Spotify is finally delivering on a promise it first made years ago, lossless, high-quality music streaming for paying subscribers. After repeated delays, licensing wrangles, and endless speculation, the platform has started rolling out support for CD-quality audio to premium users across the globe. Now, the wait is over. Spotify has confirmed that premium subscribers will be able to stream tracks in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC quality, a format designed to deliver music exactly as it was recorded, without the compromises of compression.
The idea of a dedicated hi-fi tier was first floated back in 2021, but it quickly became one of those “coming soon” features that never seemed to arrive. Even last year, CEO Daniel Ek admitted the company was still in the “early days” of bringing lossless audio to listeners, despite a steady drip of reports and even snippets of hidden code in the app hinting at a pricier subscription plan. The rollout will cover more than 50 countries through October, with users in markets such as the UK, US, Germany, Japan, Australia, Sweden, and the Netherlands already seeing the feature appear in their apps. Subscribers will receive a notification when their account is eligible, after which they can activate the option by heading to Settings and Privacy > Media Quality and selecting “Lossless” for Wi-Fi, mobile data, and downloads. The company states, “Lossless is available on mobile, desktop, and tablet, as well as on many devices that support Spotify Connect, including Sony, Bose, Samsung, Sennheiser, and more. Support for additional devices, including those from Sonos and Amazon, arrives next month.”
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