Good news: whatever the monthly fee, some sort of Spotify HiFi free trial is likely on the cards – most probably, we would imagine, for both Spotify Premium users looking to upgrade and new Spotify users who may have historically been put off the service due to its lack of higher-quality audio. Rival services will no doubt hope it's closer to the latter. When you consider that context, you shouldn't be surprised to read that most analysts expect Spotify HiFi to cost somewhere between £15 ($15, AU$20) and £20 ($20, AU$25). Especially when some 150 million Spotify Premium users happily pay £9.99 ($9.99, AU$11.99) a month for standard-quality streams. Then again, Spotify is effectively the Coca-Cola of music streaming so there's no reason for it to get into a price war with Amazon, a company with some of the deepest pockets in tech. Then, Amazon decided to make its Amazon Music HD plan free for all Amazon Music listeners, thus effectively slashing its prices by £5, to £7.99 ($7.99) per month for its Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan for Prime members and £9.99 ($9.99) per month for Amazon customers.Ĭould Spotify match or even undercut that temptingly low monthly fee? It probably should, considering both Amazon's and Apple's services also offers hi-res (higher-than-CD-quality) streams – something Spotify hasn't alluded to including in its HiFi offering at all. What we can do is speculate on what the company might charge, based on Spotify's new and daunting competition.Īmazon Music HD, the most affordable hi-res service before Apple's big announcement, used to cost £12.99 ($12.99) for Prime members and £14.99 ($14.99) for non-Prime members. The veteran music streaming outfit is yet to announce the all-important monthly fee, although it recently hiked all of its prices. So while Spotify's popularity and consequent existing subscription base could see Spotify HiFi front the pack before long, price will no doubt be a key factor in its uptake. Apple's new lossless and hi-res tier is free to all Apple Music subscribers for that price, while Tidal has more recently bundled lossless quality into its price-matching standard plan.
Plenty of rival music streaming services already offer their own CD-quality subscription tiers at £9.99 ($9.99, AU$11.99) per month. Why I don't think Spotify HiFi is coming any time soon (and why it doesn’t matter).Spotify HiFi will deliver higher quality streams through Spotify Connect, so it's possible that newer Connect-enabled devices (such as the PlayStation 5) could get the HiFi upgrade before certain older devices.
The Spotify HiFi release date could also depend on the type of device you use. The good news for subscribers in the US and Europe is that Spotify typically launches new features in those key markets first. Spotify is currently available in some 180 markets and in 60 languages, so chances are Spotify HiFi will land in different territories at different points throughout 2022. The words that jump out there are "select markets". In a blog post announcing Spotify HiFi back in February, the company said: “Beginning later this year, Premium subscribers in select markets will be able to upgrade their sound quality to Spotify HiFi and listen to their favorite songs the way artists intended.” Our fingers remain crossed that Spotify HiFi will indeed be the streaming giant's Christmas present to us all. But ultimately, all's been quiet in the Spotify camp. Then there was a leaked video, posted online by a Reddit user, that seemed to offer a brief tour of the streaming giant's much-anticipated lossless audio tier.
Hopes were high that it would launch several weeks ago when a Reddit user spotted a HiFi icon in their Spotify iOS app.
We will of course update you here when we can." So, frustratingly, we'll all have to be a bit more patient. 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. Spotify has finally responded to the endless queries on its Spotify Community Forum with this statement: "We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. But it's now 2022 and there's no Spotify HiFi. As the year drew to a close, our fingers remain crossed that Spotify HiFi will indeed be the streaming giant's Christmas present to us all. That phrasing led us to believe it would be nearer the end of 2021 rather than imminently. Last February, Spotify promised to launch Spotify HiFi "beginning later this year".