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Spotify’s HiFi levels are still nowhere to be seen since the company announced it two years ago, and now we know why. In an interview with The Verge, Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström said it didn’t make sense for the company to offer better audio quality at a premium when competitors already paid extra to offer it. I hinted that maybe not.
“We announced it, but then the industry changed for various reasons,” Söderström told The Verge. “We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it in a way that makes sense for us and our listeners. The industry has changed and we’ve had to adapt.”
The executive was not specific about the industry changes he was referring to, but emphasized that cost was a key issue. For obvious reasons, we cannot comment on our label deal or what other players in the industry have done,” said Söderström.
According to The Verge, Spotify HiFi has been “ready for over a year” and the company is already working to make its entire music catalog available in lossless quality. In its initial Spotify HiFi announcement, the company said the new tier “delivers music in CD-quality lossless audio format to devices and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers.”
However, Spotify’s biggest competitor, Apple Music, offers lossless and Dolby Atmos audio on many albums at no extra charge. Amazon Music Unlimited is another service that offers music in lossless or 3D audio at no additional charge.
In the video streaming market, Netflix is a rare service that limits 4K quality and HDR/Dolby Vision to its $19.99 premium plan. Perhaps Spotify has done the same with his HiFi plans and enjoys enough brand loyalty to get away with a lot of complaints.
Spotify hasn’t disclosed how much the HiFi plan will cost, but it won’t cost more than $9.99 per month. The company may also be aware that some services make it so easy to bring your entire music collection to another service that you don’t have to go back.
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