Spotify is still working on its hi-fi audio plans, according to CEO Daniel Ek. The company first announced hi-fi support in early 2021, but they’re apparently still “in early days.” And the kicker? The hi-fi (or ‘deluxe’) version of Spotify will cost nearly $20/month.
Plans for ultra-premium Spotify tier
Spotify held its quarterly earnings call today, and that’s where CEO Ek made the latest comments about the upcoming hi-fi tier. Ek said:
The plan here is to offer much a much better version of Spotify. Think something like $5 above the current premium tier. So it’s probably around a $17 or $18 price point, but sort of a deluxe version of Spotify that has all of the benefits that the normal Spotify version has, but a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board, and some other things that I’m not ready to talk about just yet.
So apparently, the plan is to include more than just hi-res music in the ‘deluxe’ tier of Spotify. But it’s entirely unclear what those ‘other things’ will be and whether they’ll be worth the additional cost.
9to5Mac’s Take
Top comment by AliceMac
And I will just continue jamming to 24 bit / 192 kHz lossless music on Apple Music! The higher kHz doesn't really matter for human ears, but you can actually hear the difference between 24 bit and 16 (CD quality). Even outside of my home audio setup, streaming regular-quality lossless music is noticably better on the car stereo. Switching to Spotify's low-quality Vorbis-codec audio is noticable even on bluetooth headphones (which require re-encoding Spotify's garbage audio into the even worse SBC codec), versus Apple Music's "standard quality" AAC audio (which starts out higher quality and often doesn't require re-encoding for AirPods and other high-quality brands). Apple Music is better quality at EVERY quality tier, from AirPods (directly streaming AAC with spacial audio) all the way up to audiophile-grade setups (streaming Apple's huge catalog of high resolution music)... and it's cheaper that Spotify's overdue "HiFi" service.
Anyone who cares about the ACTUAL MUSIC should be using Apple Music.
Years after Spotify first made its hi-fi announcement, preempting Apple at the time, it’s pretty bizarre that Ek mentioned on the call that this project was “in early days.”
Meanwhile Apple shipped lossless audio on Apple Music, plus spatial audio with Dolby Atmos, back in June 2021. Yes, three whole years ago. At no additional cost, too!
I’m not sure what’s taking Spotify so long, other than perhaps the belief that users don’t care that much about hi-res audio quality. Which—who knows?—may in fact be true. But if that’s the case, then charging $18/month for a deluxe tier sure seems like a hard sell.
h/t The Verge
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