After years of rumors, Spotify’s Lossless streaming tier is finally here. The music streaming service first teased its Hi-Fi tier in early 2021 before going silent for years. And while Spotify stayed quiet, Apple, Tidal, and others rolled out their own hi-res streaming options. In a better-late-than-never move, Spotify Premium subscribers are gaining access to lossless music streaming.
In its announcement, Spotify says lossless audio streaming will be available to its Premium subscribers in over 50 markets. It will allow users to stream music in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC, ensuring richer sound quality with greater detail. Plus, Spotify says you can enjoy the richer sound quality “across nearly every song” on its platform.
Alongside lossless streaming, Spotify will now give you greater control over streaming settings when on Wi-Fi, mobile data, or for downloads. Besides Low, Normal, High, and Very High, you can now download or stream music in Lossless quality.
When audio streams in lossless quality, a “Lossless” badge appears on the Now Playing screen.
Contrary to reports, Spotify will not charge extra for lossless streaming. It will be available to Premium subscribers at no extra cost.
You can enjoy lossless streaming on Spotify on your phone, PC, and Spotify Connect-compatible devices, including those from Samsung and Sony. Sonos will expand support to include Sonos and Amazon devices next month.
Use wired headphones for the best listening experience
Spotify says you’ll need Wi-Fi and wired headphones or speakers connected via Spotify Connect to fully enjoy lossless audio.
Unlike Apple Music and other music streaming services, Spotify will require you to manually enable lossless streaming on each device. For this, you’ll have to jump into Settings & Privacy > Media Quality and then select lossless audio.
Spotify says Lossless streaming rollout will continue through October in over 50 markets, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, the US, and the UK.
The arrival of lossless streaming comes right after Spotify introduced new ways to organize your cluttered library.
With Spotify jumping on the lossless streaming bandwagon, YouTube Music is now the lone holdout that does not offer such an option.
