Spotify HiFi release date: When is Spotify’s lossless tier coming?

First announced back in February 2021, Spotify HiFi was described as a way for Spotify Premium users to “upgrade their sound quality” to a “CD-quality, lossless audio format.”

Typically, “CD-quality” means streaming audio encoded with 16-bit depth and a 44.1kHz sampling rate. 

But the key term here is “lossless,” which means that the audio stream contains exactly the same sonic detail as its source. 

The main selling point here is that you’d be hearing the music in the precise way the artist intended–and indeed, Spotify posted a video (which has since been marked “private”) in which Billie Eilish and Finneas extolled the virtues of lossless audio streaming.

As it stands, Spotify streams audio at 320Kbps in the “lossy” Ogg Vorbis format, which means the audio stream has been compressed and is losing a fair amount of detail in the interest of conserving bandwidth. 

Spotify never gave a precise release date for Spotify HiFi, but during its 2021 announcement, it said the feature would arrive “later this year” in “select” markets.

Of course, it’s fair to say that Spotify HiFi missed its launch window by a wide margin.

The short answer: We don’t know when Spotify HiFi will arrive, but there have been hints that the feature is still in the works.

According to a June 2023 report from Bloomberg, Spotify was prepping a new and pricier tier that would “likely” including Spotify HiFi, along with “expanded” access to audiobooks.

The new tier, which Spotify reportedly called “Supremium” behind closed doors, would become Spotify’s priciest plan, albeit in “non-U.S. markets” to start, the Bloomberg report said.

The Bloomberg story also noted that this so-called “Supremium” plan would likely arrive by the end of 2023. But so far, no dice.

Later, in September 2023, a Spotify user poking around the official Spotify app said they found code that appeared to back up the Bloomberg report, including evidence that Spotify HiFi might actually offer high-resolution (i.e., better than 16-bit/44kHz) as well as lossless tracks. The code didn’t offer any details on when Spotify HiFi might actually arrive, however.

[Updated April 11, 2024] Then, in April 2024, the same Spotify user found code in more recent versions of the Spotify app hinting that that the (never unveiled) Supremium tier “is dead.” In its place: a “Music Pro” add-on that would offer up to 24-bit/44.1kHz lossless playback plus a headphone “enhancement/optimization” feature. Music Pro could also include “advanced mixing” tools similar to those detailed in this Wall Street Journal article, the Reddit user said. No word on pricing, however.

Spotify never confirmed the Bloomberg report or the other leaks, but Spotify execs have previously insisted that Spotify HiFi is still coming.

Speaking with The Verge in March 2023, Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström said that the company is “still going to do” Spotify HiFi, but that “we’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and for our listeners,” adding that “the industry changed and we had to adapt.” (We’ll discuss exactly how the industry changed in a moment.)

Söderström didn’t offer a timeline for when Spotify HiFi might finally arrive, beyond a vague “at some point.”

Going further back to January 2022, the company offered a vaguely worded statement that offered scant details about Spotify HiFi’s fate:

“We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. But we don’t have timing details to share yet. We will of course update you here when we can.“

We reached out to Spotify shortly after that announcement, but a rep would only say that the company did “not have anything further to share on HiFi beyond the excitement for the future launch.”

There have been other hints about Spotify HiFi’s arrival. According to an October 2022 post on Reddit, a longtime Spotify user who had recently switched to Apple Music claimed they got a survey detailed a new plan–“Spotify Platinum”–that boasts HiFi, as well as other features such as “Studio Sound,” a “Headphone Tuner,” “Audio Insights,” “Library Pro,” “Playlist Pro,” and “limited-ad” podcasts, all for an extra charge (more on that in a moment).

The Redditor said the survey asked if they would switch back to Spotify “in the nest 30 days” for “one of [those] features.”

Obviously, those 30 days came and went without any sign of Spotify Platinum actually appearing.

Even further back, a “HiFi” icon was spotted in the Spotify app back in May 2021 and a leaked “Hi, HiFi” video that made the rounds a few months later.

While Spotify has never come out and said that HiFi will cost extra, the wording of its initial announcement–“Premium subscribers in select markets will be able to upgrade their sound quality to Spotify HiFi”–suggests that HiFi is either an add-on or included in a new plan, such as the possible Spotify Platinum tier. 

