Spotify: Music streaming now also available in lossless quality
After years of wrangling, Spotify is now introducing lossless audio streams. A standard premium subscription is sufficient for this.
(Image: Primakov/Shutterstock.com)
Spotify will be offering music streams in higher quality in future: Lossless streaming will soon be possible in Germany and Austria, among other countries, the Swedish streaming service announced on Wednesday. In future, it will be possible to listen to music in the FLAC codec at a quality of 24-bit/44.1 kHz. The corresponding update is already being distributed.
Spotify has been talking for years about wanting to offer lossless streaming sooner or later. However, every expected announcement has so far failed to materialize. Reports on Spotify's plans often mentioned a new subscription level that would enable lossless streaming. Spotify has obviously refrained from doing so: Lossless audio streams are to be available to all premium customers at no extra charge.
"Almost every song" on Spotify will be available in lossless quality, Spotify promises in its announcement. Lossless streaming should be possible via all relevant Spotify devices – from cell phones to the desktop app to all devices that support Spotify Connect. Lossless streaming will be enabled on Sonos devices and Amazon's Echo speakers in the coming month.
Videos by heise
Lossless streaming must be enabled
Lossless streaming must be activated individually in each application. In the mobile app, click on the profile picture at the top left before switching to "Media quality" via "Settings and privacy". In addition to the previous quality options, which ranged up to "very high", the option "lossless" will soon be available there. According to Spotify, this can be set separately for streams in Wi-Fi and mobile networks or for downloads. The option was not yet activated on a test device from heise online.
Some competing streaming services such as Amazon Music or Tidal have been offering lossless quality for music streams for several years. Whether you can even hear the difference to conventional compression methods depends not only on your own hearing: the playback device also plays an important role. Spotify, for example, advises against using lossless streams with Bluetooth headphones. Lossless music also increases the size of the download or stream, which can affect the data volume.
Spotify recently raised the prices for its Premium subscriptions in Germany: In future, the "Premium Individual" subscription will cost 13 euros per month. The "Duo" plan for two people will cost 18 euros in future, while the "Family" subscription will cost 22 euros. Students pay 7 euros per month. Users on the new basic subscription will not receive the lossless option. (dahe)
