Spotify at full CD resolution

[MarkS]

I think Spotify just announced a new tier called "HiFi" that will stream at full cd resolution.  Seems like a major announcement.

[ambre]

38 minutes ago, MarkS said:

I think Spotify just announced a new tier called "HiFi" that will stream at full cd resolution.  Seems like a major announcement.

I cannot find anything at their website how can?

[danadam]

24 minutes ago, ambre said:

I cannot find anything at their website how can?

40:17

"And for those listeners really passionate about audio quality, well, later this year we'll be launching a new subscription offering, Spotify HiFi. To tell you more I'd love to welcome two people who truly understand the art and the science of sound".

(the part after "the science of sound" is rather a waste of time :-) )

 

 

[Stereo]

If it’s only CD resolution then only Deezer needs to worry. Hurry up Apple what are you going to do?

[MarkS]

They also seem to be expanding credits like songwriter and improving linking, which seems like a Roonesque cross referencing to me. 

[Rexp]

Great news! 

 

[Jud]

So, and I hate to use a 3-letter word here, I wonder if it's going to be normal FLAC or similar, or MQA.

[asdf1000]

46 minutes ago, Jud said:

So, and I hate to use a 3-letter word here, I wonder if it's going to be normal FLAC or similar, or MQA.

 

If it is CD quality like below then I imagine FLAC. I don't think Bob would like MQA referred to as CD quality.

 

I'm pretty sure he believes it is better than CD quality.

 

 

[Cebolla]

28 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

If it is CD quality like below then I imagine FLAC. I don't think Bob would like MQA referred to as CD quality.

 

I'm pretty sure he believes it is better than CD quality.

 

Believes or markets?

 

Anyway, it still leaves the very real possibility of MQA-CD, going by TIDAL's ever shrinking original CD Warner catalogue.

[asdf1000]

18 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

Anyway, it still leaves the very real possibility of MQA-CD, going by TIDAL's ever shrinking original CD Warner catalogue.

 

This can probably be tested right now if anyone has Deezer's HiFi (CD quality) plan and MQA DAC ?

 

[Cebolla]

Can't see what is currently being streamed by Deezer HiFi has to do with Spotify's HiFi streaming plans. However, even where a streaming service actively resists MQA it's already been proven that MQA-CDs can slip through:

 

[asdf1000]

51 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

Can't see what is currently being streamed by Deezer HiFi has to do with Spotify's HiFi streaming plans.

 

If both are streaming CD quality then they're streaming the same flies?

 

Check 2L recordings who only supply Amazon Music HD and Qobuz Studio with MQA...

 

Deezer CD quality is available right now to test... if somene has an MQA DAC. I would start with testing a 2L recording...

 

Amazon and Qobuz have no choice with 2L recordings so logic says the same would apply to Deezer now and highly likely Spotify later..

[firedog]

11 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

If both are streaming CD quality then they're streaming the same flies?

 

Check 2L recordings who only supply Amazon Music HD and Qobuz Studio with MQA...

 

Deezer CD quality is available right now to test... if somene has an MQA DAC. I would start with testing a 2L recording...

 

Amazon and Qobuz have no choice with 2L recordings so logic says the same would apply to Deezer now and highly likely Spotify later..

2L is meaningless. It's about a millionth of a percent of the total catalog.

I think there are lots of Amazon HD, Qobuz, and Tidal users who would be happy to switch to Spotify CD quality if they get the huge catalog in CD quality and the Spotify interface.

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, firedog said:

2L is meaningless. It's about a millionth of a percent of the total catalog.

I think there are lots of Amazon HD, Qobuz, and Tidal users who would be happy to switch to Spotify CD quality if they get the huge catalog in CD quality and the Spotify interface.

 

That's not the point of the discussion.

 

To have an idea if MQA CD makes it's way to Spotify, you can test 2L recordings on Deezer HiFi now...

 

You could test Warner but I don't know if those same Warner releases in MQA on Tidal are MQA on Amazon HD...

 

I do know 2L is MQA on both Amazon HD and Qobuz Studio...

 

 

[audiobomber]

Spotify's announcement didn't mention MQA, so MQA speculation seems pointless.

[botrytis]

16 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

Spotify's announcement didn't mention MQA, so MQA speculation seems pointless.

 

Qobuz doesn't mention MQA either, yet MQA files have been found on Qobuz masquerading as regular FLAC files. Don't put anything past the record labels, they are that slimey.

