Streaming providers Tidal and Amazon Music have been offering a subscription model for quite some time, which shines with music in hi-fi quality. Now Spotify wants to follow suit. The market leader among the streaming services promises lossless music that is supposed to exceed the previous quality maximum of 320 kbit/s by far. Since Spotify now also wants to offer this option, Apple Music, as one of the leading providers, has to take a significant hit. After all, the Californian company’s music service does not yet offer optional HiFi quality.
New HiFi option still 2021
The Swedish streaming service is looking to launch Spotify HiFi later this year. This option is said to be able to offer nothing less than “lossless CD quality.” However, the company is still holding back with further details. Possibly it is because the goal of said CD quality cannot keep up with the quality of the competition. After all, it would “only” be a data rate of 1,411 kbit/s.
Tidal offers the best quality
Certainly, no other streaming service can beat Spotify when it comes to selection. The Swedish company had about 60 million songs to choose from as of September 2020. But when it comes to quality, one provider trumps all others. The Swedish-Norwegian company Tidal offers true hi-fi quality in its premium subscription. This scores with a bit rate of a proud 9,216 kbit/s. So, if Spotify really only wants to deliver CD quality with its HiFi option, Tidal would still be clearly ahead. However, it should be mentioned that only selected players can play the high-quality MQA files from Tidal HiFi in their high quality. Spotify HiFi, on the other hand, should be able to play the improved audio quality on far more devices. Here, extensive compatibility could be more attractive than pure quality.
What does it cost?
We don’t yet know how much the HiFi version of Spotify is expected to cost. Spotify’s most expensive subscription so far costs 9.99 euros. If you take a look at the prices of the HiFi subscriptions from the competition, a significant price increase is probably inevitable. By way of comparison, subscribers pay a monthly price of 14.99 euros for Amazon Music HD. Tidal even charges 19.99 euros per month for its HiFi option.
