Spotify has announced plans to launch Spotify HiFi, which will finally enable lossless audio streaming.
Spotify claims that its new HiFi mode will allow “CD quality” sound to existing devices and Spotify Connect compatible speakers. The company did not give further details on the bit rate and codec for HiFi mode. Spotify currently uses Ogg Vorbis on desktop and mobile, and AAC for the web player.
The company has been testing lossless audio for some time now, with users selected for A / B testing since early 2017. It now joins a growing number of services offering lossless audio, including Tidal, Amazon, Quobuz and Deezer . Most of them also offer high-resolution sound that exceeds the technical limits of CD audio, which will put them to the advantage if Spotify chooses to limit itself to 16-bit / 44.1kHz audio only, like the ‘would imply “CD quality”.
Apple, which has yet to show interest in offering lossless sound, either through its Apple Music streaming service or through its iTunes Store, is notably absent from this list. Perhaps this is the reason why Spotify ultimately chose to roll out lossless audio support, as it offers another differentiator from Apple’s rapidly growing alternative.
Unfortunately, Spotify HiFi won’t be available to everyone at launch. The company has revealed that it will only roll out the feature in certain markets when it goes live later this year. However, this is probably not too surprising for those who follow this industry closely, as the lossless levels of other streaming services have generally only been offered in certain regions of the world and license agreements with labels. may be responsible.
More details on this will be provided in the future.
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