However, this probably isn't too surprising to those who closely follow this industry, as the lossless tiers from other streaming services have generally only been offered in select regions worldwide and licensing agreements with labels may be to blame for this. The company revealed it will be rolling out the feature only in select markets when it goes live some time later this year. Unfortunately, Spotify HiFi won't be available to everyone at launch. This may very well be why Spotify chose to finally roll out lossless audio support as it offers yet another differentiating factor against Apple's fast growing alternative. Notably missing from this list is Apple, who has yet to show any interest in offering lossless audio, either through its Apple Music streaming service or its iTunes store. Spotify HiFi, first announced all the way back in February, has yet to roll out despite the company’s early estimate that it would debut later this year. Most of these also offer high resolution audio that exceeds the technical limits of audio CD, which will put them at an advantage if Spotify chooses to only limit itself to 16-bit/44.1kHz audio, as "CD quality" would imply. It now joins a growing number of services offering lossless audio, including Tidal, Amazon, Quobuz, and Deezer. The company has been testing lossless audio for a while now, with select users being selected for A/B testing since early 2017.
Spotify currently uses Ogg Vorbis on desktop and mobile, and AAC for the web player. Spotify HiFi will deliver higher quality streams through Spotify Connect, so it's possible that newer Connect-enabled devices (such as the PlayStation 5) could get the HiFi upgrade before certain older devices. The company didn't go into further details regarding bit rate and codec for the HiFi mode. Deezer: User interface and functionality.
Editor’s note: this article was updated on June 23, 2021, to mention Spotify HiFi and update formatting. Spotify claims its new HiFi mode will enable "CD-quality" audio on existing devices and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers. Now that Spotify HiFi is coming out soon, the only major differences between Deezer and Spotify will be that Spotify is a lot more popular. While it remains one of the world's most popular music streaming apps, it won't be long before the race for hi-fi streaming becomes a catch-up game.Spotify has announced its plans to launch Spotify HiFi, which will finally enable streaming lossless audio. One hypothesis is that Apple Music's approach to lossless music made Spotify rethink its own, so now it needs a little bit more time in the oven. Combine that with the fact that both Apple Music and Spotify are $10 a month, the former suddenly becomes the better deal.Īnd what's the reason behind the delay? We'll leave those theories to you, as the forum response doesn't provide any details on it either.
What's more, in the case of Apple Music, those upgrades are free for existing subscribers, which makes it more enticing than Spotify's current proposal - an additional cost on top of the existing Premium subscription. Apple Music added spatial audio and lossless streaming support last year, while Tidal has offered MQA music in its catalog since 2017. Spotify is under increasing pressure to release this feature, especially now that competitors have joined the fray. Spotify users waiting to learn when the service's delayed 'HiFi' premium audio service will materialize currently remain none the wiser, after the company responded noncommittally to requests for. But we don’t have timing details to share yet. We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. To put it another way, a launch isn't likely to happen anytime soon, so don't hold your breath. In response to a thread in the Spotify Community forums (via 9to5Mac), the company stated that Spotify HiFi is still in the works, but that it doesn't have any details on a possible release date. The release is now looking muddier than ever as Spotify is refusing to give us a new ETA. This was supposed to be released before the end of 2021, but as you can probably tell by a glance at your calendar, we're now well into 2022, and that hasn't happened. Spotify first revealed its plans to launch a new HiFi tier for its subscription service in February of last year, which would provide Premium subscribers with high-quality, audiophile-grade music for an additional price.