For years, you’ve been telling anyone who would listen (and many who wouldn’t) that you can totally hear the difference between compressed audio and the pure, unadulterated sound of lossless. Well, congratulations, you magnificent audiophile, your moment has arrived. Spotify has finally graced its Premium subscribers with the addition of lossless audio, so you can now listen to your favourite obscure indie band with the clarity and detail you’ve always insisted you deserved.
According to Spotify’s announcement, this new feature will provide a “richer, more detailed listening experience.” That’s right, all those subtle nuances you’ve been missing in your favourite tracks, like the sound of the lead singer’s kombucha fermenting in the background, will now be crystal clear. The update, which is being rolled out to all Premium users, promises to deliver music in all its high-fidelity glory, assuming, of course, that your Bluetooth headphones and laptop speakers are up to the task.
Spotify says they’re “committed to delivering the best possible audio experience,” which apparently now includes catering to the five people in every city who own a pair of studio-grade headphones and a DAC. For the rest of us, who are perfectly content with our slightly-less-than-perfect-but-totally-fine audio quality, we can now rest easy knowing that our audiophile friends will finally have one less thing to complain about.
How to enable Lossless
To turn on lossless audio in the Spotify app:
- Tap your profile icon in the top left.
- Go to Settings & Privacy → Media Quality.
- Select where you want to enable lossless audio: Wi-Fi, cellular, downloads.
So, go ahead, fire up that 24-bit/44.1 kHz stream and bask in the warm, analog-like glow of lossless audio. You’ve earned it. The rest of us will be over here, still enjoying our music, blissfully unaware of what we’re apparently missing.
