Spotify has unveiled a new high-fidelity, lossless audio option for its Premium subscribers. The feature, which supports tracks in up to 24-bit/44.1kHz FLAC quality, launched in the US on September 10 and will expand to more than 50 countries from October.
“The wait is finally over. We’re thrilled to bring lossless sound to Premium subscribers,” said Gustav Gyllenhammar, Spotify’s vice president of subscriptions. “We’ve taken our time to design this feature with quality, clarity and ease of use in mind, so listeners always know exactly what’s happening under the bonnet. With lossless, Premium users can enjoy an even richer experience.”
To enable lossless playback, users can head to the Spotify app, tap their profile icon in the top left, navigate to Settings and privacy, then Media quality and select the option to turn on lossless audio. Notifications will be sent once the feature becomes available in each market.
Spotify’s move follows rival services, such as Apple Music, which have already introduced lossless streaming.
The update comes at a contentious moment for the platform. Several artists have recently withdrawn their catalogues in protest over Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s investment company Prima Materia, which channelled over €600 million into Helsing, a Munich-based firm developing drones and artificial intelligence for military use.
Criticism of Spotify has been mounting elsewhere in the music community. Earlier this year, Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth said he “owed it” to fellow musicians not to maintain an account, while Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante dismissed streaming as the place “where music goes to die”.
The company also sparked anger after demonetising all songs with fewer than 1,000 streams, a move seen as restricting revenue for emerging artists trying to break into the industry.
