Lossless Listening Arrives on Spotify Premium

[PristineSound]

I would assume their internal infrastructure already was based on lossless music that then got downsampled into lossy OggVorbis... it would be a really bad practice to convert from a lossy format to another lossy format, that deteriorates SQ quickly.

I don't know and you don't know. But I work in the tech industry and I assure you that there is significant cost to do this.

You have no idea how many people think storage is cheap just because they can buy a 8TB hard drive for $250. That's just not how enterprise scale and grade works.

Anyway, all of this is moot, they did not charge extra. If they did, depending on how much, I would pay for it.

All of this talk about artists getting ripped off is fully blamed on streaming companies is getting out of hand. I don't want to repeat myself like a broken record, I talked about this topic here.

 

[Grimoire]

My signature is to pledge my allegiance to science. What does ones opinion on what should and shouldn't be legal and political activism have anything to do with science? In fact why are you talking politics here?

Rogan has no affiliation to the truth, and yet you are HAPPY to bankroll him via your subscription. A pledge to science is nothing if you support anti-scientists in any way.

Your signature should read "I defend everything about science and the truth until I find it a bit too difficult."

 

[PristineSound]

Rogan has no affiliation to the truth, and yet you are HAPPY to bankroll him via your subscription. A pledge to science is nothing if you support anti-scientists in any way.

Your signature should read "I defend everything about science and the truth until I find it a bit too difficult."

First of all, do you know that Joe Rogan talks a wide range of topics? More than half of the topics is some random BS, such as show biz.

Second, he has all sorts of celebrity and renown scientists on his podcast show.

Third, I don't listen to his show, although I have seen some of it on YouTube, but if I did, you mean to tell me that I am not allowed to watch a man express his stupid opinions?

Forth, just because someone has a subscription to Spotify, doesn't mean they listen or support Joe Rogan, there is the Ezra Klein show, Science Vs., BBC, FT and audiobooks. And no, I am not an activist (and proud of it) to unsubscribe from Spotify because of Joe Rogan.

 

[Grimoire]

Your signature of "I pledge my allegiance to science and for all which it stands, universal truths and knowledge under physics, biology, chemistry and math," does not allow you to be a person that actively supports a platform that promotes BS whenever it thinks that it can make a buck out of it.

Yet you, by your own words, do.

Be ashamed.

 

[PristineSound]

Your signature of "I pledge my allegiance to science and for all which it stands, universal truths and knowledge under physics, biology, chemistry and math," does not allow you to be a person that actively supports a platform that promotes BS whenever it thinks that it can make a buck out of it.

Yet you, by your own words, do.

Be ashamed.

There's not a lot of logic what you just said, anyway, I need to update my credit card on Spotify. . .with a big old smile on my face.

 

[Grimoire]

There's not a lot of logic what you just said, anyway, I need to update my credit card on Spotify. . .with a big old smile on my face.

A facile response from a facile individual is exactly what I was expecting.

 

[PristineSound]

A facile response from a facile individual is exactly what I was expecting.

Post #143 was the response, you just couldn't comprehend.

Just in case you missed it, ASR does not stand for Activism Stickler Review.

 

[xray]

I just got a new BluOS update for Spotify lossless improvements.

BluOS 4.12.4​

• Qobuz Connect support
• Queue Builder Mode
• Initial support for the Bluesound POWERNODE (2025)
• Improved Spotify Lossless
• Improved accessibility support in BluOS Controller iOS/Android

Just got notification, installing now

 

[gvl]

That's a layup to do a blind test with a friend, to investigate whether you can hear differences and determine the correct quality of the streaming.

These days I’m more interested in my tinnitus playing nice over the differences between lossless and 320kbps.

Also I can’t quite take full advantage of Spotify lossless as my streaming solutions at home don’t support it. Well, there’s the Windows app but it still doesn’t support exclusive mode so the point is moot. About the only way I can properly access lossless is on my iPhone to an external DAC, but Android users are SOL due to mandatory resampling. I guess I can get a WiiM or another streamer, but it’s fairly low on my priority list.

 

[shuppatsu]

Few cents per customer? I don't think you have a lot of experience in this field. Such cost is expensive.

Let’s break it down.

