Would you pay for better sound on YouTube? The video-sharing platform could soon let you control audio quality, but it'll cost you

YouTube might be adding another feature behind its Premium paywall
A new report says an audio quality control with three levels is arriving
It could bolster the Premium feature set but continue the trend of putting more features behind a membership

YouTube is seemingly pulling out all the stops to remain at the top of the streaming game for both video content and YouTube Music and while it answered our requests for adjustable video quality a few years ago, the platform has yet to offer the same for audio.

However, this could be on the horizon for YouTube, as new hints point to a forthcoming feature that would allow you to control audio quality when watching videos.

Thanks to Android Authority, which has spotted new strings in the YouTube beta app, there’s fresh evidence that hints at YouTube’s next big upgrade. It would essentially give you the liberty to adjust the audio quality of whatever video you’re watching.

These could come in three different options; Normal, YouTube’s standard audio, High, an improved bitrate option, and Auto, which could simply be an automatic setting depending on your internet speed. It seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well ,with YouTube, there’s always a catch.

A screen shot of YouTube's video quality settings on its web version

Video quality settings are free to adjust for all users, but audio control may only be available to YouTube Premium subscribers. (Image credit: YouTube)

According to Android Authority’s findings, YouTube’s audio quality feature will only be available for those who are subscribed to YouTube Premium, and even then, there’s a possibility that this feature may only be applicable to certain videos in its endless library of content.

It’s hard to pinpoint when YouTube will launch this feature since it only exists as a few lines of coding at the moment, but if YouTube decides to proceed with it, it could be one of the platform’s most notable upgrades of the past few years.

It seems as though YouTube will do almost anything to get more people signed up for its YouTube Premium service, and these attempts to lure you in have been cropping up quite frequently. A few weeks ago, YouTube launched its cheaper YouTube Premium Lite tier in the US, packing ad-free content on ‘most videos’ but excluding offline or background video playback.

For as long as I can remember, adjustable video quality settings have been part of YouTube’s array of video enhancements, but they have had no effect on audio playback. The audio quality of YouTube videos has always depended on the uploader, so if the audio control rumors are true, it could do wonders to get more audiophiles to jump on the YouTube Premium bandwagon.

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