SPOTIFY has announced the arrival of lossless listening, a newly improved way of streaming your favourite songs.
The launch was made public on Wednesday, September 10 and will be gradually released to over 50 markets next month.
Spotify announced the release of its new feature “Lossless Listening” yesterday[/caption]
It offers a more immersive listening experience to Premium subscribers[/caption]
For certain Premium subscribers across 12 countries, including the US and the UK, the feature is already available.
It allows listeners to stream music in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC, enhancing greater detail in nearly every song on the app.
Spotify users are recommended to listen to music at this quality with wired headphones or speakers on a non-Bluetooth connection for the time being.
As Bluetooth doesn’t provide enough bandwidth to transmit lossless audio, the signal has to be compressed before being sent.
The feature means having to wait a moment for the track to play, but once it’s loaded, you are ready to listen.
What is Spotify Lossless Listening?
Lossless listening is music played at 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC, the least compressed and highest resolution audio format.
This allows for greater detail and clarity in the music, making listening feel like a more immersive experience.
The fact that they are the least compressed means they retain almost all of the original recording audio information.
Gustav Gyllenhammer, VP Subscriptions, Spotify, said: “The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers.
“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.”
How to enable Spotify Lossless Listening?
Lossless music can be streamed via mobile, desktop, and tablet, as well as on many devices that support Spotify Connect.
By next month, Sonos and Amazon devices will be added to that list.
To access the feature, you need to own Spotify Premium and manually enable Lossless on each device before usage.
Doing this requires three simple steps;
- Tap your profile icon in the top left.
- Go to Settings & Privacy → Media Quality.
- Select where you want to enable lossless audio: Wi-Fi, cellular, downloads.
When Lossless Listening is enabled, an icon will appear next to the title of the song.