Storage: peanuts. Yes, I know it costs more than a few $150 shucked hard drives from Best Buy thrown into a couple JBODs. But look, they have 268M Premium customers. They claim to have 100M+ songs in their catalog. Conservatively at 4 minutes a track, compressed to FLAC we’re talking about less than 2 petabytes of data. That’s about 7MB per premium customer. Peanuts, even if you multiply by 1,000.

Devs: Peanuts. C’mon. All the work is already done. Supporting FLAC programmatically is easy. Any extra work you think it might need, divide by 268M.

CDN distribution. Ah, where the real costs lie. Or do they? I could not find the mean usage for Spotify customers. But sites I saw put the average for North America at ~160 minutes per month (the highest) and < 100 minutes per month in Europe (the lowest). But Europe is also their biggest market. So let’s be conservative and split it, 130 minutes per day. At FLAC rates, that’s 688MB - 312MB (current 320kbps Vorbis) = +376MB per user per day.

Let’s multiply that by a year. 137GB. Boy, that seems like a lot! How much does it cost to distribute that worldwide through a big CDN network?

The honest truth is, I don’t know. Here’s what I do know. Spotify is one of the largest media streamers in the world. They have incredible bargaining power. Meanwhile, for smaller players doing media streaming, the marginal cost goes down to as low as $2/TB. So at 137GB per person per year, at the unnegotiated rate for smaller users, that’s an additional $0.27 per customer per year.

Now undoubtedly I’ve underestimated some things. Please use your unrivaled experience in the tech industry to tell me why my figures off by more than a factor of 10.

(Brandolini’s law strikes again)

Also Spotify offers thing services in their products that other streaming services does not offer.

I know! And I’m paying for it!

Also, this whole Joe Rogan and military talk is too woke for some people, myself included. (1) Joe Rogan gets what he gets, if he didn't deserved it, he wouldn't get it. He's getting what he gets because Spotify feels it's a good business decision (2) you can take your political activism to another forum that talks politics.

Re-read what I wrote and tell me where and how I injected politics into the discussion. Then re-read what you wrote and tell me how you didn’t.

While you’re at it, you can give me your definition of woke because I know three working definitions in common use and I’m none of them. Thanks to a contentious Facebook group with alumni and current students at my old school, I was “anti-woke” in 2013, long before the term had escaped containment and became a byword in certain circles for “everything I don’t like.” (That’s the third of three definitions, politely expressed.)

 

[DanielT]

These days I’m more interested in my tinnitus playing nice over the differences between lossless and 320kbps.

Also I can’t quite take full advantage of Spotify lossless as my streaming solutions at home don’t support it. Well, there’s the Windows app but it still doesn’t support exclusive mode so the point is moot. About the only way I can properly access lossless is on my iPhone to an external DAC, but Android users are SOL due to mandatory resampling. I guess I can get a WiiM or another streamer, but it’s fairly low on my priority list.

Maybe the fact that WiiM now also includes RoomFit, automatic room correction, with the mini model can entice you to buy? If that feature appeals to you?

Introducing RoomFit™ Settings

TABLE OF CONTENTS Target Curve Frequency Range Max Gain Min Gain Max Q Non-Boost Mode Built-in Mic Compensation External Mic Calibration Subwoofer Calibration Moving Mic Measurement (Beta) Smoothing Multiple Measurements (Beta) Wi...

faq.wiimhome.com

I think it works well. However, if you want to "sharpen" the measurements, it probably makes sense to have a calibrated measurement microphone, which you can use with Wiim.In any case, some user impressions of RoomFit with Wiim Mini in this thread:

Post in thread 'Wiim Mini Room correction'

Sep 21, 2025

I got my Wiim Mini earlier this week and everything works as it should with Tidal Connect.
One interesting thing about the Wiim mini is the basic room correction.
I tried this with both an iPhone and an older Android phone, and it made quite a difference in the sound.
Today I will compare the sound between Tidal Connect with and without correction, and the same music via CD and Vinyl.
Have any of you tested and heard the difference between the Wiim Mini with and without correction and then with the same music via CD or Vinyl?

Do you mean compare songs with and without RoomFit? You...

