A few years ago, I set up a Spotify Family account. It includes me, my wife, my dad and my brother. I probably shouldn't be confessing that, as I don't think it's really allowed, but here we are.
Having switched music services once or twice in the past, I know first-hand what an absolute pain in the backside it is. Yes, even with those playlist syncing apps – they're good, but not flawless, and fixing those flaws takes almost as long as just starting from scratch.
But switching is even harder when there's a Family Account involved. Even if I could get all of my family members under one subscription with a rival music streaming service (certainly not a given), there is no way I could persuade everyone to up sticks and start again.
I'm a stickler for sound quality, though, and I've had to watch as rival service after rival service has added lossless or even hi-res music to their catalogues, while I've been limited to the 320kbps streams on Spotify that should have gone extinct with the MP3 player.
In truth, I do have a Tidal account for testing and serious listening, but I don't like to use it too often as I'm also rather addicted to the stats and taste profile elements of Spotify. My Discover Weekly really is rather good these days.
So, yes, ultimately, you could say I was just too lazy to switch streaming services and drag my family into the lossless realm. But it seems as though that laziness is about to be rewarded.
Lossless on Spotify Premium is finally (I notice that even Spotify itself is using the word 'finally') here, and, as the name suggests, it's a free upgrade for Spotify Premium subscribers.
Said subscribers will be automatically upgraded to Lossless in the coming days, and it sounds as though most of the catalogue is covered.
Despite the use of the word 'lossless' rather than 'hi-res' (also note that the rumoured 'Spotify HiFi' name is not being used), support for streams up to 24bit/44.1kHz in FLAC quality will be included. Strictly speaking, that's above CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz) and just into hi-res territory.
Lossless will work via Spotify Connect, too, which is how I do most of my listening, but while some compatible AV devices I use will be supported from the off (Sony and Denon are in the list of launch partners), others will be added in time (Sonos next month, for example).
To be clear, I haven't yet had a chance to test out the new Lossless content on Spotify, as I, like everyone else, am waiting for my account to be upgraded.
But I am nevertheless thrilled that this upgrade is finally coming. Finally, doing nothing has been rewarded. And, best of all, my family will also start listening to higher quality music, even if they don't necessarily know it.
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