Spotify is finally launching support for lossless music streaming

After much anticipation, Spotify is set to introduce high-quality, lossless music streaming for its premium subscribers. This feature has been in the works since the company first announced its plans for a hi-fi tier back in 2021, aiming to provide users with CD-quality audio. However, the rollout has faced several delays, mainly due to licensing challenges. Last year, CEO Daniel Ek indicated that the company was still in the early stages of developing this feature. Over the years, hints within the app and various reports suggested that Spotify was gearing up to launch a more costly tier dedicated to lossless music. Now, the streaming giant is finally ready to offer support for up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC quality streaming—an uncompressed audio format that maintains the original sound quality. The rollout will begin in over 50 countries throughout October, with users in regions such as Australia, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom already gaining access. Notifications will alert users when they can start enjoying lossless streaming. To activate this feature, users can navigate to Settings and Privacy, then select Media Quality and choose "Lossless" for streaming over Wi-Fi, cellular data, and downloads. While the feature is available on multiple devices, users must enable it individually for each device, as the setting does not sync automatically across all devices linked to a Spotify account. It's important to note that lossless files are larger, so users will need to monitor their data consumption. Although lossless streaming is possible over Wi-Fi, users will not be able to utilize this feature with Bluetooth-connected devices due to bandwidth constraints. To enhance the listening experience, Spotify Connect can be used to stream high-quality audio to compatible devices from brands like Bose and Yamaha. This launch comes as Spotify plays catch-up to competitors like Apple Music and Amazon Music, both of which have already integrated lossless streaming into their services. Spotify claims that this new feature will cover nearly all tracks in its extensive library of 100 million songs, although there may be some exceptions without lossless support.