It's roughly been a year since Spotify announced a Hi-Fi tier of its streaming service that is yet to release, but as per the company's CEO, the delay has to do with licensing hassles with artists and music labels. When it was initially announced, Spotify sold the idea of a "CD-quality, lossless audio format" for the music listening experience. Talking numbers for audiophiles, the company promised audio at 16-bit resolution with a 44.1kHz sample rate. But, of course, all that audio goodness will most likely come at a price.
Meanwhile, Apple Music added Lossless Audio at no extra cost back in June last year, delivering up to 24-bit/192 kHz audio with a serving of Spatial Audio magic on top. All that upgrade came at no extra cost, which was a massive bonus for existing subscribers, and a lucrative incentive for those planning to become subscribers. Amazon also made its move a month before Apple, making its Amazon Music HD hi-res audio tier free for all Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers. All that happened in the wake of Spotify's own Hi-Fi announcement, yet, Spotify's product is still nowhere to be seen.
Well, it appears that licensing issues have proved to be a roadblock, but there's still no concrete outlook regarding a market launch. And that observation comes straight from Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's response during the company's earnings call. "So yes, I mean, many of the features that we talk about and especially that's related to music ends up into licensing," Ek said when asked about the progress on Spotify Hi-Fi. "So I can't really announce any specific on this other than to say that we're in constant dialogue with our partners to bring this to market," he added. In a nutshell, there is still no official confirmation regarding an estimated market arrival.
Not The Best Days For Spotify
So far, there has been speculation that Spotify held off on the Hi-Fi launch because it would have looked much weaker in the face of competition from Apple and Amazon's offerings, both in terms of pricing and the sheer audio quality. And possibly, Spotify was taking time to refine the product so that its Hi-Fi tier could look competitive in the face of Apple Music and Amazon Music HD. But Ek's comments suggest that the delay is due to licensing tussles, which may also have something to do with the fact that Spotify pays lower than Apple Music. Plus, multiple artists in the past have openly expressed their dislike over how they are paid for the music they made.
The past few weeks have been a tad too troublesome for Spotify. The company recently courted a lot of heat over the spread of COVID-related misinformation on the company's crown jewel podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. The way Spotify handled the whole situation also drew a lot of criticism, and artists such as Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, Brené Brown, India Arie and Roxane Gay announced that they're pulling their content from Spotify. As per a website called JRE Missing that keeps track of missing episodes, over 113 episodes of Rogan's show are gone from Spotify, most of which have reportedly been pulled in the wake of the controversy.
Source: Seeking Alpha / Spotify, JREMissing