With Spotify once again hinting at the possibility of a long-awaited hi-fi tier, the streaming music wars have flared up again in our house. I’m ready to ditch Spotify for better sound quality, but my family is ready to stick with lo-fi.
My wife, 13-year-old daughter, and I have been part of the Spotify family for years. But while we all agree that the Swedish streaming service’s UI, music discovery, and wealth of extra features are far superior to its competitors, I’ve grown accustomed to the soothing sounds of lossless and hi-res audio, and have had to watch, gritting my teeth, as other music services add more and more to their platform. I’m sick of it.
But Derek, what if you ditched Spotify and switched over?
You switch. I’ve stopped switching. Trust me, I’ve tried. I’m an A/V journalist with access to evaluation trials of every major service. I’ve explained ad nauseam the benefits of lossless audio over Spotify’s sub-320kbps quality, and using apps like SongShift and Switcheroo to transfer family playlists made the switch easy for my family, too.
Derek Malcolm / Digital Trends
But none of them are listening. My family can’t or doesn’t want to get out of Spotify prison. They’re happy with the audio. And more importantly, they’re obsessed with the UI and ease of use. Stockholm syndrome, that is.
I get it. Most people (including my family) don’t notice or want to notice the difference between Spotify’s lossless stream quality and the lossless CD quality of nearly every other service, let alone hi-res audio (Spotify’s CEO has said as much). You could also argue that most people don’t even have the right audio equipment to take advantage of lossless or hi-res audio, but that’s moot.
Long story short, now that I’ve noticed the difference, there’s no going back. And I’m upset that at this point I have to give up a streaming service that I really love just for subpar sound quality. Plus, I’m tired of having CEO Daniel Ek (and the media) dangling it in my face since 2021. I’m sick of it.
Derek Malcolm / Digital Trends
“We have a significant portion of our 246 million subscribers who want a better version of Spotify,” Ek said on the earnings call on Wednesday. “They’re passionate music fans, and they’re primarily looking for more flexibility in how they use Spotify and the music features that Spotify has.” And they’re right.
Call me Mr. Good Subset, I can’t hold my hands up any more, and before I risk another family-friendly streaming service coup, Mr. Ek, hi-fi please.
