Spotify HiFi, a version of the popular music streaming service with higher-quality audio that has been in the works for at least three years, might finally be close.
Speaking on the company’s Q2 2024 earnings call, CEO Daniel Ek said Spotify plans to offer a more premium option than what’s available now. The new version would include additions like new tools for creating playlists and managing song libraries, and most importantly, high-fidelity lossless audio that lets you hear audio exactly as the artist intended.
The announcement comes just a month after Spotify raised its prices again.
Also: Spotify now lets you create an AI-made playlist with just a text prompt
Ek said that “a good subset” of the service’s 246 million subscribers would subscribe to get improved quality and control.
You will need appropriate hardware to take full advantage of Spotify’s new audio tier. Most wireless earbuds or budget wired headphones aren’t enough to do the job.
Ek said the feature was still in its “early days,” which makes it seem like it’s not coming anytime soon, but Bloomberg last month reported that it could arrive later this year.
The Deluxe version of Spotify wouldn’t be its own tier, but would instead be an add-on that costs around $6 per month. That works out to about $18 per month if you’re on Spotify Premium, which currently costs $11.99 per month. Anything approaching $20 per month would make Spotify more expensive than other services that offer improved audio quality, like Tidal, Apple Music, Deezer, and Amazon Music HD.
Will the increased price be enough to sway subscribers to move elsewhere? To date, Spotify customers have been among the most loyal and the least likely to cancel among large music and video streaming services.
Of course, a more expensive Spotify might just mean other companies will feel want to raise their prices to close the gap.
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