The long wait is finally over for Spotify Premium users. After years of rumors and even promises from Spotify itself, the company has officially launched its lossless audio service. This new high-fidelity option is now part of the existing Spotify Premium subscription. Subscribers will get a notification inside the app when lossless listening becomes available for them.
This premium audio experience lets you stream music in top quality. It supports audio up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz, delivered in the FLAC file format. This means your music will sound much clearer, capturing more detail than standard streaming.
You can enjoy lossless audio on many devices. It works on the Spotify mobile app, the PC app, and tablet apps. It also supports various devices compatible with Spotify Connect. Major brands like Sony, Bose, Samsung, and Sennheiser are supported right now. Other popular brands, including Sonos and Amazon, will add support soon.
How to Turn On Lossless Audio
- Tap your profile icon, which you’ll find in the top left corner of the app.
- Go to “Settings & Privacy,” then navigate to “Media Quality.”
- Choose where you want to enable lossless audio: for streaming over Wi-Fi, over cellular data, or for downloaded songs.
Spotify has explained some important details about how lossless audio works with different hardware. While you can use lossless with Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the sound quality might be compressed. This happens because Bluetooth has limited bandwidth. For the best uncompressed quality, you should use wired headphones or speakers, or Wi-Fi speakers that support Spotify Connect.
Keep in mind that lossless audio files are much larger. When you first enable lossless for a song, it might take a moment to load. This higher quality also means it will use a lot more cellular data if you stream on the go. If you download songs for offline listening, they will take up significantly more space on your device.
The rollout for this new feature is happening gradually throughout October. Premium subscribers in Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the USA, and the UK are among the first to get access. Spotify has not yet announced a specific date for when this feature will be available elsewhere.
Surprisingly, Spotify isn’t charging extra for lossless audio. It’s being added to the existing Spotify Premium subscription at no additional cost. This comes despite earlier rumors suggesting that users would need to pay more for the higher quality.
However, Spotify is quite late to the lossless party. Industry watchers, including those at TechCrunch, have highlighted this delay. Competitors like Apple Music introduced lossless audio way back in 2021. Amazon Music also offers a similar high-quality option to its users. Spotify says this new feature covers “almost every song” in its vast library of 100 million tracks. This means a few songs might not support the lossless format.