Spotify is taking its newfound Lossless status seriously. The music streaming giant finally added hi-res 24-bit/44.1kHz lossless quality streams for Premium users last September 2025, and while it was fashionably late in the audio world (rivals Tidal, Qobuz and Apple Music has been offering 24-bit streams for many years now), it's now not wasting time in taking advantage of its higher-quality stream offering.
Tapping into the growing trend of Japanese-style vinyl bars and "intentional listening" spaces that feature warm lighting, spinning vinyl and large retro-style speakers on full display, the new Listening Lounge is designed to host year-round events of "intimate listening experiences" for artists and fans based on new releases, seminal records, album anniversaries and more.
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The sound system is comprised of a pair of gigantic horn speakers made by London-based Friendly Pressure, two Bryston 3B Cubed power amplifiers, Prima Luna Evo 400 valve preamplifier and Prima Luna DAC, and, almost dwarfed by the larger pieces of hi-fi, is the source for streaming Spotify Lossless: the What Hi-Fi? Award-winning Bluesound Node Icon.
It's a surprisingly very "hi-fi" system, and one that I wasn't expecting at all, let alone to be the full focus of the listening space. Spotify doesn't do spatial audio of course, so this entire system is two-channel stereo. The Listening Lounge is designed in collaboration with Cake Architecture and Friendly Pressure, the latter specialising in creating bespoke speaker systems, and even refurbishing heritage systems. Its founder, Shivas Howard-Brown, who grew up in recording studios, has been inspired by traditional loudspeaker designs from JBL, Tannoy and Klipsch. And it shows.
The horn speakers are custom-designed for the space and is the focal point in the Listening Lounge; everything, including design-wise, is essentially built around these speakers.
The inception for the Listening Lounge started last May, with Billie Baier, Spotify's Co-Head of Marketing (UK & Ireland) saying Spotify first contacted Howard-Brown about "what a system that could showcase lossless in its best quality could look like."
Howard-Brown says an early meeting with Cake and Spotify involved showcasing the difference between lossless and non-lossless in his studio, which wowed everyone as the differences, and being able to hear more, were obvious through the speakers.
"You know, the more you front end any system with a rich signal, the better the presentation's going to be, whether that be an analogue source or a digital source."
It's why Howard-Brown prefers to build highly sensitive horn speakers, because "every nuance, every detail is always communicated, for better or for worse...
To make sure that this was going to be a playback system that embellished every single detail and nuance for every recording, was really the goal here. So, obviously having [Spotify] lossless as the signal really meant that we were able to do that with this signal chain."
About the speakers themselves, they are comprised of what Howard-Brown calls Friendly Pressure's "favourite ingredients": Supravox bass-drivers, Fostex's flagship super tweeters, TAD 4001 compression drivers and signature, large translucent SOES horns to create a floating effect. The speaker body is fully clad in aluminium, with feet damped with sand.
The rest of the hi-fi system is chosen by Howard-Brown to complement his speakers, with the Bryston amps offering the consistency and security needed to drive these sensitive speakers (95dB), while the Prima Luna valve preamp was chosen for its "warmth".
Both were products he has used for some years now, while the Prima Luna DAC was something they had tried recently and simply "loved the sound of it."
The entire speaker and electronics system is set up on an elevated dias, and the "whole design project was really about framing the system", says Hugh Scott Moncrieff, founder of Cake Architecture, who knew the Listening Lounge's design would involve these "two monumental objects".
He also took inspiration from Shinto shrines and Japanese domestic interiors, which allowed them to put the system on a pedestal to effectively create "an altar or a shrine to sound."
The carved out niche in the dark room is backlit by a yellow background that ensures the spotlight and listener's attention are always on the system. The effect is striking.
The Bryston and Prima Luna kit with their silver fascias match the aluminium speakers; even the usually green Spotify logo is in a subdued silver to match the system on the dias.
Of the room itself, Spotify says that "every material, surface and configuration was chosen to reduce distraction and support the sound." The acoustic treatment was handled by New York-based acoustician Ethan Bordeau, who used Danish brand Kvadrat's textiles (which we've seen used in hi-fi products like Bang & Olufsen), with the walls being "acoustically tuned to help disperse frequencies and prevent reverberation pooling at the corners."
In my half-hour demo of the Listening Lounge, the room doesn't feel overly damped – which is always a concern with acoustic treatment and especially when soundproofing a room in a Grade-II listed building in central London.
Coupled with the dark furniture, it offers a calming cocoon in which it's easy to relax – until we start playing music from the sound system, that is. I listened to a couple of tracks – Life, from Blood Orange's Essex Honey album, Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody, and System of a Down's Chop Suey – and the whole room was engulfed in the large-scaled, punchy, forthright sound.
The Bryston power amps have more than ample grunt to drive these behemoth speakers, which go loud with ease and without much distortion. The soundstage is expansive, and the lush, fluid melody of Life fills the room with ease.
Basslines punch deep and are wonderfully clean. There are some properties of horn speakers – especially housed in metal cabinets – that can't be ignored, such as a slight hardness to the edges of notes that perhaps could be softened to allow richer, subtler tones of instruments to shine through.
But the best property of horn speakers is their superb handling of dynamics, and this was on abundant display here: every note is punctual and crisp, while hard-charging dynamics shift with a kind of precision that sounds hugely impressive.
The funk in Chaka Khan's greatest track gets my foot tapping, while the wild, frenetic upheavals in Chop Suey are exhilarating. The silence between notes is beautifully quiet, too.
It's an impressive sound system in its aesthetic, scope and ambition. Spotify Lossless may not be the audiophile's prime choice of streaming service – we've found its rivals to simply sound better and offer greater hi-res quality – but there's no denying it has a huge following in our streaming-dominant world.
And it is great to see such a mainstream company leveraging its 24-bit streaming tech to create a dedicated listening space that puts a separates, two-channel hi-fi system firmly in the spotlight.
For those "top fans" lucky enough to get golden tickets to enjoy their favourite artists (provided you're in London, of course) in this listening space, we imagine the experience will feel pretty special.
MORE:
Read our Spotify Lossless review
Check out our five-star Bluesound Node Icon review
Spotify's new 'Exclusive Mode' gives you "bit-perfect" playback from the Windows desktop app
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