After years of waiting and speculation, it looks like Spotify is finally getting an addition that will change the way I listen to music every day. No, not another Taylor Swift album (we can dream) but improved sound quality.
A Spotify hi-fi tier seems to finally be coming and as someone who uses the music streaming service every day, it will change my life. As my friends and co-workers know, I pretty much always have my headphones in, and while my musical tastes might not be particularly 'heavy' (although some of Swift's songs go pretty hard) I like to have it loud.
I have never gelled with in-ear headphones. Either I just cannot get the tips to sit in my ear for more than five seconds, or I feel like I'm digging into my brain. As a result my flat headphones often leak a lot of noise, with co-workers often able to hear what I'm listening to. Hopefully, with higher-quality sound, I won't have to crank the volume so loud to make out the lyrics and musical nuances, and I won't have to pick only songs that my co-workers won't silently judge me for.
The high-fidelity audio is supposedly going to be gated behind a new "superpremium" tier, but even if it's double the price, £20 a month for something I use for hours every day is still good value.
Critics will argue that the likes of Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal have been offering hi-res sound for a while now, but at this point, I'm invested in Spotify. It has all of my embarrassing teenage playlists, over 4000 songs that I've saved offline and subscriptions to my favourite podcasts. Plus the algorithm knows what I like, even the AI DJ seems to get me. Why mess with that?
Of course, if you're not using some of the best headphones you'll struggle to appreciate the difference in sound quality on the new subscription level, so it might be time to upgrade. Audiobook fans may also be in luck with the new plan said to also include a number of free Audiobooks each month.