• DanielT

• 

 

[PristineSound]

First, I am familiar with smaller scale projects and not specifically about music streaming at the scale of Spotify, so I won't even attempt to break down the cost for Spotify as I don't want to come across underestimating too, but I will dabble into my experience with smaller scale projects.

Let’s break it down.

Storage: peanuts. Yes, I know it costs more than a few $150 shucked hard drives from Best Buy thrown into a couple JBODs. But look, they have 268M Premium customers. They claim to have 100M+ songs in their catalog. Conservatively at 4 minutes a track, compressed to FLAC we’re talking about less than 2 petabytes of data. That’s about 7MB per premium customer. Peanuts, even if you multiply by 1,000.

That is the misconception. This is enterprise storage, you have not accounted for growth, overhead, data tiering, buffer, archiving, etc. I have seen 4x to 6x times of the raw storage needs in some of the projects I worked on.

Now, let's keep adding things up. . .

Devs: Peanuts. C’mon. All the work is already done. Supporting FLAC programmatically is easy. Any extra work you think it might need, divide by 268M.

That is just silly talk here, I will give you an analogy why. If you have a car that was engineered for a 4 cylinder engine, can you just drop a 6 cylinder engine into it and expect it to work properly? No, you have to redesign the suspension, because the 6 cylinder is heavier, you have to redesign the transmission to handle the extra HP and torque. Is the engine bay big enough? And we don't even know if the weight balance would be an issue for handling without doing a full assessment. Oh, is the frame strong enough to handle the extra power? You need a full assessment.

Once you reengineer all of that, you have to test it, who the hell knows what would come out of that test. You now need to reengineer the production line to accommodate a new engine. Government regulations? The list goes on and on.

This is the biggest misconception in software engineering, just because one knows how to write "hello world" they all of a sudden think that everything is easy.

The honest truth is, I don’t know. Here’s what I do know. Spotify is one of the largest media streamers in the world. They have incredible bargaining power. Meanwhile, for smaller players doing media streaming, the marginal cost goes down to as low as $2/TB. So at 137GB per person per year, at the unnegotiated rate for smaller users, that’s an additional $0.27 per customer per year.

Now undoubtedly I’ve underestimated some things. Please use your unrivaled experience in the tech industry to tell me why my figures off by more than a factor of 10.

The bold says it all, you don't know, yet you are saying it's a few cents per customer?

Like everything here, it's hard to come up with a their cost of CDN because we just don't have enough data, CDN do range quite a bit depending on region, some regions particularly outside of North America and Europe can be multiple times more.

Re-read what I wrote and tell me where and how I injected politics into the discussion. Then re-read what you wrote and tell me how you didn’t.

Unless there is another user with the same user name.

While you’re at it, you can give me your definition of woke

In this case, you are coming to an audio forum to be an political activist on social woes. Please keep all politics out of this forum.

 

[shuppatsu]

That is the misconception. This is enterprise storage, you have not accounted for growth, overhead, data tiering, buffer, archiving, etc. I have seen 4x to 6x times of the raw storage needs in some of the projects I worked on.

What misconception? I said 7MB baseline, peanuts even if you multiply by 1,000. I was factoring massive amounts of overhead, redundancy, you name it. Meanwhile you say you’ve seen projects take 6x baseline for raw storage. Wow, 42MB. The costs must be brutal.

That is just silly talk here, I will give you an analogy why. If you have a car that was engineered for a 4 cylinder engine, can you just drop a 6 cylinder engine into it and expect it to work properly?

This really makes me question your understanding of how software works. Just what do you do in tech? I haven’t written software for money since the 90s, but you’ve got to be kidding me. FLAC is open source, royalty-free. It was released in 2001, which means it’s unencumbered by any potential patent claims; it’s its own prior art.

Spotify’s app is built on Electron, which embeds Chome and uses Chrome’s media API. Which already supports FLAC. Car analogies are always bad, but it’s really inapt here. If anything, it’d be more like: the 4-cylinder car has always had more power, but the car company limited the boost because then it would make the same power as the 6-cylinder car. That analogy breaks down too, because all car analogies are bad.

Unless there is another user with the same user name.

Yes, tell me how that is injecting politics into the conversation? I didn’t say Rogan was bad. Even if I did, how is that politics? Please be specific, and while you’re at it show me how it doesn’t apply to what you’ve written.

