“We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you,” reads a company post on Spotify Community. So when can we expect Spotify HiFi? That’s anyone’s guess.
No surprise there Spotify had said the best way to experience Spotify HiFi would be to use Spotify Connect. During the year, I spoke with a few audio manufacturers whose products support Spotify Connect, and they told me these products would play lossless audio from Spotify HiFi, whenever the service launched. In the spring, some users reported seeing a Spotify HiFi button in the Spotify app. That doesn’t necessarily mean it was vaporware. No matter-2021 has come and gone (good riddance!), and there’s still no sign of Spotify HiFi. And there were other questions: Would all tracks on Spotify be available at lossless CD resolution (16-bit/44.1kHz) to HiFi subscribers, or would some tracks only be available in a lossy format? Would Spotify offer any music at higher resolutions? But there was no information about timeline, launch markets, or pricing. The service would be available on the Spotify app installed on such devices as smartphones, tablets, PCs, and Macs, and on components that support Spotify Connect. Spotify HiFi “will begin rolling out in select markets later this year,” the company stated in a backgrounder. “For those listeners really passionate about audio quality, later this year, we’ll be launching a new subscription offering-Spotify HiFi,” said Jeremy Erlich, Spotify’s global co-head of music. But a year ago this month, Spotify announced plans for a lossless tier. Currently, Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis lossy compression, with a maximum bitrate of 320kbps, to deliver music. With 356 million active users-including 165 million paid subscribers-Spotify is the world’s largest on-demand music streaming service by a healthy margin. These aggressive moves by major providers like Apple and Amazon led several smaller streaming services to revamp their own pricing plans in 2021. Amazon Music HD had been offering lossless and hi-rez music since 2019 but following Apple’s move, Amazon reduced its price for the service. Three months later, Apple announced plans to offer lossless and hi-rez content, and started delivering shortly thereafter. Was 2021 the year that lossless and hi-rez music streaming became mainstream? Last year, Spotify promised it would start delivering lossless music, but failed to deliver.
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