers are Bridges, Hart, McBride and Towns.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ stop. The four answers are back, jump, pit and short.

Technologies

Blade Runner: 18-Rotor «Volocopter» Moving from Concept to Prototype

It may look "nutty" and like a "blender," but the designers say the craft could challenge helicopters

Inventor and physicist Thomas Senkel created an Internet sensation with the October 2011 video of his maiden—and only—test flight of a spidery proof-of-concept 16-rotor helicopter dubbed Multicopter 1. Now the maker of the experimental personal aviation craft, the European start-up e-volo, is back with a revised «volocopter» design that adds two more rotors, a serial hybrid drive and long-term plans for going to 100 percent battery power.

The new design calls for 1.8-meter, 0.5-kilogram carbon-fiber blades, each paired with a motor. They are arrayed around a hub in two concentric circles over a boxy one- or two-person cockpit.

After awarding the volocopter concept a Lindbergh Prize for Innovation in April, Yolanka Wulff, executive director of The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, admitted the idea of the multi-blade chopper at first seems «nutty.» Looking beyond the novel appearance, however, she says, e-volo’s concept excels in safety, energy efficiency and simplicity, which were the bases of the prize.

All three attributes arrive thanks largely to evolo’s removal of classic helicopter elements. First, the energy-robbing high-mass main rotor, transmission, tail boom and tail rotor are gone. The enormous blades over a normal chopper’s cabin create lift, but their mass creates a high degree of stress and wear on the craft. And the small tail rotor, perched vertically out on a boom behind the cabin, keeps the helicopter’s body from spinning in the opposite direction as the main blades, but it also eats up about 30 percent of a helicopter’s power.

The volocopter’s multiple rotor blades individually would not create the torque that a single large rotor produces, and they offer redundancy for safety. Hypothetically, the volocopter could fly with a few as 12 functioning rotors, as long as those rotors were not all clustered together on one side, says Senkel, the aircraft’s co-inventor and e-volo’s lead construction engineer.

Without the iconic two-prop configuration, the craft would be lighter, making it more fuel efficient and reducing the physical complexity of delivering power to the top and rear blades from a single engine. Nor would the volocopter need an energy-hungry transmission. In fact, «there will be no mechanical connection between the gas engine and the blades,» Senkel says. That means fewer points of energy loss and more redundancy for safety.

E-volo’s design eliminates the dependence on a single source of power to the blades. As a serial-hybrid vehicle, the volocopter would have a gas-fueled engine, in this case an engine capable of generating 50- to 75 kilowatts, typical of ultralight aircraft. Rather than mechanically drive the rotors, the engine would generate power for electric motors as well as charge onboard lithium batteries. Should it fail, the batteries are expected to provide enough backup power so the craft could make a controlled landing.

Whereas helicopters navigate by changing the pitch of the main and tail rotor blades, the volocopter’s maneuverability will depend on changing the speed of individual rotors. Although more complex, it is more precise in principle to control a craft using three to six redundant microcontrollers (in case one or more fails) interpreting instructions from a pilot using a game console–like joystick—instead of rudder pedals, a control stick and a throttle.

Wulff’s first impression about the volocopter’s design is not uncommon. E-volo’s computer-animated promotional videos of a gleaming white, carbon-fiber and fiberglass craft beneath a thatch of blades recall the many-winged would-be flying machines of the late 19th century. This point is not lost on Senkel.

«I understand these skeptical opinions,» he says. «The design concept looks like a blender. But we really are making a safe flying machine.»

That would be progress in itself. Multicopter 1 looked like something from an especially iffy episode of MacGyver, complete with landing gear that involved a silver yoga ball. Senkel rode seated amid all those rotors powered only by lithium batteries. Multicopter 1 generated an average of 20 kilowatts for hovering and was aloft for just a few minutes.

There’s a reason why the experimental craft flew briefly and only once.Senkel describes that first craft as «glued and screwed together.» Seated on the same platform as the spinning blades, he says, «I was aware of the fact that I will be dead, maybe. Besides, we showed that the concept works. What do we win if we fly it twice?» he asks rhetorically.

Other than putting the pilot safely below the blades, the revised volocopter design would operate largely the same as the initial prototype. The design calls for three to six redundant accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure the volocopter’s position and orientation, creating a feedback loop that gives the craft stability and makes it easier to fly, Senkel says.

The volocopter’s revised prototype under construction could debut as soon as next spring. The first production models, available in perhaps three years, are expected to fly for at least an hour at speeds exceeding 100 kilometers per hour and a minimum altitude of about 2,000 meters, still far shy of standard helicopter’s normal operating altitude of about 3,000 meters. «This could change our lives, but I don’t expect anything like that for 10 years,» Senkel adds.

Given that most of the technology needed to build the volocopter is already available, «this idea is fairly easy to realize,» says Carl Kühn, managing director of e-volo partner Smoto GmbH, a company that integrates electric drive systems and related components.

Like Senkel, Kühn has modest short-term expectations despite his repeated emphasis on the standard nature of the technology involved. «I guess that e-volo will have [a prototype] aircraft in three years that can do the job—that it will lift one or two persons from one point to another,» he says.

The biggest immediate limitations appear to be regulatory. For instance, European aviation regulators consider any electrical system greater than 60 volts to be high voltage and regulate such systems more aggressively, Kühn says. As a result, the volocopter will operate below that threshold. The craft will also need to weigh no more than 450 kilograms to remain in the ultralight category, which is likewise subject to fewer government aviation regulations, according to Senkel.

The Lindbergh Foundation’s Wulff says the organization’s judges felt e-volo had «a greater than 50 percent chance of succeeding, or they wouldn’t have given them the innovation award.» Asked if she would line up to fly one someday, she says, «I sure would. It looks very compelling to me.»