Spotify HiFi

I hope this time they make it happen. Will pay premium for HiFi Spotify.

Have been forced to use Roon with Tidal and Qobuz to get near the artist content available via Spotity and not suffer hi res quality using Spotify. I have become accustomed to Roon but hate not being able to listen to my playlists in the car or outside my house. I have a massive amount of playlist to convert back to Spotify but look forward to this for sure. Good bye Roon!

To those who care, news dropped this morning. Looking through some of the articles there were a few key points: 

- Internally named "Supremium." 

- Whether high-fidelity is beyond CD-quality is still a mystery (my bet is on CD-quality). 

- Most notably, plan will launch in non-US markets first and then in the US sometime in October, 2023. 

- Pricing unknown, but survey had been sent some time ago to users inquiring about a $19.99 platinum plan. 

Some of the few sources: 

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/spotify-hifi-is-still-coming-but-spotify-supremium-sounds-like-a-bummer

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/20/22746337/spotify-hifi-lossless-new-premium-tier-supremium

@kiwiscott completely agree with everything you said. The Connect feature utilizing the network and bypassing Bluetooth (for example) while still allowing you to stay in your platform’s app (Tidal/Spotify) is handy and convenient. I also echo your sentiment towards the podcast on Spotify- it was literally like spam be plastered across the landing page. 

@toro3 the real solution for the apps is streaming via the upnp solutions like tidal connect or Spotify connect. (Aparently Qobuz coming soon). These solutions support high res as the streamer streams direct from the internet (network).
 

Doing that lets the app makers have their app as the experience and not that of the streamer service or streamer company. This means someone like Qobuz who put effort around the music, with stories and other content, have another unique selling point. 

Unfortunately this is going to make something like Roon have a smaller market. A good thing is that streamers will be able to be judged on sound quality rather than the quality of the app and sound - to me a win win. 
 

to bring this all back to the thread I recently swapped for Spotify to get hires from Qobuz via my temporary streamer a WiiM mini. I also use Apple Music because I use it for my teenagers. 
 

sadly Spotify doesn’t seem to be focusing enough attention to music - the primary reason I dropped them was all the podcast crap complicating the app. The secondary reason was I wanted hi-res. 
 

@rocray @loomisjohnson agree that Spotify has the best UI and library in comparison to all the other streaming services. These two variables (library and UI) are important to my listening habits, which lean more towards music discovery than critical listening - still wish Spotify HiFi will be higher resolution than CD quality, though. In respect to Spotify and Roon - doubtful there would ever be a partnership, but I have seen rumblings about an Apple and Roon partnership.

spotify's continuing tease of a hifi tier is massively annoying and verges on securities manipulation. there are plenty of subscribers who would pay more for hifi even if competitors bundle it for free and/or have higher rez--spotify still has the best UI and catalog-- and it's a major misstep for them to be playing this game.

As an audiophile, with subscriptions to Roon and Qobuz, unless Spotify while offer hires and be workable within Roon, I don’t need it.  

Very sad news.  I had Spotify premium for a while.  In my opinion, between Tidal,Qobuz,and Spotify, Spotify hands down has the superior library. They also have the best app out of the three.  Unfortunately, the sound quality is the poorest.  I currently have a subscription to Qobuz.  I was actually looking forward to going back to Spotify when I heard they were going to offer HiFi.  I guess their idea of HiFi and mine are different. 

And if I remember correctly, Spotify HiFi will be CD quality bit rate.

CD quality?  Wow, that’s great, ehem.  Qobuz has been offering CD quality as its base resolution rate for years, and much of their content and almost all their new content is available in hi-res for about $13/month last I looked.  Talk about behind the curve.  Jeez.  Enjoy waiting for Spotify to finally offer something that’s still not competitive.

Ask ChatGPT to make your play lists...  Not kidding...

bottom line, spotify is not really for the hifi enthusiast market ... 

