Tidal, Deezer, and Qobuz also offer higher-quality catalogs, but these plans cost a bit more than their normal paid subscriptions.ĭoes “lossless CD-quality” audio matter and can you really tell the difference? These might seem like the same questions, but there are subtle differences. Both Amazon Music and Apple Music now have lossless audio libraries that are the same size as their lossy catalogs, and both services include additional catalogs of hi-res audio and Dolby Atmos Music at no extra charge. Meanwhile, Spotify’s competition have been happily touting their superior audio quality. We’d like to think that if Spotify HiFi was merely delayed due to some last-minute hiccups, the company would offer its members something to cling to timing-wise, but it instead went with the frustratingly vague “in the future.” So while it’s clearly too early to declare Spotify’s lossless audio ambitions dead, it’s safe to say the feature is in critical condition, with an uncertain prognosis for survival. We will of course update you here when we can.ĭigital Trends reached out to Spotify to ask about the timing for Spotify HiFi, but a company spokesperson simply replied with the exact same message as above. But we don’t have timing details to share yet.

We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future.

We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. Now, 9to5Mac has spotted a message from the company on its community support site that doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence: But 2021 is now in our collective rearview mirror and, so far, there’s still no sign of Spotify HiFi.Īnd concerns are growing that even Spotify can’t say for sure when or if it will actually launch the new tier. As the name suggests, Spotify said the new, more expensive tier would distinguish itself by offering “lossless CD-quality” audio - a significant step up in quality over the company’s current maximum streaming quality, which is still based on a lossy compression system.

Spotify announced almost a year ago that it would launch a new subscription tier for its Premium members called Spotify HiFi before the end of 2021.

Spotify hifi tier coming year