When we first got wind of Spotify’s potential plans to offer a lossless streaming service, TikTok hadn’t taken off, Fortnite wasn’t yet a thing, and Taylor Swift wasn’t even one of the three biggest global superstars.
It was early 2017 and hopes were high among us audiophiles that the world’s most popular music streaming service would soon launch high-quality music streams into the mainstream. It didn’t.
In fact, it wasn’t until 2021 that Spotify officially announced it would start offering higher-quality streams by the end of that year, and infamously that didn’t materialise… until now, September 2025.
Indeed, at long last, Spotify has finally launched Spotify Lossless, allowing Premium subscribers to listen to the catalogue in audio quality up to 24-bit/44.1kHz, for no extra cost, on the mobile, desktop and tablet apps, as well as over Spotify Connect from compatible devices. Praise be.
The fly in the ointment
But hey, is that a fly I spot squirming around in the ointment? Ah yes, the 24-bit/44.1kHz thing.
You see, the quality of music streams (or any digital music file) is represented by bit rate (for example, 24-bit) and sampling rate (for example, 44.1kHz). When a recorded analogue audio signal is converted to a digital audio file, the bit rate refers to the amount of data that is processed per second, while the sampling rate represents the number of times samples of the audio signal are taken per second.
Essentially, the higher the number of both, the higher the audio quality.
Hi-res music is generally understood nowadays as that with 24 bits and a sampling rate of, most commonly, 44.1kHz, 96kHz or 192kHz. (You can get recordings beyond that quality, but it’s incredibly niche.) Again, Spotify Lossless delivers streams up to 24-bit/44.1kHz (2117kbps) – miles better than what it previously offered (320kbps).
But the quality of rival hi-res streaming services such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Qobuz goes all the way up to 192kHz (9216kbps).
So, have we really waited eight years for Spotify to get onboard hi-res streaming, only for it to still technically trail behind the others when it does? In a word, yes.
I don’t know why Spotify has chosen to impose this limit. To host hi-res streams, a streaming service must a) strike licensing deals with the record labels that own the music, and b) have the storage to host them, as well as the bandwidth capability to transmit them over protocols such as Spotify Connect, because hi-res files are bigger in size than lower-quality ones.
When the above can be met to host 24-bit/44.1kHz audio, how much extra legwork is really necessary to include 24-bit/96kHz and 192kHz streams? Perhaps something is eluding me here.
Either way, that technical shortcoming ultimately shouldn’t matter to most people for two reasons…
Why 44.1kHz streams are (more than) enough for most folk…
Firstly, most people listen to music streaming services on their phone. YouGov data for British streamers indicates that 52 per cent of streaming is on a phone, with laptops/computers and smart speakers together making up most of the remainder.
It’s reasonable, then, to suggest that most streaming is listened to through phones and laptops’ built-in speakers or, presumably, much more commonly, Bluetooth headphones and earbuds. In both cases, their acoustic hardware will not be sophisticated enough to reveal the extent of the sonic details in a 44.1kHz file anyway, let alone the extra details within a higher-quality one.
I would argue that this applies to every smart wi-fi speaker I’ve come across, and most mainstream audio hardware. Really, CD-quality audio (16-bit/44.1kHz) is probably enough for most devices and streamers out there.
With even the best Bluetooth headphones and speakers, it’s also important to remember that not even the highest-quality Bluetooth technology is advanced enough to transmit audio losslessly (without compression), again meaning that you won’t hear all the details within a 24-bit/44.1kHz file, let alone a 96kHz or 192kHz one.
Even with wired headphones fed by specialist digital audio gear (like a DAC), they would both have to cost several hundred pounds/dollars to be sonically transparent enough to reveal the differences between a 44.1kHz and a 96kHz or 192kHz stream.
Secondly, from what I understand and have seen myself over the years, most hi-res streams available are 24-bit/44.1kHz anyway; only the minority are available in 96kHz or 192kHz. So arguably, for much of what a Spotify Premium subscriber might listen to, they’re probably getting what a subscriber to another service is.
Are these two reasons why Spotify decided to stick with an upper limit of 44.1kHz? Maybe.
…but not everyone
That doesn’t fly for everyone, though. Many people out there, like me, will rightly be a little peeved that Spotify has shirked streaming support above 24-bit/44.1kHz, because they do have audio systems that are mature enough to reveal the extra details in the highest-quality music offered by those rival streaming services (and music download services and some SACDs).
And, therefore, why shouldn’t they be able to listen to a stream of Toto’s Rosanna (one of my favourites) in the very best possible available quality, 24-bit/192kHz?
We’re talking about a niche portion of music listeners out there, of course – but we do exist! And we remain better served by Tidal, Qobuz et al.
For everyone else, Spotify Lossless should be more than good enough. Enjoy the higher quality!
MORE:
My laziness has been rewarded: Spotify HiFi (well, Lossless) is finally here
Hi-res music streaming services compared: is Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon or Apple Music better?
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