"Will man get to Mars sooner?", questioned Reddit user Chaturbate23 in the final days of 2024, upon realising that a fourth year was indeed about to come to a close without the arrival of the promised lossless Spotify streaming. We – and likely anyone who has also been waiting on tenterhooks for this so-called Spotify HiFi subscription tier to materialise – share their exasperation. After all, it's been just over four years since Spotify announced it would soon be joining the lossless streaming sphere, and eight years this month since the first Spotify HiFi rumours surfaced.
Since Spotify's official announcement in early 2021 confirming that the much hinted-at HiFi offering was coming, there has been a steady stream of reports and rumours around its delay and future appearance, not to mention addresses from the company CEO himself.
So while we continue to wait, not quite so patiently these days, let’s take a trip down memory lane to remind ourselves of the journey so far and, on a cheerier note, some of the milestones that show the progress music streaming has made in boosting audio quality over the past decade...
(We originally published this article in December 2022 but have now rewritten and updated the timeline to reflect the developments made since.)
2013: a French coup for lossless quality
December
Qobuz, a French music streaming service that has been solely operating in its native country since its birth in 2007 (the same year Spotify launched), expands its reach to other countries in Europe, becoming the first service in the UK to offer lossless (read: CD-quality) streaming – specifically, FLAC files in 16-bit/44.1kHz.
While Qobuz now has a handful of high-quality audio competitors, it's safe to say the service was the only 'audiophile' choice at the humble beginning of the hi-res streaming journey more than a decade ago.
2014: Tidal brings the competition
October
The Tidal streaming service is born as a rebranded WiMP by its Norweigan founder Aspiro, bringing lossless (CD-quality) streaming to the UK and US. It was then acquired by Jay-Z in March 2015, leading to a star-studded 'relaunch' that saw the likes of Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire, Beyoncé, Madonna, Daft Punk and more give a public show of support for the streaming service, with Tidal repositioning itself as "the first-ever artist-owned global music entertainment platform".
Around this time, it also announced plans to support hi-res streaming in partnership with Meridian's MQA technology (see below) and it launched in several more markets.
December
Meridian Audio launches Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), a technology that facilitates the efficient streaming of hi-res music. It would go on to power hi-res streaming on Tidal from early 2017, by which point MQA would be its own company.
2015: Qobuz pips Tidal to hi-res
June
Qobuz becomes the world's first service to deliver hi-res streaming, offering it to subscribers of its Sublime tier (which offers access to streaming, plus discounted hi-res downloads up to 24-bit/192kHz) via its Android app. It would remain the only hi-res streaming service for almost two years.
(In 2019, Qobuz ditched lossy (MP3) streams entirely and entered the US market, and today claims to offer “the richest catalogue of hi-res music for streaming and download”.)
2017: a promising year for progress
January
Tidal announces that it is offering hi-res streams – dubbed ‘Tidal Masters’ – to subscribers of its ‘HiFi’ tier for no extra charge, following two years of hi-res streaming trials using MQA technology (we first heard it in January 2016). These streams would be available on Tidal's mobile and desktop apps, plus MQA-compatible hi-fi devices. Qobuz now has a hi-res rival; discerning streamers now have a choice to make.
(MQA would power Tidal's hi-res catalogue for seven years, until the summer of 2024 when the streaming service ditched the format, exclusively favouring the open-source FLAC format it had added a year prior.)
March
The first rumours of Spotify delivering a lossless quality tier appear. Some Spotify Premium subscribers in the US are supposedly offered access to a ‘Spotify Hi-Fi’ lossless streaming service via in-app notifications, sparking expectations that a CD-quality tier would soon be available for an extra $7.50-$10 on top of the cost of the Premium tier, which offers lossy 320kbps music. This is where the Spotify HiFi journey begins.
November
Deezer (another French streaming service) launches a ‘Deezer Hi-Fi’ lossless CD-quality tier for its desktop application, though it doesn’t roll out to its web player and Android and iOS apps until 2019. It also announces it has partnered with MQA, though a hi-res service never transpired.
2019: Amazon joins the party
September
Amazon launches a lossless and hi-res streaming tier of its music service called ‘Amazon Music HD’, offering subscribers over 50 million songs in CD quality and “millions” of 24-bit hi-res streams for an extra £5 / $5 / AU$5 per month (it's cheaper for Amazon Prime members). The service goes live in the UK, US, Germany and Japan.
"Amazon's top tier undercuts streaming rivals Tidal and Qobuz, so that sound you hear is a gauntlet being laid down," reads the What Hi-Fi? report.
One day after the announcement, Sonos, Marantz, Bluesound and Dali become among the first backers of the new Amazon tier. And a week after that, Amazon announces that its library is also supporting Dolby Atmos Music, with its brand-new Amazon Echo Studio smart speaker having been developed to play them.
