Spotify is flipping the switch on lossless music streaming for Premium subscribers, delivering the higher-fidelity option that power listeners have begged the company to offer for ages. The rollout brings FLAC playback (up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz) to the world’s most well-known music service and ensures it comes to you without any psychoacoustic compression.
What Spotify Has Been Piloting
The company says lossless streaming will apply to most of its roughly 100 million songs, with a handful of exceptions where label assets or rights have not been cleared in this format. It’s available to begin with in over 50 countries, with early access noted in countries such as the US, the UK, Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.
At the top end, Spotify is limited to 24/44.1 FLAC quality. That’s genuinely lossless — no perceptual compression, no MP3/AAC-style artifacts — but it’s also not “hi‑res” by the strictest industry definition that insists on higher sample rates such as 96 or 192 kHz. Still, it’s a significant step up over the service’s current 320 kbps Ogg Vorbis level and it brings more dynamic range and better microdetail on compatible gear.
How to turn on lossless in the app
When users are eligible, they will see an in-app notification. To turn it on, go to Settings and Privacy > Media Quality and choose “Lossless” for Wi‑Fi, cellular and downloads. Spotify stresses that the setting needs to be enabled on each device you use: It doesn’t sync globally across phones, tablets, desktops or streamers.
That means bigger files, more data use. In general, FLAC with CD sample rate tends to be about 1 Mbps, so expect a rate of about 450 MBs per hour of playing which is 3-6x the amount of 320 kbps. If you find buying albums is too costly when data plans are tight — especially when you’re commuting — downloading albums over Wi‑Fi is the best bet.
Playback minuses and compatible gear
Bluetooth remains the bottleneck. True lossless can’t be carried over standard Bluetooth codecs by most (if not all) wireless earbuds and headphones, and even newer offerings that claim “lossless” use proprietary schemes and rely on ideal conditions. That’s why even Apple has publicly raised a red flag around Bluetooth’s bandwidth limitations when it comes to HiFi audio.
Plug in headphones, a USB DAC or a computer-audio setup using your phone as a source, or stream high-album-quality audio via Wi‑Fi to your speakers from Spotify Connect. It mentions compatibility with models from Bose, Yamaha and Bluesound, for example, which are capable of hosing down the lossless stream unencumbered in the cloud rather than dribbling it over your phone’s Bluetooth link.
How it stacks up against rivals
Spotify comes later than competitors, but it lands with deep hooks in an enormous catalog and familiar interface. Apple Music and Amazon Music already have lossless, with catalogs that also contain higher sample‑rate (“hi‑res”) tracks up to 24‑bit/192 kHz, where available, on supported hardware. Spotify’s 24-bit/44.1 kHz ceiling is less cutting edge, but it’s the leap from lossy to lossless that most listeners notice first on most mainstream recordings and playback systems.
A larger differentiator may be convenience. “There’s no reason why Spotify wouldn’t carry us along as we grow,” he wrote, in part because a) it’s nothing for them to upgrade their infrastructure to support lossless streaming for me, and b) they know that if they don’t, I’ll simply go elsewhere, never mind how big they are (do you really think people are going to leave Spotify and not be exposed to our music elsewhere just to listen in slightly higher quality?).
Why lossless is important to listeners and the industry
Lossless streaming eliminates a longstanding gap between studio masters and what consumer hear. On exposed setups, transients are snap- pier, reverb tails longer, stereo projection steadier— things that are smoothed away by lossy codecs. For artists and labels, it is a tidier handoff from the mastering suite to the audience.
The move solidifies a more widespread trend in the streaming business. Industry bodies are constantly stressing that paid-for subscription streaming remains the biggest driver of recorded music growth, and this tangible quality bump is yet another lever for services to keep hold of high-spending subscribers. Since almost all of the big services now claim to offer some form of lossless, high fidelity increasingly feels like table stakes, not a niche perk.
The takeaway: Spotify’s lossless launch isn’t going to settle any arguments about bit depths and sample rates, but it does, at long last, present loyal, send‑me‑the‑bits compressed‑free audio on the service most people use.
It’s an easy upgrade for Premium subscribers: Just flip on the switch, plug in a decent pair of headphones, and listen to your favorite music with fewer compromises.