Swedish audio streaming and media services provider, Spotify officially launched in Kenya this week while also announcing a new high-end subscription service called Spotify HiFi.
The company said Spotify HiFi will be available to Spotify Premium subscribers and will bring music in “CD-quality, lossless audio format,” giving Spotify better music quality than competitors like Deezer.
But do you Kenyans really need to pay for the new subscription? At the moment, Spotify Premium streams at a maximum of 320 kbps on the app and 256 kbps on the web. Listening to both I’m willing to bet most people can’t even tell apart a lossless file from a 256 kbps one.
There are many blind tests out there that will let you compare audio formats, like Digital Feed ABX test which compares Spotify’s 320 kbps streaming against a lossless file, did you pass?
However, scientists believe that simply believing that a certain upgrade or key specification will make something better is often more likely to cause an ‘improvement’ without any actual change, so If you consider yourself an audiophile, you will still pay for the new subscription.
