Spotify’s hi-fi tease is tearing my family apart

By Derek Malcolm Published July 29, 2024

In the wake of yet another tease from Spotify on the potential coming of its long, long-awaited hi-fi tier, the flames of streaming music wars have once again been stoked in my household: I’m ready to dump Spotify for better audio quality, while my family is prepared to die on its lo-fi hill.

My wife, 13-year-old daughter, and I have been a Spotify Family family for years. But while we all agree that the Swedish streaming service’s UI, music discovery, and plentiful extra features are miles above the competition, I, on the other hand, have become accustomed to the sweet sounds of lossless and hi-res audio, and have had to sit at the sidelines gnashing my teeth watching every other music service add them to their platforms. And I’ve had it.

But Derek, why not just dump Spotify and switch?

You switch. I’m done trying to switch. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’m an A/V journalist with access to any number of evaluation trials of all the major services. I’ve explained ad nauseam the virtues of lossless audio over Spotify’s subpar 320kbps, and I’ve even made it easy for my family by porting their playlists over with all the SongShift and Switcheroo-type apps out there.

But it’s all fallen on deaf ears. My family just can’t — or doesn’t want to — break free from Spotify Penitentiary. They’re fine with the audio. And more important, they’re in love with its UI and usability. It is, quite literally, Stockholm syndrome.

And I get it. Most people (including my family) don’t notice or don’t care to notice the differences between Spotify’s lossy stream quality and the lossless CD quality of just about every other service, let alone hi-res audio. (Spotify’s CEO has said as much, too.) There’s also an argument to be made about most people not even having the right audio equipment to take advantage lossless or hi-res audio, so what’s the point?

The point is, I notice the difference, and I can’t go back. And I’m resentful that my only other option is to give up a streaming service that I really like for a level of audio quality that should just be table stakes at this point. That, and I’m tired of hearing CEO Daniel Ek (and the media) dangling it in front of me since 2021. Enough already.

“There’s a good subset of that group of 246 million subscribers that want a much better version of Spotify,” Ek said at Wednesday’s earnings call. “Those are huge music lovers who are primarily looking for even more flexibility in how they use Spotify and the music capabilities that exist on Spotify.” Exactly.

Call me Mr. Good Subset. My hand cannot be raised any higher. And before I risk another family streaming service coup attempt, Mr. Ek, please, make with the hi-fi.