Key takeaways
- Spotify added lossless streaming in 2025, closing most of the format gap with Tidal, which has offered lossless FLAC since 2014.
- Tidal's single subscription tier includes Dolby Atmos Music, which Spotify does not offer at all as of this writing.
- The jump from lossy to lossless is usually far more audible than the jump from 16 bit to Tidal's 24 bit Max resolution.
- Standard Bluetooth codecs recompress a lossless stream, so the format gap between these two services only shows up over a wired connection or a lossless capable codec.
- For casual listening through a phone speaker or a basic Bluetooth speaker, catalogue and playlists matter more than either service's format ceiling.
Tidal has streamed lossless FLAC since 2014. Spotify did not add anything comparable until 2025, and for eleven years that gap was most of the argument between the two services.
The gap on paper has mostly closed. What has not closed is the gap between what a service offers and what your actual speakers can resolve, and that is the question worth answering before you switch or pay for a higher tier.
What each app actually sends to your speakers
Spotify’s Premium tier spent most of its life topped out around 320 kbps using the Ogg Vorbis codec, a compressed format that discards audio information the ear is assumed not to miss. The free tier streams noticeably lower, closer to 128 kbps equivalent, which is audible as a duller top end on decent headphones.
In 2025 Spotify began rolling out lossless streaming to Premium subscribers at no extra cost, delivering FLAC files at CD quality, 16 bit and 44.1 kHz. That closed the format gap with Tidal on paper, though the rollout has not been instant or identical in every market.
Spotify had announced a paid lossless tier called Spotify HiFi back in 2021, then quietly shelved it for years before folding lossless into the existing Premium price instead. Readers who remember that first announcement and gave up waiting were not imagining things: the wait was real, and the eventual rollout arrived on different terms than originally promised.
Tidal restructured its plans in 2024 into a single subscription that bundles lossless FLAC, its higher resolution Max quality up to 24 bit and 192 kHz for select masters, and Dolby Atmos Music, all for one price around 11 USD a month. There is no separate lossy tier to pick by mistake.
Tidal’s higher tiers ran on MQA encoding for its Masters catalogue between 2014 and 2023, a compressed hi-res format wrapped inside a FLAC container that needed an MQA capable DAC to fully unfold. Tidal dropped MQA in 2023 and moved its entire hi-res catalogue to plain FLAC instead, which plays at full resolution on any standard FLAC decoder.
Bit depth and sample rate, not just a number on a menu
CD quality, 16 bit at 44.1 kHz, is the resolution both services now guarantee at minimum for their lossless catalogues. Uncompressed, that works out to roughly 1,411 kbps of data, and FLAC compresses it losslessly to somewhere around 800 to 1,000 kbps depending on the recording.
Tidal’s Max quality goes further for a portion of its catalogue, up to 24 bit and 192 kHz, a resolution associated with studio masters rather than the format most albums were mixed and mastered in originally. Spotify’s lossless tier does not currently reach that higher resolution.
The honest caveat: additional bit depth above 16 bit mostly buys headroom during mastering, not audible detail your ears did not already have on a well recorded 16 bit file. The difference between lossy and lossless is usually easier to hear than the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit lossless.
Dolby Atmos Music and spatial mixes
Tidal streams Dolby Atmos Music for a meaningful slice of its catalogue, an object based mix decoded properly on a compatible soundbar, a pair of Atmos enabled headphones, or an AVR like a Denon AVR-X1800H fed over HDMI eARC. For more on what that format actually does with a mix, see Atmos music, what it is and where to hear it. Dolby’s own overview of the format covers how that object based approach depends on a compatible decoder somewhere in the chain, whether the source is streaming or disc.
Spotify has no equivalent Dolby Atmos Music catalogue as of this writing. Its spatial audio ambitions, discussed publicly for years, have not turned into a shipped object based music format the way Tidal’s and Apple Music’s have.
Atmos Music played through a phone’s standard stereo headphones is usually a binaural down mix, not the real thing. The object based mix only shows its advantage on gear built to decode it, which a headphone jack alone is not.
Data usage: lossless is not free
A three minute song encoded as 320 kbps Ogg Vorbis or MP3 downloads at roughly 7 to 8 MB. The same song as lossless FLAC at CD quality runs closer to 20 to 30 MB, and one of Tidal’s 24 bit Max tracks can push past 40 MB for a single song.
