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Spotify Add Lossless Audio(24-bit / 44.1 kHz FLAC) for Premium Subscribers
(newsroom.spotify.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2025
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I want this, and although there isn't always a perceptible difference in audio quality, there sometimes can be. It depends on the content, and I'd rather sometimes stream audio at an excessively high bitrate than always lose the high–end definition that I could have enjoyed where it exists.
All my life I've been getting into disagreements with people who believe that because they can't tell the difference between A and B, I must not be able to either. I find this immensely frustrating.
I agree. I can definitely hear a difference, mostly in the rhythm section and low end.
You can hear a difference between 320 kbps mp3/aac/vorbis and lossless? Can you prove that with an ABX test?
I notice the difference with an ABX test. Spent about $700 or so on my audio equipment, so I guess it is "budget" in the audiophile world.
What equipment do you have? My main setup is a Motu M4 with two Adam Audio T5V and multi point room correction done in REW. For headphones I'm mostly using DT 770 Pro 80 Ohm (there's different drivers depending on the impedance and these sound warmer). I also have a sizeable collection of IEMs with ratings up to a B on the crin list.
I can hear sounds up to about 16k. I'm allergic to bad audio. I cannot differentiate good lossy encodes from lossless audio.
Eh, I got 40% on 2 tries. It’s something I guess. Either way, why not take the higher quality version if it’s included?
So quite literally worse than a coin flip, then.
Streaming lossless audio will use up three to six times as much data, along with the higher processing demands to play them back, so there's always a penalty involved. We didn't invent codecs for no reason.
So in other words you may as well have guessed randomly and gotten the same result. I'm against lossless streaming because my bandwidth is a limited resource and it will take longer to load the same track with higher bitrate. As there is no audible difference, there is also no practical reason to choose it.
At that point where it matters, I feel like I should be buying the music from the artist, not streaming. My latest favorite band, Mad Routine, gives you the WAV masters when you buy their albums, and they are meticulous about sound; those lossless tracks actually sound better, even with Bluetooth.
However, I think few bands are actually putting in the effort to have beautifully crafted lossless tracks. Also, I have no way of knowing if Spotify is merely increasing the bitrate but using the same lossy source file, which is what I suspect is probably the case. After all, why share valuable goods when you could pretend and throw out a few buzzwords, instead?
Sounds like you just want it because it is possible. If that's the case, I'm fine with that. There is however no perceptible difference in sound, ABX tests showed that many times.