Audio Quality
The provider supports four audio quality levels. The level is selected in the provider settings and applied globally to all tracks.
Quality Levels
Section titled “Quality Levels”| Level | Format | Bitrate | Requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Efficient | AAC | ~64 kbps | Any subscription |
| Balanced (default) | AAC | ~192 kbps | Any subscription |
| High | MP3 | ~320 kbps | Any subscription |
| Superb | FLAC | Lossless | Yandex Plus |
Codec Selection
Section titled “Codec Selection”The provider requests the list of available variants for each track from the API and selects the best one matching the chosen level:
- Superb — FLAC is preferred; if unavailable — the best available format is used.
- High — MP3 320 kbps; if unavailable — any MP3 or best available.
- Balanced — AAC in the 128–256 kbps range; AAC preferred over MP3.
- Efficient — AAC at the lowest bitrate; if unavailable — MP3.
Encrypted FLAC (encraw)
Section titled “Encrypted FLAC (encraw)”Lossless FLAC in Yandex Music is delivered encrypted via the encraw transport. The provider automatically:
- Requests the encryption key and codec parameters from the API.
- Decrypts the stream AES-CTR chunk by chunk in real time.
- Fetches the stream in 4 MB windows, transparently advancing to the next window.
This is completely transparent to the user — Music Assistant receives a clean FLAC stream with no track-length restrictions.
Subscription Requirements
Section titled “Subscription Requirements”The Efficient, Balanced, and High levels are available with any subscription (including no subscription). The Superb level (FLAC Lossless) requires an active Yandex Plus subscription. Without it, the API does not return an encrypted stream, and the provider falls back to the best available format.