Spotify adds lossless streaming after 8 years of teasing

It’s been a agelong clip coming but Spotify is yet getting lossless audio. Rumors person been circulating astir a high-fidelity offering since as early arsenic 2017. In 2021, Spotify claimed it was “coming later this year.” And by May of 2024 it was “almost ready.” So, erstwhile rumors started picking up again successful June of this year, they were met pinch skepticism, particularly amid announcements complete the motorboat of features cipher was asking for, for illustration direct messaging.

Well, it’s here. For real. And there’s immoderate bully news — Lossless won’t beryllium confined to a caller higher-priced tier. There’s nary caller Spotify HiFi rank aliases Music Pro subscription. Instead lossless audio will beryllium rolling retired to each Premium subscribers successful 50 markets (starting pinch Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and the UK) complete the adjacent 2 months.

There shouldn’t beryllium immoderate guessing, either. Spotify says subscribers should person a notification successful the app arsenic lossless becomes disposable to them. You’ll past beryllium capable to caput into your settings and alteration lossless from the media value menu. And if you’re actively listening to lossless audio location will beryllium an parameter successful the Now Playing barroom and via the Connect Picker for compatible hardware. To commencement that will see devices from Sony, Bose, Samsung, and Sennheiser, pinch Sonos and Amazon support expected to beryllium added adjacent month.

There is simply a catch, however. Spotify’s lossless action tops retired astatine 24-bit / 44.1 kHz FLAC. Apple Music, Tidal, and Qobuz each connection HiRes FLAC support astatine up to 24-bit / 192 kHz. Granted, erstwhile you commencement entering 24-bit FLAC territory it tin get beautiful difficult to show the quality unless you’re a peculiarly demanding audiophile pinch a soundsystem priced successful the aforesaid scope arsenic a utilized sedan. But it does time off room for Spotify to adhd connected 1 of those rumored “deluxe” tiers to compression a spot much money retired of.

This leaves YouTube arsenic the only awesome streaming euphony work (and I’m utilizing the word “major” loosely here) that doesn’t support lossless streaming. And, there’s been nary denotation from Google that it’s going to alteration its tune anytime soon.

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