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Business News Digital
Spotify to offer ‘CD quality’ streaming
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 23 June 2009
If last week’s rash of adverts voiced by increasingly irritating people didn’t get you to move over to Spotify’s premium ad-free pay-to-use service, maybe this will. The streaming music platform has announced that those who pay will soon have access to ‘CD quality’ music.
Premium customers will get their music in the 320kbps Ogg format, which pretty much equates to CD quality, while the everyone else will continue to get 160kbps streams. Initially only popular tracks will be available in the high quality format, with the rest of the catalogue being converted in the coming weeks.
Announcing the new service, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said: “Providing great sound quality has always been an important goal for us. Now, we’re taking the next step in offering an unparalleled listening experience”.
And he’s right, they are, though those of you listening to Spotify through cheapo computer speakers probably won’t be able to tell the difference. Which may be the flaw in this method of persuading people to pay for premium Spotify. Unlike with high quality TV, the general population have, for the most part, not yet been convinced that high quality music streaming, and the hardware needed to properly receive it, is something they need to invest in. Possibly because there’s more novelty value in being able to see every wrinkle on ‘Last Of The Summer Wine’ than being able to hear the bassist fart halfway through your favourite song.