On a mobile data plan, that difference adds up fast across a commute playlist. Both apps let you set streaming quality separately for Wi-Fi and cellular data in their settings, worth checking once rather than discovering a blown data cap mid month.
What it actually takes to hear any of this
A lossless stream sent to a speaker over standard Bluetooth, using SBC or even AAC, gets recompressed on the way there, which quietly discards the exact benefit you are paying for. Only a handful of codecs, aptX Lossless among them, and only on matching hardware at both ends, keep a lossless stream intact over a wireless link. More on that trade off in Bluetooth versus Wi-Fi on a soundbar.
A wired connection sidesteps the problem entirely. Phone or computer to a DAC by USB, or a streaming box such as an Apple TV to a soundbar over HDMI eARC, passes the lossless file through untouched, assuming nothing downstream re-encodes it first. That assumption is worth checking directly in Apple TV’s own audio output settings rather than trusting the default.
For the bitrate numbers themselves and what they actually predict, audio bitrate explained without the maths covers the maths free version of the same argument.
Price, tier by tier
Spotify Premium for an individual runs around 12 USD a month in the US, with lossless included at no separate charge once it reaches your account. Tidal’s single tier runs close to 11 USD a month and already includes everything, lossless, Max resolution, and Dolby Atmos Music, without an upsell screen in the way.
| Service | Lossless included | Max resolution | Atmos Music | Price, individual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spotify Premium | Yes, since 2025 rollout | 16 bit, 44.1 kHz | No | Around 12 USD/month |
| Tidal | Yes, standard | Up to 24 bit, 192 kHz | Yes | Around 11 USD/month |
Which service fits which room
A phone plugged into a wireless kitchen speaker over standard Bluetooth will not reveal a difference between these two services worth paying for. The bottleneck there is the codec on that link, not the streaming tier.
A customer in a one bedroom apartment asked whether switching to Tidal was worth the price difference, since he listened almost entirely through a small Bluetooth speaker in the kitchen and a wired desktop setup in a home office down the hall. The honest answer split down the middle: no real benefit in the kitchen, a genuine one at the desk.
A living room system built around something like a Sonos Arc Ultra fed over HDMI eARC is where Tidal’s Atmos Music catalogue earns its keep. That is a real, audible difference from stereo, not a marginal one.
A dedicated two channel setup with a wired DAC and reasonable speakers or headphones is where lossless itself, on either service, becomes worth choosing over compressed streaming. Below that bar, the honest answer is that the quality gap between these two apps matters less than which one has the catalogue you actually use.
None of this argues for staying on a lossy tier out of principle. If the price difference between the two services is not the deciding factor, catalogue depth, playlist quality, and whether your household already uses one service for podcasts or family sharing usually settle the question faster than a spec sheet does.
- Listening over standard Bluetooth: the codec is the limit, not the streaming tier
- Want Dolby Atmos Music specifically: Tidal has it, Spotify does not yet
- Wired DAC or HDMI eARC connection: lossless becomes audible on either service
- Casual listening on a phone speaker: the format gap will not be the thing you notice
Questions readers ask about this
As of its 2025 rollout, lossless streaming is included in the standard Premium subscription at no extra charge, delivered as FLAC at CD quality, 16 bit and 44.1 kHz. You may need to enable it manually in the app's audio quality settings the first time it becomes available on your account.
No. Spotify has not shipped a Dolby Atmos Music catalogue, and its spatial audio features to date have not extended to the object based format Tidal and Apple Music both offer. If Atmos Music matters to you, Tidal or Apple Music are the options.
For most listeners on typical gear, the jump from lossy to lossless is far easier to hear than the jump from 16 bit to 24 bit. The higher resolution mostly reflects studio mastering headroom rather than extra detail your ears were missing.
Only if both the headphones and the source support a lossless capable codec such as aptX Lossless, with it enabled on both ends. Standard SBC or AAC Bluetooth recompresses the stream regardless of what the app is sending.
Both offer family plans in a similar price range, typically 16 to 20 USD a month for up to six accounts. Check each service's current family plan terms directly, since pricing changes more often than the underlying audio formats do.
About the author
Rahul Gupta
Rahul Gupta has spent nearly a decade quietly wiring living rooms, testing soundbars in every awkward apartment layout imaginable, and untangling the kind of HDMI handshake problems that make people give up on Atmos altogether. He writes here about what actually works when you get the boxes home—not what the spec sheet promises. If a piece of gear on this site earns a recommendation, it earned it in a real room with real furniture, not a lab.
