We first heard back in June that Spotify Supremium could be the name given to the company's long-awaited break-even product. audio level, and this now appears to be confirmed by a code found in the app.
The code also contains a link to the price of $19.99 per month, which is in line with the previous report, but may be a hard sell & #8230;
Spotify Supremium has been around for a long time
Spotify first promised lossless audio levels back in February 2021 in what it called Spotify HiFi. At the time, the company said it would launch later that year.
Spotify HiFi will deliver music in lossless CD format to your device. and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers, meaning fans will be able to experience greater depth and clarity when enjoying their favorite tracks.
Almost a year later, this still hasn't materialized, and the company has released a statement , known for both its brevity and vagueness.
We know HiFi audio quality is important to you. We feel the same and are excited to bring the Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. But we don't have details on timing yet.
Fast forward to June of this year and everyone was still saying it was coming soon.
Code suggests price of $19.99 per month
Reddit user Hypixely spotted the code.
I did a little digging in the Spotify app, and found information about the new, more expensive Supremium, which Spotify calls “Nemo&” #8221; inside […]
After looking deeper into the code, the price seems to be $19.99. It could just be a placeholder.
While Hypixely is being cautious, The Verge notes that there is reason to believe it's real.
Prices are consistent with some other evidence we've seen. Last year, a Spotify survey mentioned a $19.99 Platinum tier that would include HiFi and other features.
9to5Mac's Opinion
At the time Spotify first discussed this issue, it was the norm for lossless audio to cost more, in a model originally developed by Tidal (remember them?). The company offered a choice of lossy compression for $9.99 per month and CD-quality lossless compression for $19.99 per month.
But now everything has changed. Apple Music already offers lossless music at no extra cost. Given that these two services offer access to virtually identical music catalogs, and also have an app for Android and iOS, why pay $19.99 a month when you can pay $10.99?
Also, Relatively few people can hear the difference between the high-quality, lossy format used by both services and lossless CD-quality. Of course, back when 256kbps mp3 files were the norm, the difference was noticeable to many of us. But these days, Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis at 320 kbps and Apple Music uses AAC at 256 kbps – and both are very good.
If you want to know if you can hear the difference today , there are online tests you can take. The last time I took one of these, everything changed from “you can see it if you try hard enough”; to “well, you're off by more than 50%, but it's not a big enough margin to mean much.”
Given the limited market for Lossless and Apple Music’ Since Spotify Supremium is offered at no extra cost, the $19.99 Spotify Supremium tier seems like a tough sell.
Photo: Alphacolor/Unsplash
