Rumours of a Hi-Fi quality Spotify subscription aimed at high-end speakers or headphones have circled for years. Now it seems the service will finally arrive in 2025 as Spotify Music Pro, and could set you back and extra $5.99 a month. That’s a shake-up from the Spotify Supremium label that had been doing the rounds. Read on for more about what it means for your music.
The company first announced it was working on a new tier offering CD-quality music using a lossless compression format all the way back in February 2021. The high-quality streams would, the company said, be “rolling out in select markets” later that year. We even got a Billie Eilish featuring ad and everything. But since then, nothing official has happened. Yep, that’s over four years we’ve been waiting.
Spotify currently streams music using the compressed Vorbis and AAC formats, which make better use of the available bandwidth but are both ‘lossy’. That means bits of the original music file are thrown away in an attempt to reduce the amount of data being sent. Spotify Music Pro should offer CD-quality lossless streaming.
What is Spotify Music Pro?
Until Spotify makes things official we don’t exactly know what the Music Pro tier will include. According to Bloomberg, subscribers can expect remixing tools to blend two tracks together (with a little help from artificial intelligence) and exclusive pre-sale concert tickets, on top of the new higher quality streaming tier. This name lines up with the ‘Pro’ branding found within the Spotfiy app in April 2024.
Before that point, all signs were pointing to the new tier being called ‘Supremium’. Reddit user u/Hypixely found references to it in the Spotify app back in September 2023, along with 24-bit lossless music support, AI-powered playlists, and advanced mixing tools. Bloomberg also reported the name would be Supremium, while Threads user Chris Messina shared a possible logo.
More details came again from u/Hypixely, who trawled through lines of code to reveal hints including the words ‘lossless has arrived’, as well as some evidence that the upgrade will play ‘up to 24-bit/44.1kHz’ FLAC files.
When is Spotify Music Pro or Supremium coming?
We still don’t know. The most likely launch date is now summer 2025, according to Bloomberg.
Spotify co-president Gustav Söderström previously told The Verge that Spotify “are going to do it [HiFi], but we’re going to do it in a way where it makes sense for us and for our listeners. The industry changed and we had to adapt.” Söderström added that the hi-res service “is coming at some point.” But it’s still not here as of early 2025. The service has been much delayed considering it was first trailed in 2021.
There was a lot of speculation Spotify HiFi might be announced at the company’s annual Stream On event on 8 March 2023. Instead the presentation showed us a bunch of creator tools, user features, and new programming available on the service. The platform was TikTokified, with the company officially announcing a new scrollable layout and extra Spotify exclusive podcasts.
We also got the AI DJ app – a feature that adds an MC, blends and other algorithmic personalisations to playlists. Listeners can discover new music overseen by the voice of Xavier ‘X‘ Jernigan, who will recommend songs, and offer pieces of trivia on your favourite artists.
What will I need to listen to Spotify Music Pro?
The upgraded service will almost certainly be rolled into the standard Spotify app, rather than require a separate one.
The firm has plenty of lossless audio compression algorithms to choose from, include ATRAC from Sony, FLAC, HD-AAC (which Spotify already uses in its Premium tier) and Dolby True-HD. Wired speakers and headphones should have no problem getting the full quality, as long as the player or DAC they’re connected to can decode hi-res formats.
If you want to use wireless headphones, make sure they (and your player) support a higher-bitrate Bluetooth codec such as aptX HD Lossless or LDAC – otherwise all that extra information will be compressed away in the last stage of its journey.
What will Spotify Music Pro cost?
It was a given that any higher quality streaming tier would cost more than the current $9.99/£9.99 Spotify Premium, even if it went against the grain of other streaming providers: Tidal, Apple and Amazon all provide lossless streaming as part of their main music offerings, but none have the audience that Spotify does.
Placeholders discovered within the Spotify app indicated a $19.99 monthly price, though given they were tied to the Supremium name, it was aways debatable if this was accurate.
The latest leaks suggest Spotify Premium Music Pro will cost $17.99 in the US and £17.99 in the UK.
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