The long-awaited Spotify HiFi tier could finally be on the way, but it’s likely to come at a cost for Premium subscribers.
According to a Bloomberg report, the lossless audio tier will finally arrive later this year as part of a new ‘Supremium’ tier, initially available outside of the United States. Whether the UK would be among those countries remains to be seen.
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Spotify announced HiFi more than two years ago, but the release of the CD-quality tunes has been delayed with the Swedish company citing issues with licensing.
According to the report today, Spotify may also bundle access to audio books, less ads in podcasts, and perhaps the ability to tune headphones.
Previous leaks have suggested the tier might cost as much as $19.99 per month, which would be double the current Premium offering. Apple, of course, didn’t charge users any more for Lossless audio when it was introduced to Apple Music. Amazon didn’t either, although both services have since put the prices up by a buck.
Spotify isn’t commenting on the specifics of the Hi-Fi launch window. In a statement, the company said: “At Spotify, we are constantly iterating and ideating to improve our product offering and offer value to users. But we don’t comment on speculation around possible new features and do not have anything new to share at this time.”
Spotify is yet to divulge much information about the tier, regardless of the price. We don’t know anything about the bitrate Spotify will offer or whether there’ll be added support for features like spatial audio. The latter has been quite the revelation for Apple Music.
Hopefully Spotify gets its ducks in a row and announces the launch date soon.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
