It was a cold, damp, desolate February 2021, when Spotify announced a new tier, called Spotify HiFi, that would include higher quality, lossless audio.
Years have passed, and Spotify stayed mum on the subject, besides occasionally mentioning that the fancy new tier is indeed coming "in the future." Which, in the context of potentially infinite time, is rather imprecise.
But now, we have some new info about the upcoming tier, which will apparently be called Spotify Supremium.
According to tech evangelist Chris Messina, known for inventing the hashtag, the new tier will cost $19.99 per month, and will include a slew of new features. These include 24-bit lossless audio, 20-30 hours of audiobook listening, listening stats similar to what you get from Last.fm, AI playlist generation tools, advanced playlist mixing tools, and something called "your sound capsule."
While all of these sound interesting, the key feature here is lossless audio, originally promised with Spotify HiFi (which, apparently, is dead as a brand). Spotify's chief competitors, including Tidal, Apple Music, and Amazon Music Unlimited, already offer it in some form or another.
Most of what Messina shared isn't exactly new; a Redditor found it out, digging through Spotify's code, and shared the findings in September. In fact, that post has more details about the service; for example, it cites Spotify's claims that its lossless audio won't have lag or delays. It also mentions a new feature called Soundcheck, which looks at your listening habits and discovers a mix of sounds that's "uniquely you."
Messina did share the logo for the new service, which consists of Spotify's usual "three stripes" logo next to the word "Supremium."
There's still no official word from Spotify on any of this (we've asked them and will update this article when we hear back).
Messina says the launch date for Supremium is "unclear," but points to last year's Spotify Investor Day remarks as indication that Supremium might arrive by the end of 2023. Let's hope it does: Lossless audio on Spotify has been long overdue, even if we forget about the fact that the company promised it two and a half years ago.
Topics Music
