Tidal-with a claimed 3 million subscribers-had been charging $9.99/month for its Premium tier, which used lossy compression with a maximum bitrate of 320kbps. All of Qobuz’s content is available in lossless CD resolution, and some is in hi-rez, up to 24/192. In September, Qobuz, which has about 200,000 subscribers worldwide, dropped the monthly fee for its Studio Premier tier from $14.99 to $12.99. Now Amazon Music HD is available to Amazon Music Unlimited’s 75 million subscribers at no extra cost. Until Apple’s move, Amazon had been charging $14.99/month ($12.99 for Prime members) for Amazon Music HD, compared to $9.99/month ($7.99 for Prime members) for Amazon Music Unlimited, which uses lossy compression. Did Apple’s pricing make it less attractive for Spotify to launch its HiFi tier? If Apple wasn’t charging more for lossless audio, how could its competitors? Subscribers can still stream in AAC format-the lower data rate is obviously advantageous for streaming over cellular networks.Īpple is not charging extra for lossless, hi-rez, or spatial audio-these enhancements are included in the standard subscription fee of $9.99 per month (all prices in USD). Those enhancements went live on June 7, the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple also announced plans to offer Dolby Atmos–encoded spatial audio versions of some albums. On May 17, Apple Music announced it would make all tracks available in Apple Lossless (ALAC) format, at either 16/44.1 or 24/48 resolution and a substantial number of albums would be available at higher resolutions, up to 24/192. Until mid-2021, Apple Music was streaming in the lossy AAC format, at 256kbps.
Spotify hifi lossless later free#
Why the delay? Some people speculate that Spotify was blindsided by Apple’s launch of lossless and hi-rez audio, and specifically by Apple’s aggressive pricing.Īpple Music has an estimated 98 million active users, all of whom are paid subscribers-unlike Spotify, Apple does not offer a free tier. 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,” reads a company post on Spotify Community. So when can we expect Spotify HiFi? That’s anyone’s guess. No surprise there Spotify had said the best way to experience Spotify HiFi would be to use Spotify Connect. During the year, I spoke with a few audio manufacturers whose products support Spotify Connect, and they told me these products would play lossless audio from Spotify HiFi, whenever the service launched. In the spring, some users reported seeing a Spotify HiFi button in the Spotify app. That doesn’t necessarily mean it was vaporware. No matter-2021 has come and gone (good riddance!), and there’s still no sign of Spotify HiFi. And there were other questions: Would all tracks on Spotify be available at lossless CD resolution (16-bit/44.1kHz) to HiFi subscribers, or would some tracks only be available in a lossy format? Would Spotify offer any music at higher resolutions? But there was no information about timeline, launch markets, or pricing. The service would be available on the Spotify app installed on such devices as smartphones, tablets, PCs, and Macs, and on components that support Spotify Connect. Spotify HiFi “will begin rolling out in select markets later this year,” the company stated in a backgrounder. “For those listeners really passionate about audio quality, later this year, we’ll be launching a new subscription offering-Spotify HiFi,” said Jeremy Erlich, Spotify’s global co-head of music. But a year ago this month, Spotify announced plans for a lossless tier. Currently, Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis lossy compression, with a maximum bitrate of 320kbps, to deliver music. With 356 million active users-including 165 million paid subscribers-Spotify is the world’s largest on-demand music streaming service by a healthy margin. These aggressive moves by major providers like Apple and Amazon led several smaller streaming services to revamp their own pricing plans in 2021. Amazon Music HD had been offering lossless and hi-rez music since 2019 but following Apple’s move, Amazon reduced its price for the service. Three months later, Apple announced plans to offer lossless and hi-rez content, and started delivering shortly thereafter. Was 2021 the year that lossless and hi-rez music streaming became mainstream? Last year, Spotify promised it would start delivering lossless music, but failed to deliver.