That really depends on what you're listening to the music on.
If you want to use Spotify at home and are listening on a nice stereo, then compression artifacts are very obvious in almost everything on Spotify.
For that reason, if I'm not listening to local music I tend to listen to KEXP's uncompressed stream. It's a mere 1.4Mbps.
Which then hits on why Spotify are most likely not serving 320. "It's the bandwidth, stupid".
It's all about the bandwidth. How few people are going to hear the difference, and how much would it cost to implement? The bandwidth costs are definitely non-trivial for their subscriber base, so implementing 320 is going to hit their costs hard.
For the article linked, notice the blog title, Spotify Classical.
Classical music really does show up artifacts in compression like Hip Hop, Pop and Rock (and Prog Rock) simply doesn't. The strings and low bass both exist in the upper and lower audio ranges precisely where compression is most aggressive and therefore noticeable. This isn't going to affect greatly the Beyonces of this world, but it affects some delicate string recital.
To be honest, if I were Spotify, I'd probably just rip the classical in 320 as that is a specialist crowd who probably can hear the difference and would kick up a stink. And then keep the vast majority in 160 as the vast majority aren't going to notice and wouldn't kick up a stink. If I wanted to be more intelligent, I'd write something to try and detect artifacts, and if a 160 file exhibited above a certain threshold, then I'd make that a contender to be at 320... thus trying to find a sweet spot between quality and bandwidth costs.
To give a little context: I listen to everything from classical music to noise and use good equipment.
You make it sound like classical music is the only kind of music where quality is important. This is not true. Quality is also important in modern music. Listen to Amon Tobin or Aphex Twin for example.
Besides Ogg is not the same as MP3. It's not a "kill all low and high" format. Listening test showed that Ogg is fine for strings. Short attack times are the problem areas when using a lower bitrate.
If you want to use Spotify at home and are listening on a nice stereo, then compression artifacts are very obvious in almost everything on Spotify.
For that reason, if I'm not listening to local music I tend to listen to KEXP's uncompressed stream. It's a mere 1.4Mbps.
Which then hits on why Spotify are most likely not serving 320. "It's the bandwidth, stupid".
It's all about the bandwidth. How few people are going to hear the difference, and how much would it cost to implement? The bandwidth costs are definitely non-trivial for their subscriber base, so implementing 320 is going to hit their costs hard.
For the article linked, notice the blog title, Spotify Classical.
Classical music really does show up artifacts in compression like Hip Hop, Pop and Rock (and Prog Rock) simply doesn't. The strings and low bass both exist in the upper and lower audio ranges precisely where compression is most aggressive and therefore noticeable. This isn't going to affect greatly the Beyonces of this world, but it affects some delicate string recital.
To be honest, if I were Spotify, I'd probably just rip the classical in 320 as that is a specialist crowd who probably can hear the difference and would kick up a stink. And then keep the vast majority in 160 as the vast majority aren't going to notice and wouldn't kick up a stink. If I wanted to be more intelligent, I'd write something to try and detect artifacts, and if a 160 file exhibited above a certain threshold, then I'd make that a contender to be at 320... thus trying to find a sweet spot between quality and bandwidth costs.