Intro
Contents
The time has finally come: Spotify is offering Premium subscribers the option to listen to Lossless. This was preceded by many years of rumours and delayed product launches. Spotify rolled out the implementation cautiously and relatively low-key from September onwards. We have been listening for a while and would like to share our first impressions with you.
On 10 September 2025, Spotify announced that it would be possible to stream uncompressed music, specifically FLAC up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz. The company rolled out this upgrade gradually, and it took until October for the Lossless option to become available to us.
The setup
We listened to Spotify Lossless on our phone and on the Macbook Pro. We played music through the EarMen Stack (PSU-3 power supply, Tradutto DAC and CH-amp amplifier) and the EarMan Colibri portable DAC. Headphones: Yamaha YH-5000 headphones, Sennheiser 410SL, the Kiwi ears Astral IEM. Everything was wired because, as Spotify itself writes: due to Bluetooth compression, listening to audio via Bluetooth in Lossless format offers no added value.
In addition to Spotify, we play music via Audirvāna (Qobuz, Tidal, NAS) and via the Qobuz app.
Listening
We listened to a wide variety of music: classical, from chamber music to symphonic; jazz, from acoustic to electronic; and pop and rock from the 1950s to the present day. The difference with the “lossy” quality we are used to from Spotify (Ogg Vorbis codec, max 320 kbps) is immediately audible. There is a higher dynamic range in the music and, especially in the high frequencies, it sounds more defined and calmer. Definitely an improvement.
Even Qobuz connect sounds different than using Qbuz on the streamer itself (Eversolo DMP-A6 and Wiim Ultra). For me Spotify ‘losless’ is a great improvement, it sounds way better then before. Spotify is easier to find new music, with tv and music videos it is a decent option, the search function is better. But Qobuz still delivers on sound quality. since upgrading to Denafrips Enyo 15 and Iris 15 it is very audible what i give to the usb input on the Iris
Spotify lossless klingt voor geen meter.
Niet te vergelijken met qobus.
Wel wat beter dan dat het was.
Maar veel lijkt op mp3 maar net wat beter.
Grolloo radio klinkt veel beter🤣😅
If there are two companies storing all the streaming music then how do they get 44.1/24 for all the tracks when the files stored have various sample rates? Also early on we found that flow control really had a big impact on the SQ. The Amazon service had really poor flow control early on which meant the APP had to resample the music from a low quality stream to what the song’s sample and bit rate was suppose to be. Always more questions!
No idea about Spotify lossless — I use Qobuz as my main service and keep Tidal as a backup.
Here’s my question:
As you guys point out there seems to be a sound quality difference between different “lossless” streaming services.
… in this article you mention Spotify vs. Qobuz.
Any ideas why this would be the case? Normalization? Watermarking?
Me (and my brick’n mortar dealer as well) hear differences on some albums between FLAC versions of the same album, comparing Qobuz vs Tidal. Really strange.
I don’t believe that streaming services have the time to “optimize” different albums and would probably send out what they got from the artist or the artist’s distribution service of choice.
Any ideas what’s going on?
Normalisation of the sound (EQ) done by the streaming service and/or different profiles needed when mastering sound for a specific streaming service. See: https://www.sageaudio.com/articles/mastering-for-streaming-platform-loudness-and-normalization-explained
Thanks Martijn, that was an interesting read!
Ik heb van een YouTuber begrepen dat het niet volledig lossless is omdat Spotify geen direct stream heeft.
Tidal en anderen laten wel toe dat de thuis streamer de muziek stream 1op1 kunnen doorlaten. Maar bij Spotify is die mogelijkheid er niet en dus heb je toch nog een hardware handeling nodig in huis. Dat maakt het niet bit correct.
I think the YouTuber has gotten it a bit wrong, if her or she actually has said this.
The streamer runs Spotify connect software. It depends on the streamer manufacturer if they have embedded the latest code from Spotify in their own firmware or not. Naim has, for instance, Aurender has not (yet).
Yung did not test with Spotify Connect, as you can read, but the Spotify app playing on a Mac or Android phone to a connected DAC and headphones.