Recent leaks from Spotify"s latest v1.2.36 release appear to contain some references to the anticipated (and long in development) lossless audio feature known as Spotify HiFi. The tier, which was previously announced back in 2021, is designed to provide higher bitrate audio of up to 1,411kbps from a previous cap of 320kbps, as well as a device compatibility checker. The leak also further reinforces the rumour that HiFi is being rebranded, with names such as "enhanced listening" and "Lossless" being referred to interchangeably throughout.
There are a few other quality settings reported within the screenshots that have been uncovered, such as quality up to 2,117kbps but this is reported to consume 15.9MB of data per minute. It"s also shown to support up to 24-bit/44.1kHz for limited songs only via the FLAC audio format. These settings and features are reported in the Reddit post mentioned above to be visual only, with none of these actually doing anything for the time being.
There are also some prompts within the settings that show the device compatibility checker, a tool that would review a user"s device, connection type, and bandwidth to determine if it can support lossless audio. This is alongside advice stating that downloading in lossless gives the best quality, and most Bluetooth devices don"t support lossless sound fully, prompting users to use wired connections or Spotify Connect.
Rumors of Spotify introducing a higher subscription tier known as "Supremium" have been circulating for the past few months now with features such as AI playlist tools, listening stats similar to Last.fm, and the aforementioned lossless audio (which also referenced the HiFi name being changed) for a fee of $19.99 a month. Given that many of Spotify"s competitors have begun offering higher quality audio since the announcement, such as Amazon Music and Apple Music, the leak suggests that Spotify may be ready to finally launch this feature to the public.