It feels as though it’s been a long time coming but Spotify has finally begun to rollout its lossless audio. While there have been rumours that the company was developing its high-fidelity audio, the company had been promising this feature as early as 2021. Now, select markets are finally getting the feature.
As announced by the company, lossless audio is being rolled out and the best part—it won’t require subscribing to a new tier within the app. Instead, Spotify is opting to bring lossless audio to the table for all Premium-tiered subscribers. This is in contrast to its plans to introduce the ‘Spotify HiFi’ tier, as previously announced.
Spotify’s lossless audio is confirmed to support 24-bit / 44.1 kHz FLAC. In comparison to other streaming services that offer lossless audio, Spotify’s option does come in shy of Apple Music’s support of HiRes FLAC, which offers up to 24-bit / 192 kHz. Tidal also provides a similar level of lossless audio support. That said, it’s largely believed that the difference between the two is indistinguishable unless you’re an audiophile.
The wait is finally over; we’re so excited that lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers,” Gustav Gyllenhammar, VP Subscriptions, Spotify, says in a press release. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”
The initial rollout of lossless audio will hit Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and the UK. Next month, “more than 50 markets” will gradually be receiving support for the lossless features. There’s no confirmed word on when Canada will be given access.
Once accessible, Spotify Premium members can turn on lossless by going to the Spotify app, tapping the ‘Profile’ icon in the top left. From there, go to ‘Settings & Privacy’ and ‘Media Quality’. Users can then select where to enable lossless audio, including through Wi-Fi, cellular, and download options.
Lossless audio is available on mobile, desktop, tablet and devices supporting Spotify Connect. This includes Sony, Bose, Samsung and Sennheiser devices. Additional support for Sonos and Amazon device arrive “next month,” according to Spotify.
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YESSSS finally!
Yessss!!! finallyyyy!!! Of us Canadians have to wait, but the other countries get it before us!!! Typical!!
does anyone else in canada have the spotify Mix feature here? I still don't have it.
I received a notice from Spotify today that it is coming soon (in Canada). This was an in-app pop up.
Apple music uses ALAC not FLAC. Also, there is no audio quality benefit to sample rates higher that 44.1kHz at 16bit. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. "high res" is like trying to encode a 5 megapixel image at 20 megapixels because that's higher resolution. It's still a 5 megapixel image, all you're doing is adding the possibility of extra noise to the image making it worse.