Spotify Finally Launches Lossless Music Streaming for Premium Users

After years of anticipation, Spotify is officially rolling out high-quality, lossless music streaming for premium subscribers. The streaming giant first announced plans for a hi-fi tier in 2021, promising CD-quality audio, but the launch faced repeated delays due to licensing challenges. Last year, CEO Daniel Ek confirmed the company was still in the early stages of making lossless streaming a reality.

Now, Spotify has confirmed that users will soon have access to streaming in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC format, which preserves the original sound without compression. The feature is gradually rolling out in over 50 countries throughout October, with users in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, Australia, and several other regions already receiving access.

Subscribers will be notified within the app once lossless streaming becomes available to them. To enable the feature, users must go to Settings and Privacy > Media Quality and select “Lossless” for Wi-Fi, cellular data, and downloads. Importantly, the setting must be activated separately on each device, as it does not sync across platforms.

Because lossless files are significantly larger, Spotify has added tools for users to track their data consumption. While streaming over Wi-Fi is supported, Bluetooth connections cannot deliver lossless quality due to bandwidth restrictions. Instead, Spotify recommends using Spotify Connect with compatible devices such as Bose, Yamaha, or Bluesound systems, which stream directly over Wi-Fi.

This move comes after competitors like Apple Music and Amazon Music have already been offering lossless streaming for years. Apple rolled out the feature in 2021, while Amazon made its HD tier free in 2019. Spotify says lossless quality is available for “nearly every track” in its 100-million-song library, though a small portion of songs may not yet support the feature.