Lossless audio has been one of the most anticipated features on Spotify and is nowfinally rolling out to Premium listeners in select markets. Premium subscribers will receive a notification in Spotify once Lossless, the highest music audio quality on Spotify, becomes available to them.
“The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers,” said Gustav Gyllenhammar, VP Subscriptions, Spotify. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”
“Lossless is part of our commitment to continually improve Spotify Premium so fans can discover and enjoy the music they love” added Gyllenhammar. “This highly requested feature takes your Premium experience to the next level.”
With Lossless, users can now stream tracks in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC, unlocking greater detail across nearly every song available on Spotify.
Spotify is providing custom settings for listening on WiFi, cellular, and downloads. Choose between Low, Normal, High, Very High, and now Lossless music quality to provide maximum flexibility and control. You’ll be able to see how much data each of these requires. Lossless is available on mobile, desktop, and tablet, as well as on many devices that support Spotify Connect and streamers with the capability of streaming hi-resolution audio such as Bluesound.
To turn on lossless audio in the Spotify app: Tap your profile icon in the top left. / Go to Settings & Privacy →Media Quality. Then select where you want to enable lossless audio: Wi-Fi, cellular, downloads.
Spotify users will need to enable Lossless manually on each device. You’ll know Lossless is on because the Lossless indicator will appear in the “Now Playing” view or bar, and via the Connect Picker.
For the smoothest and best listening experience, Spotify recommends streaming lossless music over WiFi using wired headphones or speakers on a non-Bluetooth connection, like Spotify Connect. Currently, Bluetooth doesn’t provide enough bandwidth to transmit lossless audio, so the signal will continue to be compressed before playback.
Lossless gives listeners every detail of the music, which means the audio files can be larger. As users enable lossless on their devices, it may take a moment for the track to play. But once it’s cached and loaded, listening will be seamless.
Spotify has not indicated when Canada will have Lossless playback. Lossless is rolling out gradually to more than 50 markets through October. Premium subscribers in Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and the UK have already started to receive access.