The Uneven Offering of UHD Audio in Music Streaming: An analysis
Compared to its leading rivals, the world’s largest music-streaming company is certainly late to market with UHD audio. However, recent reports suggest Spotify will roll out hi-res audio later this year, though it will be delivered as part of a feature-rich premium product called ‘Music-Pro’ rather than as a standard offering. And it will cost an extra few dollars a month. The company has long said that high-quality music streaming is a feature many of its users have craved as part of their subscription. Now it’s gearing up to enter UHD waters.
It's widely expected that Spotify will offer 24-bit audio rather than the 16-bit lossless variant it was initially thought to favor. That makes competitive sense. The Apple Music catalog is encoded using proprietary Apple Lossless Audio Codec in resolutions up to 24-bit, while the latter is also the highest audio quality level on Amazon Music and is available in Free Lossless Audio Codec. Those platforms also boast 3D audio such as Apple Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos Music though those sound features are not thought to be part of Spotify’s Music-Pro strategy. At least not yet.
Given the company’s customary product rollout strategy, Spotify HiFi won’t be made available everywhere all at once but will be rolled out gradually across different territories, and at different price points. However, Spotify boasts a significant – and still growing – user base it can target with its 263mn subscribers worldwide (up 11% year on year) at end-2024 and 675mn monthly active users (a 12% increase). To make the pricier Music-Pro product more attractive to its global audience, Spotify is expected to include a range of sweeteners in addition to high-quality audio, such as exclusive promotional offers and early access to live performance events. It could prove an appealing package.
The sheer size and spread of the company’s audience, along with its marketing acumen, will ensure that UHD audio will benefit a higher global profile once Spotify HiFi comes onstream. If it’s made available on an initial free-trial basis, that could well persuade music fans of the benefits of superior sound, while also attracting those who have yet to sign up to Spotify because of a dearth of UHD services.
Better sound quality could also give a boost to Spotify’s growing audiobook business as one quarter of its paying subscribers now listen in to published titles. Podcasting platform Himalaya Media is already in the game and has collaborated with UWA to launch a series of spatial audio books in the new-generation Audio Vivid format. Among the initial titles on offer were Nirvana in Fire and Dune: The Original.
Early Spotify HiFi adopters will probably include dedicated music aficionados such as classical music and jazz devotees, as well as record collector types, ie, all those who place great emphasis on the quality of recordings. Huawei Music and Beijing KUKE Music Co see the opportunity here and have been busy creating spatial audio versions of classical music and traditional Chinese music recordings based on the Audio Vivid standard.
And those audiophiles with HD audio systems – likely a majority – will get the full listening benefit of these developments. Others might be tempted to invest in new equipment that make the most of top-grade audio, such as high-end speakers, home sound bars, gaming consoles and smart TVs.
Spotify will also put its high-fidelity offering on the road as one in four Spotify subscribers say they do most of their listening in their vehicles. Other major streamers are showing the way here, with NetEase Cloud Music having recently partnered with automaker Chery in China to slot UHD sound based on Audio Vivid in the premium Exeed Sterra ET electric vehicle.
Spotify supports streaming to devices through its Spotify Connect feature that enables customers to use their smartphone or tablet to cast audio to secondary devices in the home, with the streaming supported by the playback equipment. Such ease of use, in tandem with the studio-quality reproduction of recordings could provide listeners with a healthy appetite for good sound quality that brings them closer to the music.