Someone wake Neil Young! After years of losing audiophile subscribers to other streaming services like TIDAL, Apple Music and Qobuz, Spotify will reportedly finally introduce high resolution audio to their service. For a price, of course.
According to Bloomberg, Spotify will introduce a premium plan later this year that includes high-res audio, along with new tools for users in creating playlists and managing their library. This will cost “at least $5 more” than current plans, according to their sources.
Just last week, Spotify raised its monthly subscription $1 to $11.99 a month. They first announced plans for a hifi option in 2021 but delayed its launch.
By comparison, Apple Music and TIDAL both offer hifi audio at their $10.99 regular subscriptions, and those includes lossless audio and some albums in Dolby Atmos. But neither has as finely tuned a recommendation engine, or the wide range of user-made playlists that Spotify boasts, thanks to its sheer number of subscribers.
According to their Music Quality information page, Spotify premium currently offers up to 320 kbps audio through their desktop and mobile apps (lower if you’re using the the web browser player). Spotify’s free tier maxes out at 160k.