And you haven’t told me yet what you mean when you say “woke.” I’m genuinely curious.

 

[shuppatsu]

Oh, and I forgot.

The bold says it all, you don't know, yet you are saying it's a few cents per customer?

Like everything here, it's hard to come up with a their cost of CDN because we just don't have enough data, CDN do range quite a bit depending on region, some regions particularly outside of North America and Europe can be multiple times more.

Look, dude, you’re the one who came at me. You claimed with your vaunted experience you knew my numbers couldn’t be the case. So put them up. I showed you mine you show me yours.

But also, just because I said I don’t know, doesn’t mean the number could be anything. The number I quoted is probably on the high side given Spitifies massive bargaining power and economies of scale. I’m just trying not to get over my skis, meanwhile you’re confidently putting people down without showing your work at all.

 

[PristineSound]

What misconception? I said 7MB baseline, peanuts even if you multiply by 1,000. I was factoring massive amounts of overhead, redundancy, you name it. Meanwhile you say you’ve seen projects take 6x baseline for raw storage. Wow, 42MB. The costs must be brutal.

This really makes me question your understanding of how software works. Just what do you do in tech? I haven’t written software for money since the 90s, but you’ve got to be kidding me. FLAC is open source, royalty-free. It was released in 2001, which means it’s unencumbered by any potential patent claims; it’s its own prior art.

Spotify’s app is built on Electron, which embeds Chome and uses Chrome’s media API. Which already supports FLAC. Car analogies are always bad, but it’s really inapt here. If anything, it’d be more like: the 4-cylinder car has always had more power, but the car company limited the boost because then it would make the same power as the 6-cylinder car. That analogy breaks down too, because all car analogies are bad.


Yes, tell me how that is injecting politics into the conversation? I didn’t say Rogan was bad. Even if I did, how is that politics? Please be specific, and while you’re at it show me how it doesn’t apply to what you’ve written.

And you haven’t told me yet what you mean when you say “woke.” I’m genuinely curious.

Everything I needed to say, is already said including the wokeness and you bringing politics into an audio forum. I will end it, no one else needs to see an aisle clean up. But please take all of your politics out of here.

 

[gvl]

Maybe the fact that WiiM now also includes RoomFit, automatic room correction, with the mini model can entice you to buy? If that feature appeals to you?

Maybe, I’m going to hold off for now in hopes they will eventually allow it over the CCA or the LMS folks update their Spotify plugin to support lossless. I’m also paying for Qobuz, so my lossless needs are covered

 

[pablolie]

I don't know and you don't know. But I work in the tech industry and I assure you that there is significant cost to do this.

You have no idea how many people think storage is cheap just because they can buy a 8TB hard drive for $250. That's just not how enterprise scale and grade works.

Anyway, all of this is moot, they did not charge extra. If they did, depending on how much, I would pay for it.

All of this talk about artists getting ripped off is fully blamed on streaming companies is getting out of hand. I don't want to repeat myself like a broken record, I talked about this topic here.

I work in high tech myself. Storage isn't "cheap" because it needs to be managed, optimized, protected and distributed for reliability etc. The cost of hard disks etc is actually not a key factor - I seem to recall that's around 25% of enterprise storage solution cost. Not negligible, but not the biggest issue, either.

And I am not sure why you are telling me about artists being ripped off. I am a happy Spotify customer, and artists are adults and if they sign the dotted line to have their music on Spotify, hey, it's their free choice.

 

[PristineSound]

And I am not sure why you are telling me about artists being ripped off. I am a happy Spotify customer, and artists are adults and if they sign the dotted line to have their music on Spotify, hey, it's their free choice.

Sorry, I was not telling you, I was expressing my frustration with so many others here talking about artists pay, blaming evil record companies and streaming services as if they should be a non-for-profit charity, people being political activists going on an audio forum telling others to not subscribe to Spotify, etc. These people are ridiculous.

 

[Moti]

Spotify operates the bit stream wisely. I checked my wife´s App (iOS) and she had the automatic bit rate scaling on and not the highest quality chosen. I believe that these are the default settings. And I believe that 90% (quess) of the global premium users use the default settings. When lossless arrives this 90% of the users continues with the same data speed as today.

 

[tccalvin]

First few tests are in:

Thoughts?