Spotify has officially launched Lossless Streaming for Premium subscribers after years of delays. The feature, first promised in 2021, is gradually becoming available in 50 markets, including the US, UK, Australia and Germany.
See also: Spotify revamps its Discover Weekly playlist
Luckily, Spotify is including Lossless Streaming at no extra cost for existing Premium subscribers. This is especially good news, as early rumors suggested that Spotify would offer Lossless Streaming as a more expensive tier. However, that’s not the case.
This probably has to do with the fact that in the intervening years, Apple decided to include Lossless Streaming as part of its regular Apple Music subscription at no extra cost. Shortly after, Amazon Music, which previously charged extra for the HD tier, followed suit.
See also: Spotify is trying to be more like YouTube
Spotify Premium users will receive notifications within the app when the feature becomes available and can enable it through their media quality settings. A lossless indicator also appears in the 'Now Playing' bar when streaming high-quality audio.
The service supports 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC, though this falls short of Apple Music, Tidal and Qobuz, which offer up to 24-bit/192 kHz. The lossless quality being played is also shown in the Connect Picker for compatible hardware, which includes devices from Sony, Bose, Samsung and Sennheiser at launch, with Sonos and Amazon integration expected next month.
See also: Spotify is testing a new way to discover music
Spotify says the rollout of Lossless Streaming will continue over the next two months in all supported regions. The first reports that Spotify was working on a Lossless Streaming version appeared almost eight years ago, when the company began testing the option with a small group of users.
