Murmurings from Spotify lately have fed the rumor mill that we may see Spotify’s long-promised, almost-vaporware high-resolution music tier—previously known as Spotify HiFi.
Spotify’s CEO and founder David Ek had said, “We’re gonna double down on music in 2025, and I’m personally very excited about that.” But that vague statement could’ve meant anything.
Of all the semi-likely explanations for what “doubling down” could’ve meant, the arrival of Spotify’s hi-fi tier was the best possibility, and according to a leak via Bloomberg it seems our latent wish may come true later this year.
lossless audio comes to spotify
Rather than comprise an entirely separate tier, as is typical with streaming services, Spotify Pro would be a $6 add-on for the Premium tier, which costs $12 per month, according to Bloomberg. That’ll buy you lossless audio, which uses more internet bandwidth in exchange for not chopping out any of the audio data being streamed to your listening devices.
If you have excellent headphones or speakers and want to take advantage of them fully, you’re going to want lossless audio. Using them with typically lossy audio formats is like drinking through a straw with a hole in it.
Spotify Pro will also include a few bonus features, including remixing tools (some AI-powered) and special deals on concert tickets. Rather than release all at once, Bloomberg’s sources say the features of Spotify Pro will roll out in phases over the course of 2025.
Four years of waiting. Four years is how long we’ve waited since Spotify announced its hi-fi tier back in February 2021. Somebody at the top of Spotify apparently took the success of Three Thousand Years of Longing and One Hundred Years of Solitude to mean folks didn’t mind waiting interminable amounts of time.
Better late than never, I guess. Apple Music and Tidal have offered hi-fidelity, lossless tiers for years as they ate Spotify’s lunch and then moved onto dessert. Spotify, though, remains the streaming service with the most users. If the leak proves to be true and it sticks to its own rollout schedule, it could retain its place at the head of the table.
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