We first heard back in June that Spotify Supremium might be the name given to the company’s long-awaited lossless audio tier, and that now appears to have been confirmed by code found within the app.
The code also contains a reference to pricing of $19.99/month, which is in line with a previous report – but may be a tough sell …
Spotify Supremium has been a long time coming
Spotify first promised a lossless audio tier back in February 2021, in what was then referred to as Spotify HiFi. At the time, the company said this would launch later the same year.
Spotify HiFi will deliver music in CD-quality, lossless audio format to your device and Spotify Connect enabled speakers, which means fans will be able to experience more depth and clarity while enjoying their favorite tracks.
Almost a year later, it still hadn’t materialized, and the company issued a statement noted equally for its brevity and vagueness.
We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. But we don’t have timing details to share yet.
Fast forward to June of this year, and it was still said to be coming soon.
Code suggests $19.99/month pricing
Reddit user Hypixely spotted the code.
I did a little digging within the Spotify app, and found info about the new, more expensive Supremium, which Spotify refers to as “Nemo” internally […]
After more digging in the code, the price seems to be $19.99. This could just be a placeholder.
While Hypixely is cautious, The Verge notes that there is reason to believe that it is real.
The pricing tracks with some of the other evidence we’ve seen. Last year, a Spotify survey mentioned a $19.99 “Platinum” tier that would include HiFi and other features.
9to5Mac’s Take
At the time Spotify first mooted this, it was the norm for lossless audio to cost more, in a model originally pioneered by Tidal (remember them?). The company offered a choice of lossy compression at $9.99/month and CD-quality lossless for $19.99/month.
But things have now changed. Apple Music already offers lossless music at no extra cost. Given that the two services offer access to essentially identical music catalogs, and there’s an Android app as well as an iOS one, why pay $19.99/month when you can pay $10.99?
Additionally, relatively few people can hear the difference between the high-quality lossy format used by both services, and CD-quality lossless. Sure, back in the days when 256kbps mp3 files were the norm, the difference was noticeable to many of us. But these days Spotify uses 320kbps Ogg Vorbis files, while Apple Music uses 256kbps AAC – and both are very good.
If you want to know whether you can hear the difference today, there are online tests you can take. The last time I took one of these, things had shifted from “you can tell when trying hard” to “well, you got more than 50% right, but not by a big enough margin to mean much.”
Given a limited market for lossless, and Apple Music’s offering at no extra cost, a $19.99 Spotify Supremium tier looks like a very tough sell.
Photo: Alphacolor/Unsplash
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments