Spotify is reportedly planning a new premium tier that would include high-fidelity audio at a higher subscription price, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The new plan would offer subscribers CD-quality sound through lossless compression.
The new «Supremium» subscription tier will likely cost more than Spotify’s Premium plan that includes ad-free listening and goes for $10 a month, the report says. Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On top of hi-fi audio, the Supremium tier would also include expanded audiobook access that will offer listeners either a number of free hours per month or a number of titles.
Expect to see the new plan to be available in the US in October, after Spotify first launches it in markets abroad.
Spotify revealed that it was working on a HiFi tier in 2021, but halted its rollout after Apple Music and Amazon Music began to offer their own high-fidelity features for free in their own subscription plans.
Uncompressed audio offers some advantages over compressed audio. But hi-fi audio doesn’t always outperform CD audio quality for playback. Bluetooth headphones and earbuds add their own compression to audio, so lossless playback may not make it all the way to your ears even if you’re paying for it, my colleague Stephen Shankland pointed out.
CNET’s Ty Pendlebury called Spotify «a pioneer in music streaming» and says it takes the cake as the «best music streaming service overall,» in his list of the best music streaming services.
