It is official: 2021 is the year of lossless streaming. It's taken years and huge leaps in technology, but it's finally getting easier to listen to high-quality audio without taking out the record player or CD player. That's because the two biggest music streaming services, Apple Music and Spotify, have gotten in the mix — well, we're still waiting for Spotify to roll out its hi-fi service — and it's forced all the legacy lossless streaming services, like Tidal, Amazon, Qobuz and Deezer, to take notice.
The other great thing that this competition has caused — it's more affordable to get lossless streaming. Since Apple is introducing a lossless tier to Apple Music at no extra cost (an Apple Music subscription is $10/month), it's forced the hands of other streaming services. Tidal, Amazon Music HD, Deezer and Qobuz made their lossless streaming subscriptions cheaper.
If you're interested in upping your music subscription so that you can listen to CD-quality (or better) audio, we've rounded up the lossless streaming services that will allow you to do just that.
Apple Music
Apple has just enabled its new lossless quality options in Apple Music, letting subscribers turn up the quality of their tunes at additional cost. That instantly makes a $10/month subscription to Apple Music one of the best deals in lossless streaming. To make this lossless streaming possible, Apple has introduced a new proprietary codec called ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), which starts streaming at CD quality (16bit / 44.1kHz) and this audio quality will play natively on all Apple devices, such as iPhones, iPads and Macs.
The service will also be able to play higher-resolution audio files, up to 24-bit / 192 kHz), but you'll need to have an external DAC that supports it to experience them. Also, Lossless audio only works over a wired connection but AirPods Max do not support Lossless even when in wired mode.
Additionally, Apple Music will be able to spatial audio and Dolby Atmos tracks, for listeners craving that more immersive experience. (Note: only Apple's newest devices will support these spatial audio and Dolby Atmos tracks.)
To turn it on:
• Go to Apple Music
• Go to the menu bar and select Music > Preferences
• Select the Playback tab
• Under Audio Quality, enable or disable Lossless
Number of lossless tracks: 75 million (by end of 2021)
Max streaming quality: 16bit / 192kHz
Supported formats: AAC, ALAC
Price: $10/month (3-month free trial for new users)
Tidal HiFi
As of November 2021, Tidal has split its subscription service into three different tiers. The's Tidal Free, an ad-supported service that plays way-less-than lossless tracks (up to 160kbps). There's Tidal HiFi, which costs $10/month and lets you listen to more than 80 million tracks in lossless CD quality sound (up to 1411kbps). And finally there's Tidal HiFi Plus which costs $20/month and additionally lets you listen to Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) certified tracks (up to 24bit/96kHz) as well as audio tracks like 360 Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos Music. The big advantage to subscribing to Tidal HiFi and Tidal HiFi Plus is that you get access to artist exclusives, music videos and live concerts.
Number of lossless tracks: over 80 million
Max streaming quality: 24bit / 96kHz (if you subscribe to Tidal HiFi Plus)
Supported formats: AAC, ALAC, FLAC
Price: $10/month (30-day free trial for new users)
Amazon Music HD
Amazon launched its lossless streaming service (Amazon Music HD) in the fall of 2019, and it has two big selling points. First, it's affordable; it costs $8/month for Prime members (or $10/month for non-Prime members). And secondly, it allows you to listen to really high resolution audio. There are two different tiers of lossless audio to choose from. There are “High Definition” tracks, which are roughly CD quality, there are "Ultra HD" tracks, which are 24-bit/192kHz and the highest-resolution audio that’s available for streamers.
Number of lossless tracks: over 60 million of “High Definition” tracks; millions of "Ultra HD" tracks
Max streaming quality: 24bit /192kHz
Supported formats: FLAC
Price: $13/month for Prime members; $15/month for everybody else (90-day free trial for new users)
Deezer HiFi
Deezer is another excellent lossless streaming service that gives you the ability to play lossless CD-quality FLAC files. It has had to adjust its plans and pricing (because of Apple Music), but the Deezer HiFi plan is still the best option for audio lovers. The downside is that it doesn't support Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) tracks like Tidal's $20/month plan.
Number of lossless tracks: over 73 million tracks
Max streaming quality: 16bit / 44.1kHz
Supported formats: FLAC
Price: $15/month ($2 for first two months)
Qobuz
Qobuz is one of the best lossless streaming services because of its intuitive app and large catalog of lossless and ultra-high-resolution tracks. (If you're looking for the best quality audio, Qobuz and Amazon Music HD are your two best options.) The only real downside of Qobuz is that it lacks some of the additional features — like auto-generated radio stations, a karaoke mode and music videos — that other lossless streaming services have.
Number of lossless tracks: over 70 million tracks
Max streaming quality: 24bit /192kHz
Supported formats: AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, WMA Lossless
Price: $10.83/month (30-day free trial for new users)
Spotify HiFi
Spotify's first lossless streaming service, Spotify Hifi, was announced earlier in 2021 and it's supposed to launch before the start of 2022 — but it's not here yet. Also, not a lot is known about Spotify HiFi just yet, other then it will deliver "CD-quality" audio and work really well with Spotify Connect-enabled speakers (which is most wireless speakers). There is no news on how large its lossless music catalog will be. And we do not yet know pricing.
Number of lossless tracks: TBA
Max streaming quality: TBA (but we're guessing 24bit / 96kHz)
Supported formats: TBA
Price: TBA