Bloomberg’s 2023 report about Spotify “Supremium” said the new tier–including HiFi functionality–would be Spotify’s priciest yet, while the purported survey cited in the “Spotify Platinum” rumor detailed above pegged the price at $19.99 a month. (Of course, given how much time has passed since those reports and rumors were published, any specific price points they mentioned should be taken with a grain of salt.)

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Spotify user who had been digging around the Spotify app found a reference to a $19.99/month price within the app’s code, but added that “this could just be a placeholder.”

It’s also worth noting that Spotify tested CD-quality audio streams as early as 2017, and at that time, it charged an extra $7.50 a month for the privilege. 

Good question. Back in February 2022, Spotify CEO Daniel Ed blamed “licensing” issues when asked about the fate of Spotify HiFi during a company earnings call. Here’s the exact quote, as reported by TechCrunch:

“Many of the features that we talk about and especially that’s related to music ends up into licensing,” Ek told investors. “So I can’t really announce any specifics on this other than to say that we’re in constant dialogue with our partners to bring this to market.”

There is another reason that Spotify might have delayed Spotify HiFi: because it got caught flat-footed by Apple and Amazon, a development that Spotify’s Söderström referred to (“the industry changed”) earlier.

Just three months after the Spotify HiFi announcement, Amazon and Apple both announced (separately, but on the same day) that they would begin offering lossless, high-resolution, and spatial audio music tracks, all for no extra charge. (Apple was completely new to lossless and spatial audio streaming, while Amazon had previously been charging extra for lossless and spatial tracks.)

Following the Amazon and Apple announcements, the prospect of paying extra (most likely) for only CD-quality music and (probably) no spatial audio began to lose its appeal, so perhaps Spotify chose to retreat and regroup.

Plenty of Spotify’s streaming music rivals, including Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Qobuz, and Tidal, offer “high-resolution” music streaming–that is, audio that’s encoded at a higher resolution and sampling rate than CD-quality 16-bit/44.1kHz audio tracks. 

Most industry types agree that 24-bit/48kHz is the threshold for high-resolution audio, and those streamers that support it deliver high-res streams all the way up to 24-bit/192kHz.

But Spotify never said anything about high-resolution audio in its initial Spotify HiFi announcement; all it promised was “CD-quality” audio, which qualifies as “hi-fi” but not “hi-res.” That said, the Spotify user who previously revealed details hidden in the Spotify app noted that code made reference to “24-bit Lossless music,” indicating that Spotify HiFi might offer high-resolution audio after all.

In any event, it’s a matter of heated debate whether the human ear can actually tell the difference between CD-quality and high-resolution audio–or for that matter, whether most folks can discern the difference between lossy and lossless. We won’t dive into lossy-vs.-lossless rabbit hole here.

As with high-resolution audio, Spotify never said anything about spatial audio–that is, music tracks that have been mixed with 3D surround effects–in its Spotify HiFi announcement.

Meanwhile, Spotify competitors Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Tidal do offer spatial audio tracks in such formats as Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio.

Again, Spotify might actually have spatial audio plans in the works–and perhaps that’s what the “Studio Sound” and/or “Headphone Tuner” features from the Spotify Platinum rumors are all about.

Well, anything’s possible, and Spotify has been known to nix high-profile features that never quite took off.

For example, Spotify pulled the plug on Car Thing, a small touchscreen display that you could install on a car dashboard for on-the-road Spotify streaming.

For its part, Spotify said that while Car Thing “worked as intended,” it chose to halt production of the $80 device due to “product demand and supply chain issues,” among other factors.

Spotify also has a history of testing, teasing, and rolling out new features that later disappear–or even reappear–without explanation.

But while Spotify seems willing to cancel features that aren’t working, it also likes to experiment, and Spotify HiFi could be a project that Spotify is content to tinker with indefinitely.

For what it’s worth, the official Spotify HiFi announcement is still live on Spotify’s website.

Those of us still curious about Spotify HiFi tend to focus our attention on Spotify’s quarterly earnings reports, when the company shares its balance sheet and (sometimes) details upcoming features, price changes, and other initiatives. There’s also a conference call where analysts get to quiz Spotify executives, who occasionally get asked about Spotify HiFi.

Spotify’s next quarterly earnings report (for the fourth quarter of 2023) is due February 6, 2024, and you can bet we’ll be listening. Update (2/6/2024): Nope, nothing.