Spotify Plans To Launch "Supremium" Subscription Options With High Quality Audio

JAKARTA - Music streaming platform Spotify Technology is planning to launch a higher premium subscription option which is expected to include high-quality audio. This was reported by Bloomberg News on Tuesday, June 20 citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to the report, this new rate, called "Supremium" internally, will be the most expensive package of the company and will be launched this year in the non-US market first.

To strengthen existing premium levels, Spotify will provide customers with wider access to audiobooks, either through a certain number of hours that can be enjoyed for free per month or a certain number of titles, Bloomberg reports.

The company plans to introduce the feature in the United States in October, after its launch in overseas markets, the report added.

While Spotify itself declined to comment on the report.

In the United States, the company's individual premium account has a price of 9.99 US dollars (150,000) per month, while family accounts with six users are valued at 15.99 US dollars (IDR 240 thousand) per month.

Spotify, which competes with rival services from Apple and Amazon.com, has tried to increase the number of paid subscribers by launching various audio-oriented services such as the HiFi feature, which improves the quality of the song's sound to CD-quality "missless" music.

The "LESS" music refers to audio formats that retain the same original sound quality as record sources without losing any harmful data or compression. In a "lossless" format, all audio details on the original recording are accurately maintained.

In the context of digital music, many compression formats such as MP3 or AAC use compression methods that reduce file size by eliminating some audio data that is considered not heard by human ears clearly. This reduces the sound quality significantly even though it can still be heard well by most listeners.

However, in a "missless" format, such as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) or ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), there is no data reduction or compression that sacrifices sound quality. This means users can listen to music in a more accurate form, such as the original version or similar to the CD version, with better audio details and higher clarity.

"LESS" music is usually desired by music or audiofil fans who appreciate the best sound quality and want to experience high-precision and detail music recordings.