Looking to offer a little something extra for the audiophiles in the crowd, Spotify has announced a new streaming tier for high-quality lossless audio. Called Spotify HiFi, the service was announced at the company’s Stream On online event today, and will be available to Premium subscribers as an optional extra.
Spotify says that access to high-quality music streaming is among its most heavily requested features, and is something offered by competitors including Tidal, Amazon Music, Qobuz and Deezer. As it stands, Spotify free users have access to music streaming at an equivalent to around 160 kbps, while Spotify Premium subscribers can dial into audio at equivalent to 320 kbps, if their connection allows for it.
There’s no word yet on the bitrate that will be offered to subscribers of Spotify HiFi, but the company does describe it as CD-quality, lossless audio. This will be available on users’ devices and through sound systems equipped with Spotify-connect, which the company says it is expanding on through collaborations with big-name speaker manufacturers.
Also missing from the announcement is the cost, which will be added onto the monthly subscription fee for Spotify Premium users, or when and where it will first be available. The company does say Spotify HiFi will be introduced in selected markets later this year.
Spotify to launch lossless audio streaming tier this year [New Atlas]