Spotify HiFi is coming!

Over on the Naim forum it is being reported that Spotify dropped a statement that HiFi CD quality streaming is officially coming!
A quick Google search reveals that this is TRUE!

Best
Gregg

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absolutely.looking forward to it.

@James @Andrew
would this work out of the box with dcs or it would need some work and software update from your side

Useless if it is limited to CD quality…when they stream hi res like Qobuz and Tidal, then it might be interesting.

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For me Tidal will be the first to go. They are in the process of converting their entire HiRes catalogue to MQA. I will take plain old vanilla Redbook any day of the week.

As for Qobuz and any other streaming company Spotify by far has the largest number of albums available and the most robust system of user playlists etc.

Can you expand on this e.g. provide a link? As far as I am aware the only HiRes (meaning higher resolution than redbook) that they have is already MQA encoded. AFAIK they are simply asking their partners to send them repertoire in the highest available quality encoded in MQA. They cannot encode it themselves as it requires access to the master recording (whatever that actually means).

Does this project now significantly extend in reality beyond the catalogues of Warners and UMG ?

Pete
There is a multi hundred page thread on the Roon forum dedicated to this issue. It seems as though Tidal is moving towards a predominantly MQA library.
Participants on that thread have commented that previously available Redbook files are being replaced with MQA versions.

The only thing I know is that many new releases on Tidal appear as MQA. I realize they do not encode themselves and only post what they are supplied with by the record labels. It appears that this is part of their ultimate endgame and “niche” to distinguish themselves.

Many thanks for the information.

Or extinguish themselves :thinking:

it’s going to be CD quality only but that is absolutely fine.
more music , more content is always good to have.
plus i listen to a lot music from india which is not that much available in tidal and qobuz

The biggest thing for dCS users, and Naim and Linn (I use all three) and others, is that the party will not end for us and there will be a continuing supply of full resolution music. I remember years ago, before the existence of Tidal, Qobuz etc., when it was speculated that compressed music was all the public needed.

Today’s announcement that the elephant in the room is now entering the full res. market is nothing but amazing news. I have 7k lp’s on the shelves and another 3k of CD’s. I effectively stopped buying music several years ago. It saves me boatloads of money - and allows me to pay my monthly subscription charges to Tidal,Qobuz,Spotify and Apple Music.
Four subscriptions you ask? Unfortunately yes. I am an original subscriber to pre Tidal since inception, my kids only use Spotify, Apple music keeps my 5 Homepods happy, and Qobuz gives me hi res non MQA. Even at $70 a month I am still saving boatloads of money

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I know you do not like Roon, and Tidal, and prefer Mosaic and Qobuz.

But do you really like your dislikes to them to lead to them to be extinguished?

My comment was related to gelevethan’s comment :

The idea of making MQA your USP by offering it exclusively seems risky when one considers Tidal’s current market positioning, the lack of general public knowledge of hi-res, the need to own special equipment to decode it when Tidal is effectively the sole purveyor of MQA encoded tracks to the Western world. After 8 years MQA seems to have gained little other traction. Yes there is a streaming service in China using it and some boutique labels in Japan producing encoded CDs where silver disc still reigns . As far as I can tell even after all this time nearly all MQA encoded material is still supplied to Tidal from only two major record companies , both of whom own an interest in MQA . To me there seems to be a kind of parallel with with the trajectory and ultimate failure of HD DVD. Nothing at all to do with my personal choices.

BTW I do not dislike Roon. I just do not yet see what benefit it offers me. Further I have difficulty in seeing how I can house a device to run Roon Core in the limited space that I have available. However I do keep a close watch on it awaiting a " light bulb" moment.

I guess you are not interested in building your own Intel NUC, or buying a Roon Nucleus, but there are good and very small alternatives to run a Roon server:

Dimensions: 24.7 x 24.0 x 3.8cm (W x D x H)

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Thank you so much for that suggestion. It isn’t so much a question of being interested in building my own intel NUC. I simply don’t think that I possess the necessary skills. However your suggestion is very interesting and I will investigate further ( assuming that I can find a reason for wanting Roon in the first place) as I hope that I could tuck that box away somewhere.

As for finding that reason I guess that the best move would be to try it out using the free trial period. But then I have a chicken and egg problem. Do I just buy that server in the hope that it will all work out out or do I need to find another way of experiencing Roon? I have a 13" laptop that could sit on top of the Rossini Transport for the duration ( the latter switched off of course) . It has enough power to run Roon Core but no RJ45 port. So I would need to use an HDMI /ethernet converter and I am not sure that wouldn’t invalidate the experiment from an SQ standpoint? Would it be a good idea?

I have no experience with those. But just to run a Roon trial, you could use USB out. It will give you an impression of Roon, but without the ultimate SQ of ethernet play. If you indeed would like Roon, then you could move on to a tiny server.

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Not even one subscription to Deezer ? :laughing:

I have only two subscriptions, Tidal and Qobuz, and as in your case, it saves me a lot of money every month…I sold all my CDs, and sometimes I still buy some limited editions LPs.

It is true that Spotify coming to CD streaming shall stimulate the competition and normally, we should all benefit from that…we will see that in a few month. I do hope that Tidal and Qobuz will stay alive because it would be a pity if this competition ends up in a monopoly with an ultra low quality streaming service like Apple Music…

It is the best news of the year. Hope dCS has it implemented instantly

Without MQA it is a non-starter for me. Without integrating into Roon it isa no go too.

I wasn’t losing any sleep over the party ending anyway, but I agree this is good news. Never been a big fan of Spotify/Connect, but I sure like having choices. How this plays out for Roon, given their history, will be interesting. While I don’t care about MQA (and am vaguely bothered by what Tidal is doing), to Jim’s point, lack of Roon integration will be a problem, but only for us Roon users. :neutral_face:

Right now, this is just an announcement. And there could be many motivations behind it. The elephant always has motivations.

This.

and this.

and this…well not really (and I use Roon)