Spotify's Hi-Fi Feature Has Been Placed "On Hold"

Spotify’s high fidelity audio tier was expected to be one of the biggest developments in music streaming last year, but it failed to materialize — and don’t plan on it coming soon.

According to Billboard citing an update posted to Spotify’s community board, Spotify HiFi is now on hold. “We know that HiFi quality audio is important to you,” the statement reads. “We feel the same, and we’re excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users in the future. But we don’t have timing details to share yet. We will of course update you here when we can.”

Announced in Feb. 2021 during the company’s Stream On event promised five things about the forthcoming experience:

• High-quality music streaming is consistently one of the most requested new features by our users.
• Spotify HiFi will deliver music in CD-quality, lossless audio format to your device and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers, which means fans will be able to experience more depth and clarity while enjoying their favorite tracks.
• Ubiquity is at the core of everything we do at Spotify, and we’re working with some of the world’s biggest speaker manufacturers to make Spotify HiFi accessible to as many fans as possible through Spotify Connect. 
• HiFi will be coupled with Spotify’s seamless user experience, building on our commitment to make sure users can listen to the music they love in the way they want to enjoy it. 
• Spotify HiFi will begin rolling out in select markets later this year, and we will have more details to share soon.  

Soon after Spotify’s Stream On event, however, Apple Music entered the high fidelity race by announcing its “Spatial Audio” tier with Dolby Atmos on the morning of May 17, 2021. The lossless service, notably, came at no additional cost to its users and began the following month. Later that day, Amazon Music followed suit, declaring that its HD tier would now also be free for all users.