Spotify Still Can't Say When Its Delayed 'HiFi' Streaming Service Will Launch

[VideoFreek]

I don't see why, from a technical perspective, this would be difficult to implement, so it has to essentially be a business decision at this point.

Right, and their business case probably evaporated when Apple introduced lossless for no additional charge! The bit rate for a "CD-quality" stream is around 4x that of the normal Spotify stream, so they will likely incur significant costs to upgrade their server and internet infrastructure. They question they face is whether such an investment would pay off in terms of boosting subscriptions (unlikely) or retaining customers (possible). My guess is that it is looking like a no-go for now; only if they start to hemorrhage customers will they act.

 

[Smearbrick]

Not satisfied by building his fortune on ripping off artists, Daniel Ek steps up the game by investing $100 Millions into a military startup that uses AI for « intelligent « weapons.
i’ll stay with Apple Music, thank you. ( or even better: Bandcamp )
Your Spotify money at work:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1458011708832862208

Hmm… I’m pretty sure the artists or the management of said artists agreed to the terms of the streaming contract. Spotify isn’t simply stealing their music and playing it without a compensation agreement. This isn’t Columbia House or BMG Music Service. The artist has every right to pull their music from Spotify if they don’t feel they are being compensated properly. It’s been done before.

This argument is old. Move on.

 

[twistedpixel8]

Right, and their business case probably evaporated when Apple introduced lossless for no additional charge! The bit rate for a "CD-quality" stream is around 4x that of the normal Spotify stream, so they will likely incur significant costs to upgrade their server and internet infrastructure. They question they face is whether such an investment would pay off in terms of boosting subscriptions (unlikely) or retaining customers (possible). My guess is that it is looking like a no-go for now; only if they start to hemorrhage customers will they act.

Spotify’s greed yet again hurting customers. I really wish Apple Music’s curation algorithms were better and their interface more refined. I hate Spotify and can’t wait to jump ship… but there is no alternative for now that ticks all boxes. I’m desperate for Apple to step up and make Apple Music a legitimate competitor but it just isn’t happening.

 

[AdriftAtlas]

I wonder if the issue is with Spotify's audio masters more than their inability to stream lossless. If their audio masters are highly compressed in terms of dynamic range throwing more bits at them won't matter.

Spotify's Ogg Vorbis at 320Kbps shouldn't sound much worse than lossless but song per song quality is noticeably worse when compared to Apple Music's AAC at 256Kbps. It doesn't take audiophile equipment to notice the difference either.

That being said, Apple Music's overall user experience is terrible and that's why I'm sticking with Spotify for the time being. And Spotify knows this.

 

[anthogag]

I have AirPods Max and "lossless" is noticeable. I bought the lightning to 3.5mm chord and plugged it into the AirPods Max and it plays lossless from Apple Music. It is quite noticeable in classical music when all the instruments are playing and it gets loud; here regular BlueTooth starts to sound muddled. The same song with lossless...the sound 'holds', it is not muddled. Lossless is better than straight BlueTooth.

If you have AirPods Max get the lightning to 3.5 mm chord and download "lossless" or "Hi-Res lossless" from Apple Music.

AirPods Max with the chord connection does not have control for spatial audio or noise cancellation