What is Spotify Hifi? Release date, Price and Catalog
Are you familiar with the term “Spotify HiFi” in the music industry? If not, then you must be listening to this word in this article because this article is about Spotify Hifi.
Spotify, the biggest music streaming service in the world, has announced that Spotify HiFi will debut in late February 2021. Many Spotify fans have been waiting impatiently for it to launch so they can experience HiFi high-quality audio. As time passed, though, it became increasingly aggravating because there was still no word of its launch.
However, there have been some recent reports that indicate that HiFi of Spotify will finally be released. Therefore, before it arrives, let us first get a general understanding of HiFi from several angles. Now begin the check-in process.
What is Spotify HiFi?
Currently, music is decompressed and played when it accesses your Spotify app on your phone or desktop PC. However, what occurs beforehand is important. The stream is compressed when music is streamed over the internet to make the best use of the available bandwidth. There are several methods for doing this. Vorbis and AAC are used by Spotify. However, they all employ ‘lossy’ compression, which unites them. This implies that portions of the music file are deleted to send less data overall.
Release Date
Although Spotify HiFi was officially announced by the company in the early part of 2021, as of today, there has been no mention of the actual release date. A Reddit user said that after discontinuing his long-standing Spotify premium payment plan and switching to Apple Music, he had received correspondence from the company.
The delivery of the updated Spotify platinum plan was certain in a letter from Spotify. In other words, Spotify HiFi might be coming soon! Let us excitedly anticipate its debut in 2023.
Why Spotify HiFi Hasn’t Come Yet
A good question. When asked about the future of Spotify HiFi at a company earnings call in February 2022, Spotify CEO Daniel Ed cited “licensing” problems as the cause. The exact quote, as published by TechCrunch, is as follows:
Ek informed investors that “many of the features that we talk about, especially those that are related to music, end up in licensing. Therefore, I really cannot say anything particular about it other than to say that we are always talking with our associates about getting this on the market.
Price Predictions
Many competing music streaming services currently provide membership rates that are comparable to CD quality and cost about £11 (or $11 or AU$13) per month. While Tidal has more recently integrated CD-quality lossless quality into its price-matching standard plan (even if its hi-res tier remains one of the more expensive alternatives), Apple’s lossless CD-quality and hi-res tiers are free to all Apple Music members for that price. Therefore, while Spotify’s ubiquity and resulting existing subscriber base may soon place Spotify HiFi ahead of the pack, its pricing will undoubtedly play a significant role in its uptake.
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The seasoned music streaming company has neglected to reveal the crucial monthly cost, despite recently raising all of its prices. According to reports, stakeholders want Spotify to increase its rates to drive sales as well; if it is a success, a more expensive tier will assist in this. What we can do is make educated guesses about what the business would charge in light of Spotify’s new and formidable competitors.
Streaming Quality
The term “lossless” has been used by Spotify to describe the audio quality of music delivered by Spotify HiFi. “CD-quality” often refers to audio with a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz and a bit depth of 16. The “lossless quality” provided by HiFi will, however, be of much greater caliber. Without any kind of compression, the audio quality will be precisely the same as its source.
Currently, Spotify Premium customers have access to streaming quality that is better than that of free users, which is only available at 320 kbps and is compressed in the “lossy” Ogg format. In other words, it is not lossless at all, even for the greatest music quality currently offered by Spotify Premium. Due to this, Spotify’s HiFi achieves the highest level of “lossless” audio quality through the compression of bits. Users have access to music streaming services that are superior to the ones they are currently using.
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Free Trial
Good news: Regardless of the monthly cost, a Spotify HiFi free trial is certainly in the works. This likely applies to both Spotify Premium subscribers wishing to upgrade and new Spotify users who may have previously been turned off by the lack of higher-quality audio.
Regarding the latter, it might be necessary to coax users away from their likely highly individualized profiles who have discovered a high-quality haven in competing services like Tidal and Amazon HD.
While Amazon Music HD recently gave new customers a 3-month free trial, Spotify already offers a 1-month free trial of Spotify Premium. While Deezer dangles a one-month free trial in front of website visitors, Tidal offers them a 30-day free trial.
Device Compatibility
With Spotify Connect, an easy method of wirelessly streaming streams from the native Spotify app on a phone or tablet to a Connect-compatible device over Wi-Fi, Spotify has confirmed that those CD-quality streams will be compatible. It eliminates tricky Bluetooth pairings.
