Spotify appears to be testing the long-awaited Hi-Fi subscription in its desktop app. This is evident from screenshots shared by a Redditor. This shows, among other things, that this lossless audio function supports a maximum bitrate of 2117kb/s.
A Reddit user shares a number of screenshots of Spotify’s hi-fi function, The Verge discovered. The ‘lossless’ option has been added under ‘stream quality’. This information could be activated in version 1.2.36 of the desktop app via a line of code in the debug menu. According to the user, it is not yet possible to actually play lossless audio.
It can be seen that the Hi-Fi audio function supports a bitrate of up to 2117kb/s. That would cost 15.9MB of data per minute. It also says that the feature will support 24bit/44.1kHz audio on “a limited number of songs” in the FLAC format. Currently, the audio platform offers a maximum bitrate of 320kb/s, which consumes 2MB per minute.
Based on the screenshots, users can also test whether their device, connection type and internet bandwidth support lossless audio. Spotify recommends using the feature in conjunction with Spotify Connect speakers or via a wired connection, as Bluetooth does not fully support lossless audio.
Spotify has been promising since 2021 that there will be a hi-fi subscription, but that option is still not available. In the meantime, other music services have added the option for better sound quality to their subscriptions. Bloomberg news agency wrote last year that the subscription with audio in higher sound quality is available under the name Supremium. Last month, references to the lossless audio option were found in the code of the Android version of Spotify. This would show that the name ‘Supremium’ has now been replaced by ‘Music Pro’.
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