[photonman]

I have been anxiously waiting for this reality.  I stayed with Spotify because of their superior interface, dynamic content delivery (AI) and their connect and this is the icing!  Now I am curious to know the pricing which I would bet has to be cheaper than Tidal but more than Amazon HD maybe?

[asdf1000]

47 minutes ago, audiobomber said:

Spotify's announcement didn't mention MQA, so MQA speculation seems pointless.

 

Neither did Amazon Music HD... and yet 2L recordings are there in MQA...

 

[Jud]

I don't particularly care if some bits of MQA content sneak in. I'm far more concerned if there would be plans to use it exclusively. In that respect, I choose to see as a hopeful sign @asdf1000's point that they'd probably refer to MQA as "better than CD."

[sbank]

Many posts seem to imply that Roon and Spotify cooperation is highly unlikely. Does Spotify in CD quality change that dynamic from either party's perspective? 

As a Roon user who currently doesn't use a streaming service, and leans more towards interest in Qobuz, this makes me more interested in getting Spotify thru Roon, as my partner is a diehard Spotify user who already has a Premium subscription. 

[firedog]

31 minutes ago, sbank said:

Many posts seem to imply that Roon and Spotify cooperation is highly unlikely. Does Spotify in CD quality change that dynamic from either party's perspective? 

As a Roon user who currently doesn't use a streaming service, and leans more towards interest in Qobuz, this makes me more interested in getting Spotify thru Roon, as my partner is a diehard Spotify user who already has a Premium subscription. 

AFAIK, the hangup between Roon and Spotify has, till now, had nothing to do with mp3 or CD quality of the streaming. The issue is that Roon sees it's main raison d'etre as it's UI, and wants to integrate the Spotify data into the existing Roon UI (as it does with Tidal and Qobuz).

Spotify isn't willing to give up it's interface - as that's it's main attraction and it's money maker (generating more listens). Some other apps have allowed a separate Spotify interface within their app; so far Roon isn't willing to do this for Spotify. 

 

For them to work together, somebody has to give in. I don't think it will be Spotify - they are the big player and hold the cards.

 

I think it will only happen if Spotify hifi starts to attact lots of audiophiles who might otherwise be at Tidal or Qobuz, and if Roon sees this as a threat to it's existence. If Roon doesn't integrate what becomes the dominant lossless/audiophile streaming service, they will have an existential problem.

[Stereo]

3 hours ago, photonman said:

I have been anxiously waiting for this reality.  I stayed with Spotify because of their superior interface, dynamic content delivery (AI) and their connect and this is the icing!  Now I am curious to know the pricing which I would bet has to be cheaper than Tidal but more than Amazon HD maybe?

I can’t see it costing more than Deezer HiFi or Qobuz which are both $14.99/month and if you pay upfront for a year Qobuz works out to $12.50/month. With Qobuz you also get higher than CD resolutions. With Deezer it’s the same CD resolution with a debatable UI/feature set. For Spotify to charge any more than either of them would be a joke even for the better feature set Spotify may have. Apple needs to step up their game now.

[danadam]

27 minutes ago, firedog said:

Spotify isn't willing to give up it's interface - as that's it's main attraction and it's money maker (generating more listens). Some other apps have allowed a separate Spotify interface within their app; so far Roon isn't willing to do this for Spotify. 

I'm not sure if Roon requires something more, but on linux there are some alternative clients popping up, for example recently spot and spotify-qt (see pictures below). AFAICT they are based on librespot, which apparently is tolerated by Spotify so far. A comment from two years ago:

Quote

I'm the original author of librespot, the library behind Spotifyd.

Spotify are aware of librespot and while they don't endorse it, so far they have been OK with it. On my side I've made sure not to expose features that may be controversial, such as allowing free accounts or saving unencrypted files to disk.

 

spot:

 

spotify qt:

[firedog]

25 minutes ago, danadam said:

I'm not sure if Roon requires something more, but on linux there are some alternative clients popping up, for example recently spot and spotify-qt (see pictures below). AFAICT they are based on librespot, which apparently is tolerated by Spotify so far. A comment from two years ago:

 

spot:

 

spotify qt:

The issue is that Roon operates with Qobuz and Tidal by getting direct access to their databases and integrating the data seamlessly intertwined with the other Roon results - as if the streaming results come from your local library. 

So Roon will probably need to change for this ever to come about. 

[mevdinc]

Hifi streaming on Spotify sounds very interesting with great UI, vast music catalog and huge userbase.