Spotify at full CD resolution

[mevdinc]

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

[mevdinc]

8 hours ago, photonman said:

In that case, I change my bet to $13.99 / month as most Spotify users would not care about anything more than CD quality and 24/192 is more marketing than audible reality.

 

The Spotify playlist algorithms, Connect functionality and UI blows away all others.  But there is definitely target segments that care about playlists versus 24/192 and it is great to have choices :)

It's great to have 24/192 streaming but CD quality lossless streaming is good enough especially if you are happy with your DAC's performance.
So, I do find Spotify CD streaming very tempting too and I wouldn't think their pricing would be unreasonable. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

[mevdinc]

I have already dropped Tidal and started using Spotify in readiness for the hires streaming when it's available.

I am sure the pricing won't be more than Tidal and Qobuz, since Spotify already has many millions of subscribers and  they only need a small percentage to upgrade.

[mevdinc]

13 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

I love Qobuz, I really do.  BUT, their catalog always disappoints in comparison to Spotify or Apple Music, so I have two audio streaming subscriptions.

 

But the $64,000 question: will Spotify ever have a cross-platform way to deliver bit perfect output to a DAC a la Roon?  If it's a mobile-only solution, I'll stick with Qobuz and Apple Music.

A lot of DACs support Spotify with Spotify Connect.
But no integration with 3rd party players such as Audivarna and Roon is a real downer, as I don't know how good their sound engine is. Plus you cannot benefit form the flexibility and power of players such as HQ Player. But I have been using it for a while now with my iPhone and Macmini on my main system and I am quite pleased with the sound. Hopefully it will be much better with lossless when available.
UI, vast catalog, very clever music suggestion algorithm are real pluses. Alos its own device connect is excellent too, I use my laptop or mobile phone to send the music to macmini to play on the main system.

[mevdinc]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

 

I don't have a Spotify subscription. What artists/albums do you listen to that they have and Qobuz doesn't?

Too many to mention. :)

[mevdinc]

3 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

I don't care about the Spotify app's "sound engine".  I just want it to deliver all the bits.

Software players receive/process the same bits just like all DACs, but surely they all sound a little bit different from one another.