With Apple and Amazon bringing lossless music streaming to the masses for no extra charge, hi-fi music streamers that were charging a premium for CD-quality and high-resolution audio tracks had to rejigger their plans. (Lossless streaming was brand-new to Apple Music, while Amazon had previously been charging extra for its lossless music tracks.)īesides simply offering CD-quality lossless music tracks, Apple and Amazon also boast a couple of additional features that (for now) go beyond the scope of Spotify’s announced HiFi service: support for high-resolution (or 24-bit) audio, as well as spatial audio powered by Dolby Atmos and (on Amazon Music) Sony’s 360 Reality Audio technology. Apple and Amazon made the biggest splash back in May, with the two companies rolling out lossless music streaming at no extra charge for paid subscribers.

Apple Music streams at a bitrate of 256Kbps, while Spotify’s current Premium tier streams at a maximum 320Kbps.In the meantime, Spotify’s competitors have made some major moves in the lossless audio department. However, users who received the invitation to sign up for the Hi-Fi service either got an error message or were told the service was unavailable in their area at the time.Ĭurrently, Tidal is the only major music streaming service to offer an optional lossless audio tier, although other, lesser known lossless services do exist. Spotify began testing the service with a small group of users on Tuesday, according to reports, offering the tier for $5 to $10 above the $10 per month price of a standard Spotify subscription. Lossless audio is 44.1KHz 16-bit CD quality, meaning the files aren’t compressed, so users are said to hear the music the way the artists intended, though whether one can tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed tracks depends on the listener. The new subscription tier is said to be called Spotify Hi-Fi and will offer higher bandwidth lossless audio quality to members. Spotify is prepping the launch of a lossless audio version of its streaming service, according to The Verge.

Spotify lossless audio