Sources with Bloomberg have learned that Spotify is planning a new premium tier for its music streaming service that will include HiFi audio, a potential boon for audiophiles and other critical listeners who can actually tell the difference between standard-bitrate MP3s and more sophisticated formats that include FLAC. The new tier, which is being referred to as “Supremium” internally, is expected to surface this year, although it’s reportedly launching in non-US markets first. Coincidentally, Spotify has just released a new version of its desktop app, featuring redesigned “Your Library” and “Now Playing” views, plus other improvements.
“At Spotify, we are constantly iterating and ideating to improve our product offering and offer value to users,” a company spokesperson told Bloomberg. “But we don’t comment on speculation around possible new features and do not have anything new to share at this time.”
Spotify Desktop’s Redesigned Features
- Go compact: By default, you’ll see an expanded view of Your Library. But if you only want to see your playlist icons, you can simply click the “Your Library” button in the top right hand corner to collapse the library.
- Search & filter Your Library: Previously, the only way to find playlists was through the search bar—and you had to wade through not only your own content, but results from the entire Spotify catalog. Now, when it’s expanded, our new Library design allows you to toggle through your dedicated music, podcast, and audiobook feeds and search Your Library exclusively.
- Customize: We want this experience to fit the way you listen, which is why Your Library and Now Playing can both be resized to take up more or less of the screen.
- Pin, drag & drop: You can move and pin the playlists in the Library, as well as drop songs into the editable listed playlists.
From a Bloomberg report (alternate link):
Dubbed “Supremium” internally, according to people familiar with the strategy, the new tier will be Spotify’s most expensive plan and likely offer a HiFi feature the company first announced it was working on in 2021. Spotify delayed that product’s rollout after two of its competitors, Apple Music and Amazon Music, began offering the feature for free as part of their standard plans. The new tier will launch this year in non-US markets first.
To augment its current “Premium” tier, Spotify will give subscribers expanded access to audiobooks, either through a specific number of hours free per month or a specific number of titles. There will be an option to purchase more. Currently, the company only sells audiobooks a la carte through its app. Spotify plans to introduce that feature in the US in October, after first launching in markets abroad.
Discussion (4 replies)
Join Discussion →And I thought they said their "high quality" setting was incredible. Its not, its garbage.
Lol. That's hilarious.
Golden eared audiophiles can pay for their placebo all they want.
High bitrate OGG/Vorbis audio is completely indistinguishable from lossless audio to human ears on any level of audio equipment, as is high bitrate content compared to 44.1khz 16bit.
If you are hearing a difference it is literally all in your head.
DSD, and high bitrate PCM is all a con to separate people from their hard earned cash. As are lossless streaming services.
This should be eye opening to some:
[embedded media]
I don't know what is high quality in spotify, but is complete garbage compared to tidal. I don't deal with anything loss less or what have you, just the normal tier of tidal. It may be the kind of pre processing they do, it may be that Spotify manipulates the original too much, but a year or more into using them ( long ago) I started to notice sound quality took a nose dive, bass was gone or very muted was the very first thing I noticed.
I had many other issues with the app, so I jumped ship. To be honest, even though I was so sure their sound quality became garbage, i was still telling myself ' im imaging things' , but of course the app.issues broke the camel's back. When I got tidal the difference was massive, and it was, very much like I remembered spotify.
Bit rate blah blah, don't care, spotify does something, their bit rate could be 8billion doesn't matter, they did something to the originals, they screw with them somehow, process them somehow, their quality bis complete garbage.
I suspect (but am not sure) what you are running into is not a bitrate or encoder problem, but rather an issue with the source material.
The truth is, a lot of masters really suck, and Spotify tends to present them as they were originally released, without manipulating them.
A recent example I ran into was the original release of Christopher Cross' 1983 hit "All Right". The original release is pretty bad. Very low mix, flat, muddled, awful. I could barely listen to it in the car, it wasn't getting loud enough.
Onmy Desktop equipment, I can compensate by boosting the volume, but in my car that just wasn't working.
The 2019 remaster of the same song, also on Spotify, is a HUGE improvement.
I'm not sure what the answer is for this stuff. On the one hand you want the intent of the artist, but on the flip side there are so many bad masters, some auto-eq might go a long way to help.
I'm not sure what Tidal does.