11/24/2023 0 Comments Spotify hi res audioSpotify could always offer a second app, maybe one called Spotify Old, with a less hyperkinetic interface. Even if the company were to add those features to the Spotify Premium tier at no extra cost – something that at this point they would need to do following Apple Music and Amazon’s moves – the new overstuffed, and overstimulating, app is something of a non-starter for music fans simply looking to access a high-quality digital music collection. I’m sure that there are plenty of Spotify users who enjoy using it and also appreciate the stream of sometimes random-seeming content that flows to them as they scroll vertically through the app’s interface.īut I imagine that, like me, many listeners who value Lossless, High-Res, and Spatial Audio are likely to be put off by the changes. This revamped Spotify perfectly encapsulates the company’s ambitions to be everything everywhere all at once when it comes to audio streaming. The company most likely awakened to the reality of what they needed to do following a third-quarter operating loss, and subsequent stock value plummet, in 2022, and thus the new app. The company is aggressively catering to an audience craving an abundance of content and wants it fed to them in a manner that syncs up with current social media formats. Let’s be realistic, there is no longer a world in which a Spotify HiFi tier makes sense anymore. Hey, Spotify, how did AC/DC get in my electronic music feed? (Image credit: Future) Making sense for us and for our listeners That may have made sense when the company first announced its HiFi plans, but since then Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited have both made Lossless, High-Res Lossless, and Spatial Audio part of their standard $10.99 / £10.99 / AU$11.99 per month subscription. Yes, it’s true: Spotify’s plans for its HiFi tier had involved a price increase over the basic $9.99 per month Premium subscription. But that audience doesn’t necessarily care about Lossless audio (HiFi) and they’re certainly not going to pay more for it. And it means that Spotify is dead-serious about catering to a very specific audience. The new Spotify’s vertical-scrolling navigation and free-flowing video reels certainly signal an adaptation – over-adaptation, in my opinion. The industry changed and we had to adapt.” In a TheVerge Decoder podcast interview with Söderström cited in the article linked to above, here’s what the company’s co-president said of the supposedly forthcoming HiFi tier: “We are going to do it, but we’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and for our listeners. Instead, we got SpoTik-Tok, which is not surprising. That news comes two years after the company first announced it would be adding Lossless CD-quality music, an upgrade it suggested at the time would be rolled out “later this year.” Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström stated in a recent interview that the service is still working on a HiFi tier. “The industry changed and we had to adapt” But none of those things are going to happen. That and some Spatial Audio offerings would have been good. The news is: there is no news.The kind of change that I would have liked to see in an updated Spotify is an upgrade to Lossless and High-Res music over the lossy compressed library currently available for streaming. So now you still know as much as I do – that HiFi will be folded into the Premium tier – but don’t hold ya breath on its launch being imminent. We will of course update you here when we can. But we don’t have timing details to share yet. We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. However, last Friday we were thrown a bone by way of a short statement on Spotify’s Community forums: The year bowed out without a whiff of an update on Spotify HiFi’s progress. Since then, we’ve heard nothing but crickets from the Swedes on Spotify HiFi. Three months later, Apple Music made certain of that: it added lossless streaming – with a smattering of hi-res content – into its then singular US$9.99/month tier. In the immediate wake of the HiFi announcement, I predicted that Spotify would fold CD-quality streaming into its Premium tier i.e. Spotify’s lossless CD-quality music streaming tier – minus hi-res content – was announced in February 2021 with Billie Eilish and Finneas playing brand ambassadors. And neither does anyone else (beyond those working within the Swedish company’s inner circle). And if I did, there’d be ten+ thousand publications getting the scoop alongside this one. Where is Spotify HiFi? This question I’ve been asked more than any other since the Autumn.
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