
For us audiophile nerds that just happen to like using Spotify’s interface, and appreciate the easy discoverability of new artists, we can just hope that lossless streaming will become available when it is ready. Spotify HiFi, which would provide CD-quality lossless. With Spotify still being a top player in music streaming, maybe they don’t feel the need to prioritize lossless streaming just yet. In February 2021, Spotify attempted to spoil the launch of lossless audio streams on Apple Music by declaring its own feature was on the way. Earlier this month, millions of subscribers excitedly shared their Spotify Wrapped to social media, and it has become a major yearly trend. CD-quality or “Redbook” audio quality is normally 16bit 44.1kHz, which preserves more frequency information, and results in more high-resolution music listening for certain setups.ĭespite not being the best music streaming service for pure audio quality, Spotify is still a massively popular platform. However, music streamers with wired headphones, IEMs, and speakers will miss out on significant resolution.
#SPOTIFY HIFI BLUETOOTH#
If you’re listening to Spotify using Bluetooth headphones or earbuds, chances are this doesn’t make too much of a difference, as Bluetooth signals also gave their own compression. Individual music files become smaller, making room for more files to be stored. This is a compressed “lossy” format that is designed to throw away frequency data the algorithm deems unimportant in order to make way for more bandwidth. Spotify’s highest streaming quality is currently at 320kbps. Advantages Of Lossless Streaming With Spotify It has also not been confirmed if Spotify will be still offering lossless streaming as its own tier, or integrating it into its current premium plan. As we’re about to go into 2023, Spotify remains silent on when it would start offering CD-quality streaming like its competitors. No official time frame has been revealed, even with Spotify’s promise that they would be rolling out HiFi streaming in select markets around the time of year we are currently in. Since February 2021, Spotify has yet to reveal a specific date as to when it would release its HiFi streaming tier. Some wonder if Apple Music throwing in lossless streaming at no additional charge was a way to combat Spotify’s announcement, hence the extended delay.

Since these announcements, Spotify has yet to reveal when their HiFi streaming tier would become available. Other services like Tidal and Qobuz had already been offering HiFi streaming for some time. Spotify’s initial earnings release contains no mention of its long-delayed HiFi streaming option. Amazon Music had also gone HiFi a couple of months before too. Soon after this announcement, Apple Music upgraded its library to lossless streaming at no additional charge. Back at the start of 2021, Spotify announced it was going to offer a new membership tier that would introduce lossless, CD-quality streaming to their subscribers. It is almost the end of 2022, and Spotify is still streaming at 320kbps.
