Four years ago, Spotify announced with great fanfare a new lossless listening service, Spotify HiFi, for enjoying music without audio loss. Unfortunately for the streaming service, Apple Music and Amazon launched in the same niche a few months later and at no additional cost, forcing the platform to rethink—and postpone—its offering.
The Spotify HiFi mirage
Since then, we've heard about it regularly, either through a chance discovery in the code or simply officially, via CEO Daniel Ek. With the key, name changes (Supremium, Music Pro, etc.) and feature additions to justify a paid option — we're talking $5 in addition to the Premium subscription.
Last February, Bloomberg assured, cross and cross, that Music Pro (that's the latest name) would be released this year... after promising it for 2024. We won't go so far as to swear by the gods that this time it's the right one, but new clues indicate that the project is progressing behind the scenes.
Chris Messina, a reverse engineering specialist, has detected in the most recent build of the desktop app several explicit mentions of a "lossless" service. These references appear in user help sheets, describing the service as offering "the best sound quality on Spotify, up to 24-bit / 44.1 kHz."
Other sheets mention possible limitations: some songs may not be available in lossless, or a poor connection could degrade playback. It also states that the service will be "best enjoyed on devices compatible with Spotify Connect or wired." Similar signs have been noted in the mobile app. One Reddit user, u/bendotlc, even claims that the feature is already included in the app's code, but is disabled. Needless to say, caution is advised. Similar clues have been found in Spotify app code in the past, with nothing materializing. However, earlier this year, the platform signed new deals with major labels, including Universal and Warner. So maybe...
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