If you own a pair of the best headphones or the best true wireless earbuds, you're probably aware of the limitations of your favourite streaming services: quality that sounds pretty good on an okay pair of phones or buds can sound considerably less so on high quality models. That's definitely the case with Spotify, whose best quality setting, the Very High setting, is currently 320kbps AAC. That's good, but it could still be better – which is why Spotify has been planning to roll out a higher quality service for a slightly increased price.
We've been hearing about this for a long time, but it seems that Spotify is preparing to actually launch it: as one Redditor found when they went to cancel their account, Spotify is asking some users if they'd be interested in signing up to Spotify Platinum in the "next 30 days" and listing all the features of a plan that officially doesn't exist.
What will be in the Spotify Platinum plan?
According to the sorry-you're-leaving survey, Spotify Platinum will cost $19.99 a month for one user (roughly £17 / AU$29) and deliver the following: "HiFi, Studio Sound, Headphone Tuner, Audio Insights, Library Pro, Playlist Pro" and "Limited-ad Spotify podcasts". There's no indication of whether there will also be a Family option, but as this was served to someone cancelling an individual rather than a family account that doesn't mean there isn't one.
That's quite pricey compared to the likes of Apple Music, which includes lossless audio as standard – something that many industry watchers believe surprised Spotify and made them delay their higher-res plans – and which is even cheaper as part of an Apple One bundle, but I suspect the target market here is people who are already long-term Spotify subscribers who want high resolution audio and don't mind paying a bit more for it.
Officially we have no idea when Spotify Platinum is launching, but it certainly looks as if Spotify is putting the final pieces of its Platinum service into place. I'd expect an announcement very soon.