However, Bluetooth apt and apt HD may stream in CD quality, so the greater streaming quality should be continued as long as the user’s source (for example, the Spotify app and the phone it is playing on) and receiver (for example, a Bluetooth speaker or set of wireless headphones) support the same Bluetooth codec.
Read more: How to contact Spotify
Although Spotify Connect compatibility’s finer points are still unknown, it is presumed that Spotify HiFi customers would be able to simply play high-quality streams across their phone (through iOS) and their computer. The ever-increasing number of connect-enabled speakers, TVs, and audio systems on the market. Computer (through the desktop software or web player). Since Spotify Connect has become one of the most widely used streaming features, most networked, streaming-savvy devices should be able to support it.
Catalog
Spotify has a massive collection of more than 80 million music tracks and 4 million podcasts, but how many of those tracks will be available in CD-quality to Hifi subscribers? The company has not released any information regarding the Hifi catalog collection, but it will likely be in millions to challenge its rivals. For Example, Qobuz claims to offer the most extensive catalog of CD-quality lossless and High-resolution albums, which are nearly 60 million.
Moreover, Amazon Music HD claims to have a collection of 60 million songs in HD. There is no reason to think that Spotify will not be offering a massive whooping collection. Spotify’s music streaming platform is not only known for its massive music collection. But its catalog is among the smartest and most versatile. Its popular Discover Weekly feature uses Al and Machine learning to generate a playlist of 30 songs.
That is relevant to your listening habits, so there is no doubt that HiFi will be offering very high-quality CD content for music lovers. The company has also invested heavily in podcasts, including Renegades: Born in the USA, featuring Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. The updates will be coming soon about Spotify HiFi, but one thing is for sure, the competition is not going away.
Will it offer spatial audio?
At the time of writing, Spotify does not offer spatial audio capability. Spatial audio is a 3D audio enhancement that improves the sound generated by speakers and headphones. How successfully you can use spatial audio depends a lot on the device you use.
Technology is well-known thanks to Apple Music. The function provides users with a wonderful listening experience. Dolby Laboratories’ Dolby Atmos, which uses spatial audio, works. The purpose of it is to enhance surround sound systems. It makes it possible for detected sounds to be three-dimensional, providing listeners with the highest audio quality. Whether spatial audio will be used by Spotify for their Platinum plan is unknown. We only know that Spotify hasn’t yet made the technical specifications of the subscription plan. However, as a long-running music streaming service, we expect to get the best performance out of them. So, cross your fingers for Dolby Atmos and spatial audio on Spotify.
Will Spotify HiFi be canceled?
Spotify has been known for rejecting the high-profile features that never quite took off. And achieved the desired results, so there may be a possibility that if Spotify HiFi is not able to compete with its competitors, it might get canceled. For Example, Spotify recently pulled the plug on Car Thing. A small touchscreen display that you could install on a car dashboard. For on-the-road Spotify streaming enjoy your favorite music tracks. Spotify said they closed production due to product demand and Supply chain issues.
Spotify also has a history of constant testing and experimentation to bring out new creative thoughts to expand its organization. During this testing process, new features can disappear or even can reappear without any explanations. But with Spotify seems willing to cancel features that are not working, it also likes to experiment. And Spotify HiFi could be the project that Spotify is looking to tinker with indefinitely.
Frequently Asked Questions
Conclusion
Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming platforms that has been the ultimate choice for music lovers. Over the last few years, many music streaming rivals have offered exquisite features to music lovers. To compete with these rivals, Spotify plans to upgrade its premium services and offer high-quality music streams. Which was the consistent demand of music lovers. Spotify’s upgrade, namely Spotify HiFi, made its official debut streaming music at 1411Kbps. Which was an awesome feature for Spotify users.
The Spotify HiFi was expected to be launched by the end of 2021. As announced by Spotify owners in February 2021. But it was not launched in 2021, and still, we are waiting for the music streaming giant.
The features and Premier Services of Spotify HiFi were not officially revealed. However, the streaming platform will offer exquisite services. And Spotify lovers will not need any other platform for listening to their music tracks. Moreover, it will be competing with its rivals that have been launched after Spotify but offering sensational features to enjoy high-quality music. Spotify may also have the habit of nixing high-profile features when they are not competing, but Spotify HiFi seems to be the project they are willing to keep tinkering indefinitely because, for them, they have created an exquisite platform, and it will succeed.