In case anyone is interested The Verge released the following article a few hours ago, which is interesting and can be found here. Small excerpt:

The Verge has recently learned that Spotify HiFi has been ready to go for more than a year. The technical work to bring the feature to market is largely complete, and the company has re-ingested its entire music catalog in lossless quality. Spotify employees have access to HiFi. But since it was originally intended to cost more than the standard plan (and thus boost Spotify’s average revenue per user), the launch was spoiled by Apple bundling lossless into Apple Music for free. If you read into Söderström’s answers, it’s clear that Spotify doesn’t intend to do the same. You can now expect HiFi to eventually appear as part of a more expensive plan — likely one that also includes spatial audio/Dolby Atmos and other perks related to audiobooks and podcasts.

The when remains naturally unclear. "Educated" guess is 2028. And if I remember correctly, Spotify HiFi will be CD quality bit rate.

Sometimes companies try to "leak" higher prices and then come up with lower prices when the product actually comes to the market, to ensure support from the users. I won't be surprised if they peg the price to $15.99/month when they finally decide to offer Platinum.

Something I was thinking about this morning in regards to pricing: Spotify Platinum is rumored to be $20/individual with Hi-Fi being qualified as CD-quality. 
 

One could purchase a year’s subscription of Tidal through Best Buy for $10/month and then could purchase a year’s subscription of Roon for $10/month. This combination would yield higher resolution and likely better algorithms for suggested new tracks and artists for essentially the same price.
 

Too early to tell, but IMO Spotify’s pricing doesn’t add up for me in comparison to the competition. 

The monthly definitely seems high. I’d be curious what the “playlist pro” consists of, though.

I had gotten this survey on Feb-11 this year and have screen shots that indicated $9.99/month for individual platinum plan and $25.99/month for platinum plan for 6-member family. The screen shots say that "platinum features included":

Ad-free O&E podcasts

Higher quality audio

Sound optimization

DJ tools

Interactive singalong

Listening statistics

Looks like they cannot make the individual plan happen for $9.99/month and hence got someone to "leak" the "survey" to let other know that they are coming with $19.99/month plan.

I am ready to pay $15.99/month. But anything above that is not competitive.

I have Qobuz and Amazon music both for the same price as Spotify Platinum, which of course doesn't actually exist yet.

$20/month???  I pay like 25% less for Qobuz.  Who the hell do they think they are?

Platinum plan with HiFi @ $20/month to possibly be released within the next month? I’m not holding my breath, but interesting nonetheless.

If Spotify Hifi doesn’t work with Roon  it is of no use for me. I have already discontinued Tidal because I prefer Qobuz over Tidal MQA. So Spotify would have to compete against Qobuz for me and be controlled by Roon. If no Roon integration, I am not interested. 

Based on the recent news from Spotify, it seems like a licensing issue.

Based on this alone, my guess is 2 things will be cleared in 1 day:

1. Spotify HiFi

2. Tidal Desktop Connect control through mobile devices

Why? Because Spotify already have Connect control for desktop, while Tidal already has hifi, but not Desktop Connect. It looks like with "Connect", there are some temporary file downloads that happen and I think when CD resolution files are downloaded, it becomes an issue with the content providers. Piracy most likely is the concern, because there are third party tools (I believe) that have capability to convert Tidal/Spotify songs to FLACs, etc.

Still waiting for Spotify, but saw the following from Reddit. Whether this is true, who knows, but I'll continue to be hopeful...

Important to note that changing the quality of the music at any price point changes their deals with international publishing rights organizations and labels. This is a VERY long and intensive process (it’s what I do for a living at another smaller DSP) and while I was really hoping for HiFi this year, my best guess is that Apple / Tidal / Amazon’s new models really messed with the deals that they had in place in the sense that they no longer made financial sense. Likely that they had to go back and renegotiate all the deals based on whatever subscription fees they opted to change with regard to lossless since it affects their royalty payments.

That being said, I think I have mentioned this before, I have SEEN Spotify HiFi in actual operation. Employees at the company have it enabled in beta and have for a long time. Which lends more to my theory that it’s not a technology / product issue and more of a finance / publishing issue.

Food for thought.

@jjss49 ,

I go with the Andy Grove mantra, "only the paranoid survive". The barriers to entry to start a streaming service are severe. The barriers to a customer changing a streaming service are not. ATMOS and others technologies may also force their hand.

spotify really has minimal incentive to implement lossless streaming... the audiophile market is a microbe on a pimple on the tail of an elephant to the company and its business

• When this happens my life will be complete.