This time it’s really happening. Maybe: Spotify Pro

[Revolutions]

Spotify Music Pro to rival Apple's HiFi lossless audio, launching this 2025

Spotify will introduce HiFi lossless audio to its consumers this year.

www.gizguide.com

 

[RTHerringbone]

I read about this earlier. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out because the extra cost is relatively cheeky if you compare to TIDAL, but I currently have Spotify (Family Plan) and TIDAL (me), so losing one or the other will benefit me.

I am rather fond of TIDAL though, it must be said. I hope this isn't curtains for them.

 

[Revolutions]

I realise I didn’t comment on the link, naughty. But it feels like there’s little to say that I haven’t said so many times over the last few years (probably on threads here). Needless to say, I’ll still sign up immediately if it happens, and that means goodbye Tidal. Been using Tidal daily for 6 months now & still prefer Spotify UI absolutely.

 

[RTHerringbone]

How does the acquisition of better quality tracks actually work? Do Spotify have to engineer them themselves, or is there a mystical land of file remastering that they'll have to buy them from (hence the price increase)?

It does seem strange that they've taken so long to get to the point where this might actually happen, so maybe it's the first route if they're just assuming that they won't attract a material number of new subscribers and so need to fund this from the existing user base?

 

[abacus]

Tidal are not the only one with high res (Apple, Qobuz, Amazon) and they are still going strong, so I doubt one more will make much difference, particularly as it looks like Spotify HD will be significantly more expensive than the competition.

Bill

 

[londonguy]

It was "later this year" about 5 years ago. They have missed the boat now to charge extra. There is no reason to do so. Ill stick with Tidal.

 

[GroeneLeeuw]

I´ll give it a try if the price is right.
Been using Tidal for a long time now and I´m pretty satisfied.
Do miss Sportify´s recommendations, I discovered a lot of music thanks to it. Tidal does it as well but not as good.
Used Qobuz and the sound quality was really good, everything else not so much hence the choice for Tidal.

 

[Rodolfo]

... may merely be one more, the latest, spotify-maybe-finally.

Whenever, they will be the last, now that even Apple began offering some level of "hi-res" -last year, was it?

Amazon used to charge extra for their hi-res tier, but when they dropped that several years ago, I dropped spotify and moved to Amazon Unlimited. It coincided with spotify's heavy investment/move to podcasts which still do not interest me at all.

Actually, I guess the giant of them all, youtube, would be the last, no? Speaking of no interest for me since I still prefer to listen to recorded music.

 

[jarablue]

I just use youtube music and set it to high quality. At 50 my ears aint' what they used to be.

 

[manicm]

I just use youtube music and set it to high quality. At 50 my ears aint' what they used to be.

It's difficult to use YouTube Music on a hi-fi though without Chromecast. And Bluetooth kept dropping out, I don't know if that was the fault of my component though.

 

[BenWatts]

Will they finally compensate the authors at their fair value or continue to exploit them?

 

[richardmcd]

There is no way Spotify have hifi quality ,they sound more like analogue rather than digital ,Spotify has no clue what quality is when it comes to digital sound , in fact Spotify volume is way over zero dB ,which means there sound is not digital and not good for streaming

 

[BiggaJ]

I used to use Spotify but moved away and have been using Tidal for the last three years or so. I love how it works and have been more than happy with the app, the sound quality provided etc. My wife on the other hand prefers Spotify and so has a family deal that includes my son. I see no reason to move back to spotify unless they are able to give a huge leap in files and/or a great saving.

 

[manicm]

We've been led to believe 'this time it's really happening' for the last 5 years. And I believe it may not happen for 2 reasons:

1. Spotify cannot decide on a price. They will certainly want to charge more.
2. If they charge more, it may drive more users to the cheaper Tidal. If they don't charge more, it will most certainly kill Tidal off, imho.

 

[Dave_]

We've been led to believe 'this time it's really happening' for the last 5 years. And I believe it may not happen for 2 reasons:

1. Spotify cannot decide on a price. They will certainly want to charge more.
2. If they charge more, it may drive more users to the cheaper Tidal. If they don't charge more, it will most certainly kill Tidal off, imho.

They won't do it because they currently don't need to.

They've got 268 million paying subscribers and 678 million monthly active users and still growing...

 

[stjose]

The Only Reason I keep Spotify,is my GF listen to her podcast shows.

 

[RoA]

Are we still trodding this old rumour?

 

[Pedro2]

There is no way Spotify have hifi quality ,they sound more like analogue rather than digital ,Spotify has no clue what quality is when it comes to digital sound , in fact Spotify volume is way over zero dB ,which means there sound is not digital and not good for streaming

I’m not sure that I get you here. Spotify isn’t digital? How do you receive it, may I ask….

 

[Pedro2]

I’m definitely in the ‘I’ll believe it when I see (or hear) it’ camp. Having said that, I hope they do release a cd quality tier - one streaming service rather than two would be good for me.

 

[RJW232]

I think the main problem is the enormous amout of work needed to upload all music in lossless format. When they go live they may not have everything that they have today in lossless, but they should have at least >80% in lossless format. Or will they do a dirty trick by transcoding the lossy files to lossless file and pretend it's lossless?

 

[Shrek]

I have used Spotify for many years free version, yesterday i subscribed to Apple Music and i cant believe how much better it sounds it a different world of sound and videos fantastic quality.
Now i need to transfer my play lists thought this was going to be long winded and time consuming, but no there's a great App thats free called SongShift easy to use and very quick.

I wont be going back to Spotify thats for sure works brilliant with my Apple TV too.