Spotify co-chairman Gustav Söderström reportedly said so The edge (opens in new tab) that offering lossless audio is still the plan, but don’t hold your breath for an imminent launch.
In his recent interview with the American publication, Söderström said that “we are going to do it”; that Spotify HiFi “will come someday”. But he couldn’t be specific with timeframes at this stage. The company still seems to be navigating a way it likes to deliver CD-quality lossless audio on its service, after initially announcing in February 2021 that a higher-quality Spotify HiFi tier would be launched by the end of that year . Plans were no doubt thrown into disarray when Apple Music, and then Amazon Music, nailed it by delivering lossless quality in May — and, most importantly, on No additional costs for subscribers.
“We’re going to do it in a way that makes sense to us and to our listeners,” Söderström said. The edge on his Decoder show. “The industry was changing and we had to adapt.” The report also quotes Söderström as saying that the Spotify HiFi supply needs to work for the company “also from a cost point of view”, though he would not comment on label deals or activities of rivals in the industry.
The publication goes on to say that Spotify HiFi has indeed been up and running for more than a year, suggesting that Spotify employees already have access to the service’s entire catalog in lossless quality. So it seems that the continued slowdown is likely due to the fact that Spotify is still trying to find a way to pack lossless quality into a more expensive tier that, to make it more attractive, also bundles other benefits, such as Dolby Atmos Music support and premium podcast and library features. This would substantiate earlier claims last year that Spotify HiFi streaming could be part of a new $20 “Platinum” tier of extras.
If a premium tier comes out that’s double the monthly cost of the current Premium plan, it should make those extras quite desirable to have any chance of enticing Apple Music subscribers, which have lossless and spatial audio and soon a full-fledged (and probably industry-leading) classical music experience for £10.99 / $10.99 / AU$12.99 per month.
While Söderström’s latest comments don’t get us any closer to a Spotify HiFi release date, it’s reassuring to know that lossless audio is still on the table, following rumors in the hifi and tech industry in recent months that it might not would materialize anyway.
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