It was quite some launch.
Meanwhile, although Spotify was almost certainly testing the waters for a Hi-Fi tier back in 2017, it clearly didn’t seem to be at the forefront of the company's priorities in late 2019.
2020: hi-res casting appears
Tidal takes a leaf out of Spotify's book by launching a 'casting' feature that allows subscribers to control music streaming on compatible products directly within the Tidal mobile apps. It's called Tidal Connect and, unlike Spotify's version, can cast hi-res streams up to 24-bit/192kHz – that's higher than AirPlay (16-bit/44.1kHz) and Chromecast (24-bit/96kHz). It makes streaming from Tidal easier and more convenient as it allows you to stream your Tidal library directly from a server to whatever device you want to listen to, freeing up your phone, tablet or computer (which is just a controller here) to watch videos, play games or take a phone call.
(Qobuz is strongly rumoured to be launching a similar casting feature – 'Qobuz Connect'? – sometime in 2025.)
2021: Spotify HiFi shows up... ish; Apple Music shows up more
February
Four years after it was first teased, Spotify HiFi becomes official. Spotify says the tier will offer lossless streaming (though there is no word of hi-res at this point) "beginning later this year". Spotify promises to share more details soon, including price and launch dates. It says that the CD-quality streams would be compatible with Spotify Connect, presumably allowing Spotify HiFi subscribers to easily play high-quality streams between their phone or computer and the mass of Spotify Connect-enabled speakers and devices on the market.
March
Sonos finally supports hi-res on its service – through Qobuz. It comes as welcome news for Sonos owners who had been waiting patiently for the chance to stream higher-quality audio. It will be followed in December of 2021 by the announcement that Amazon’s hi-res streams would also be supported by the popular multi-room ecosystem.
Since then, Sonos has posted on its blog: ‘If you prefer another streaming service that offers hi-res audio not currently available on Sonos, know that we look forward to introducing more high-resolution experiences in the future.’ So there is hope that Tidal could be added at some stage.
May
Apple Music adds support for lossless and hi-res audio, as well as Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, at no extra cost, making it the best-value hi-res service on the market at £10 / $10 / AU$11.99 per month at the time of launch (today it’s a close call between Apple and Amazon).
Amazon responds by scrapping its 2019-introduced charge, suddenly giving its subscribers hi-res streaming for no extra fee, and essentially bundling its lossless and hi-res streams into its all-encompassing Music Unlimited service.
In response to Amazon launching its hi-res service, Spotify’s chief financial officer, Paul Vogel, tells The Verge: “A high-quality option is not something that’s been a big differentiator among services. It’s really about the user interface, algorithms, playlists and discoverability. In terms of what consumers are looking for, it’s not something that has really resonated.”
Spotify HiFi seems within grasp, however, as one Reddit user reports he has found the Spotify HiFi menu in a song in its iOS app. The HiFi icon apparently appeared in the lower right corner of the app, and clicking on it brought up the message: "Use wired devices or speakers that are capable of playing lossless audio, 16-bit/44.1kHz quality or higher, to successfully listen to music in HiFi." This indicated that Spotify's long-awaited higher-quality offering would launch imminently. Of course, that wasn’t to be!
August
A leaked video, posted online by another Reddit user, seems to offer a welcome tour of Spotify HiFi. The 57-second video, which appears to be legit, is attached to the caption: “Here’s a sneak peek at the upcoming HiFi onboarding process from modifying the app." The tour explains "how to get the full HiFi experience" and why Spotify Connect is "the best way to listen to HiFi", and ends with a "Get access to HiFi" button. Again, more teasers that lifted (and then shattered) our spirits.
2022: disappointing delays – and a name change?
January
As December 2021 came and went and Spotify was yet to materialise, people started wondering where it was and what had happened. Spotify clearly felt some heat, posting in reply to pleas on the Spotify Community website: "We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you. We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. But we don’t have timing details to share yet."
February
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek admits he doesn’t know when Spotify HiFi will launch. Speaking on an earnings call to analysts and investors, Ek says that the tier's launch is being held up because of the licensing process, adding that Spotify was in "constant dialogue" with music labels about bringing the feature to market.
October
Will Spotify HiFi even be 'Spotify HiFi' after all? The latest rumour after six months of near-silence suggests a new tier could be called ‘Spotify Platinum’ and include not only ‘HiFi’ sound but also other usability features such as ‘Playlist Pro’ and ‘Library Pro’ – for twice the price of Premium. This comes from a Reddit user who reports, upon cancelling their subscription to the streaming service, that they received a survey from Spotify asking whether they would be interested in such an offering.
