Audio Tech Blitz: Headphones & Speakers Hit High Notes (Sept 10–11, 2025)
September 10 brought a milestone for music streaming quality. Spotify Lossless is finally live, marking the service’s first foray into higher-than-CD fidelity. Branded simply as “Spotify Lossless,” the feature unlocks FLAC streaming at 24-bit/44.1 kHz for Premium users, after a staggering eight-year wait since hi-fi rumors first began whathifi.com. This launch closes a long-running gap – rivals like Tidal, Qobuz, and Apple Music have offered lossless or high-res tiers for years whathifi.com. Notably, Spotify isn’t paywalling the upgrade: Lossless access is included in the standard Premium plan, with subscribers receiving app notifications as the rollout progresses whathifi.com whathifi.com. Early hands-on reports from outlets like What Hi-Fi? highlight the immediate difference in audio clarity, especially on revealing systems whathifi.com. But Spotify’s own documentation also delivers a reality check: to truly hear the 24-bit advantage, a wired connection or Wi-Fi stream via Spotify Connect is recommended whathifi.com. Bluetooth – even the latest codecs – can introduce compression that negates some benefits of Lossless. In fact, this dynamic is influencing hardware makers: several of the newest headphones now support optional wired digital audio. For example, Bose’s QC Ultra Headphones II, announced the same day, include a USB-C port explicitly to carry lossless audio
