YouTube’s new experiment cranks up the audio quality on music videos for Premium users

YouTube Premium subscribers are getting a new music perk — but not in the YouTube Music app. A new experimental feature available to YouTube Premium subscribers will boost the audio quality in certain music videos under certain circumstances. The feature is available now on YouTube for Android and iOS.

YouTube offers a number of experimental features at any given time; depending on feedback, they might end up becoming permanent platform fixtures. Google had previously teased this new audio quality feature earlier this week, in conjunction with the announcement of a new Google One/YouTube Premium bundle.

Here’s how YouTube describes the new audio experiment:

High Quality Audio

Available until Feb 22

High Quality Audio lets you listen to music on YouTube with the best audio quality!

How to use:

Watch any eligible music video on YouTube and enjoy the benefit of higher quality audio.

Only available on iOS and Android.

When active, the High Quality Audio experiment will enable 256kbps audio quality on applicable music videos. YouTube was already capable of 256kbps audio before this experiment. From what I gather, High Quality Audio will output the highest quality audio available for music videos, regardless of the video quality you’ve picked — so using the Data saver quality setting won’t save as much data, but it also won’t impact audio quality.

How to get High Quality Audio on YouTube

To take advantage of this new option, head to YouTube’s experiments page, scroll down to High Quality Audio, and select Try it out. Again, you’ll need to be a YouTube Premium subscriber, and the feature is only available on the Android and iOS YouTube app. You don’t have to do anything to actually use the feature once you’ve enabled it on your account; it’ll apply automatically when you’re watching compatible music videos.

The High Quality Audio experiment is available on Android and iOS until February 22.