Spotify HiFi Is Lossless Streaming To Take On TIDAL And Apple

Thanks perhaps to the launch of TIDAL putting pressure on larger music services to deliver lossless-quality streaming, audiophiles have a few different options these days. Not only can those looking for high-quality music find it through TIDAL, but Amazon also offers a similar premium streaming service of its own. Soon, Spotify will be throwing its hat in that particular ring, announcing today that it will be launching a new streaming tier called Spotify HiFi later this year.

Spotify HiFi will at first be available to "Spotify Premium subscribers in select markets," but unfortunately for us, Spotify doesn't get more specific than that. The company does say that its HiFi streaming tier will offer music in a "CD-quality, lossless audio format." It's launching as part of Spotify Connect, so Spotify HiFi songs will be able to play on speakers that support Spotify Connect.

Spotify says that high quality music streaming is something that's been consistently requested by users, which makes one wonder why it's taken Spotify so long to roll out such an option. Still, even if Spotify was dragging its heels on rolling out a high-quality option, it seems to be beating Apple to the punch here, giving it a leg up on one of its biggest competitors.

At the moment, we don't know how much Spotify Connect is going to cost, and that's going to be an important thing for a lot of subscribers. Amazon's high-quality offering runs $14.99 while TIDAL's is priced at $19.99, so we can probably expect Spotify HiFi to fall somewhere within that range.

In short, there are a lot of things we don't know about Spotify HiFi at the moment, so we'll have to wait until the company shares more later this year. One thing is for sure: the music streaming wars are heating up further with Spotify offering its own high-quality streaming tier, so it probably won't be much longer before we hear Apple announcing something similar.