After years of speculation and postponed promises, Spotify is at last launching lossless for the masses without charging extra. Rumours of a potential Hi-Fi tier first started circulating as far back as eight years ago, but time and again the company kept kicking the can down the road. Four years ago Spotify even promised that lossless would arrive "later that year," but nothing materialised. As recently as last year, the company said it was "almost ready," so when new rumours began spreading earlier this year, they were met with plenty of scepticism.
That's why the fact that it's finally real — or well, almost — feels almost surreal. All Premium subscribers in 50 countries will get access to lossless over the next two months, starting with regions including Sweden, the US, the UK, Germany, and Japan. Users will receive a notification in the app once the rollout reaches them, and can enable lossless under "media quality" in settings. When listening in lossless, there will also be a clear indicator in the Now Playing bar.
There are some limitations, however. Spotify's lossless tops out at 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC, which feels a bit underwhelming when competitors like Apple Music and Tidal offer up to 24-bit/192 kHz. For most casual listeners, this likely won't matter much, but it does leave the door wide open for Spotify to later introduce some sort of "deluxe" tier for those willing to pay more for higher fidelity.
Still, better than nothing, right?