(Spotify Platinum would be the first of three names floated as Spotify HiFi replacements in the following months. 'Spotify Supremium' was rumoured for a while, although apparently that has been nixed in favour of packaging the hi-res streaming as a 'Music Pro' add-on. This is now cited in the most recent reports, including one from Bloomberg in 2025.)
2023: Spotify HiFi "coming"... but more competition comes first
March
Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström tells The Verge that offering lossless audio is still the plan, saying: "We are going to do it… [it] is coming at some point… we’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and for our listeners," and, “The industry changed and we had to adapt.”
Our takeaway at this point is that Spotify's plans to offer lossless (CD-quality) streaming were scuppered when Apple Music, and then Amazon Music, decided in 2021 to not only deliver superior (hi-res) quality but also at no extra cost for subscribers. Presumably meaning that Spotify must now find a way to compete with that.
Söderström does not provide any expected launch timeframe, however.
Meanwhile... Apple bolsters its Music service by launching Apple Music Classical, an app "specifically for classical music" and the fruit borne of the company's acquisition of classical service Primephonic two years prior. It runs in parallel with Apple Music, is free to Apple Music subscribers and has millions of classical tracks, including many in hi-res quality.
And... March 2023 becomes an even more significant month on the hi-res streaming timeline as another service joins the fray: Presto Music. The niche platform focuses predominantly on classical and jazz music, with many tracks available to stream in 24-bit/192kHz. And via its 'Far Play' initiative, Presto promises to pay artists up to 10 times more per album than its lowest-paying competitors, paying per second of music streamed rather than using the ‘per play’ model of most rival platforms.
April
Tidal announces it is adding hi-res FLAC streaming to the existing hi-res MQA streaming catalogue, stating that the service was “choosing FLAC as our preferred format for high-resolution audio” over its MQA-powered Masters. It makes sense, considering FLAC is an open-source format whereas MQA requires specific hardware decoding to unlock its optimum quality and is therefore not as accessible. MQA goes into administration. A year later, Tidal will scrap MQA streams altogether.
July
Following price hikes by Apple Music and Amazon Music in October 2022 and January 2023 respectively, Spotify too raises its subscription prices in several territories, adding £1 / $1 per month to the price of Premium, Duo and Family, more or less price-matching its rivals. It's the service's first price increase since 2021, when it hiked up the prices of Student, Duo and Family tiers.
(Spotify will again slightly raise the costs of those three tiers a year later. Today, Spotify and Amazon Music cost £1 / $1 more than Apple Music and Tidal for individual subscriptions.)
2024: Spotify CEO speaks out
April
New app code unearthed by a Reddit user suggests Spotify could be looking into adding streaming 'up to 24-bit/44.1kHz FLAC', which would come up short of the 24-bit/192kHz maximum bitrate offered by competitors.
June
Lenbrook Media Group, who owns hi-fi brands Bluesound, NAD and PSB, and who acquired MQA a year earlier to save it from administration, announces plans to launch a new hi-res streaming service, built around MQA's new technologies and in partnership with hi-res download store HDTracks.
Lenbrook plans for the streaming service to be incorporated into "many of the world’s leading high-end audio ecosystems, apps and brands", although no concrete names are provided and details on timeframes and costs are slim. (And still are.)
July
The What Hi-Fi? team breathes a collective sigh of frustration. On an earnings call, in which Spotify announces it has surpassed expected subscriber numbers since the introduction of its Basic tier a month earlier, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek describes a higher quality Spotify as being in "early days".
Ek says: “The plan here is to offer a much better version of Spotify. Think something like $5 above the current premium tier. So it’s probably around a $17 or $18 price point, but sort of a deluxe version of Spotify that has all of the benefits that the normal Spotify version has, but a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board, and some other things that I’m not ready to talk about just yet. We’re quite excited about it, but it’s early days."
2025: Rumours keep flowing
February
Four years after Spotify HiFi was officially announced, all we have is rumours. The latest, courtesy of a Bloomberg report, suggest we should expect a 2025 launch (yep, sure) of a $6/month 'Music Pro' add-on tier that offers higher-quality audio (lossless or hi-res, who knows), AI-driven song-remixing tools that would allow subscribers to mix various songs together, and unique concert benefits that could give fans ‘access to presales or better seats’ – although the report's sources supposedly claim that timelines and pricing haven’t yet been set in stone. Apparently, Spotify still hasn’t secured the rights from every major music company to pursue its plans.
And now we wait some more...
MORE:
Hi-res music streaming services compared: which should you sign up for?
UK music sales hit a 20-year high in 2024 as streaming dominates
Tidal vs Spotify: which streaming service is best for you?
All the latest Spotify HiFi rumours
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
