However, most popular audio streaming services still default to lossy compression audio - MP3, in Spotify (opens in a new tab)'s case, and AAC, in Apple's case. Connections are faster and hard drives are big and cheap. MP3 was a brilliant invention, allowing people to transfer decent-sounding audio online in the early 2000s, when connections were slow and hard drives were small. It works by removing the sounds that humans can't hear anyway, such as very high- or low-frequency sounds, and using a bunch of other tricks, such as merging the audio data from the left and right stereo channel into one. The beauty of MP3 is the ability to take an uncompressed audio file - say, a file in WAV format - and reduce its size tenfold, while still sounding pretty good.

To understand the term, we need to go back to the MP3 format, which popularized lossy compression - that is, audio data compression that results in some data loss, but ideally produces much smaller files. Other music streaming services, such as Tidal, have offered lossless streaming for years.īut do you really need this feature? Even more importantly, is it worth upgrading your audio equipment to fully enjoy the benefits of lossless audio? And if so, which speakers or headphones should you get? Read on. Apple will offer it in June, and Spotify will offer it.well, we're not sure yet, but probably very soon. Apple Music and Spotify both announced they will offer lossless audio streaming.

When does spotify hifi come out