Spotify is finally releasing lossless audio for premium subscribers, the company announced on Wednesday, at last launching one of the streaming service’s most-anticipated features over four years after Spotify first announced a plan for HiFi back in February 2021.
“The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers,” Gustav Gyllenhammar, vice president, subscriptions at Spotify said in a statement. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”
Spotify’s lossless offering comes four years after its biggest competitor Apple Music had introduced lossless music for free to all its users back in May o 2021. Amazon Music quickly followed suit after Apple’s announcement, and Spotify subscribers had been questioning ever since when they’d get the feature as well.
Reports had surfaced for years since the initial HiFi announcement about the feature finally coming to Spotify, with some suggesting Spotify was exploring offering higher quality audio as a more expensive subscription offering. That clearly didn’t happen, as lossless is being offered to premium subscribers at no additional cost.
Spotify said Wednesday that users would be notified about lossless as it’s made available to them. The company said Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the U.S., and the U.K. are all beginning to get lossless now, and Spotify said it plans on rolling out the feature to around 50 markets around the globe through October.
After subscribers are notified the feature has been made available to them, they can turn on lossless by going to their profile and going to media quality under their settings. Spotify recommends using lossless while connected to Wi-Fi, and using wired headphones and non-Bluetooth speakers. Bluetooth, Spotify said, doesn’t provide enough bandwidth for lossless.