Spotify testing lossless streaming, hits 50m subscribers

It’s been a significant week for Spotify. Last night it announced on Twitter that it now has 50 million paying subscribers.

That means it has gained 20 million new subscribers in the last 12 months – and has twice the audience size as Apple Music, which has also grown rapidly since it launched mid-2015.

Reaching 50 million subscribers could give Spotify the confidence to go ahead quicker with its IPO, even if it faces losses due to high licensing fees. It can also fight off demands from labels that it drop free tiers.

Also this week, Spotify seemed to have started A/B testing a lossless audio versionof its music streaming service. Called Spotify Hi-Fi, it is trying it out on a small group of its $10-a-month premium subscribers.

Spotify Hi-Fi is being offered for an extra $7.50, providing CD-quality audio in addition to other Premium features such as pre-sales concert tickets and vinyl discounts. If it gets the “like” from its tested users, a whole new range of users would come on board and grow the figure well past 50 million.

Spotify Premium currently offers 320kbps audio files. They are easier to load because they are smaller; however, there is a degradation in audio.

Lossless audio files, on the other hand, might have the best sound quality. But they are five to ten times bigger, and hence take longer to load.

Spotify isn’t making its move official. “We are constantly testing new products and offers but have not yet announced anything,” it responded to the reports in a statement.

Spotify’s test with subscribers is to discover if loading up quicker is higher on their wish list than getting the best sound quality.

That was the punt that Jay-Z’s Tidal service took when it launched in 2014:that digital music listeners were now ready to move up a step, similar to the way over 30 years ago when CD took over from vinyl as the predominant format.

At the time of Tidal’s arrival, lossless audio was considered to be mainly for audiophiles who didn’t mind spending more on buying a headphone amp and premium headphones to hear the music the way it was originally recorded in the studio.

But there seems to be a change in attitude, not only by listeners but also by the music industry and hardware manufacturers.

Apple Music has been rumoured for over a yearto be testing a higher end in audio. At the same time, the angry response from users when Apple removed the 3.5mm headphone jack showed how many used analogue headphones to get a better sound.

As a result smartphone makers Sony, LG, and Samsung are starting to pay attention to hi-fi on their digital audio. But it’s going to take some time more for any results, hampered as they are by cost and space.

In the last 12 months, there’s been a lot of attention on a new format called Master Quality Authenticated (MQA). It allows higher quality audio to be streamed without losing connection.

In January 2017, TMN reported that Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Pandora, Napster and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) released a joint statement supporting initiatives and opportunities for hi-fi audio streaming.