spotify users, did you know spotify has yet to offer a high fidelity audio option to users? competitors such as tidal, amazon music, and apple music all currently offer music at a higher quality than spotify. at publication, spotify offers audio quality at 160 kilobits-per-second for free users and 320 kbps for premium subscribers. tidal offers a HiFi subscription tier that provides lossless audio at CD-quality. amazon music and apple music’s audio quality starts at 256kbps. amazon music hd and ultra hd users can enjoy audio up to a bitrate of 3730 kbps. apple music’s audio quality increases with high-resolution audio formats such as apple lossless audio codec, spatial audio, and dolby atmos features.
lossless audio is a digital audio format that preserves the original quality of the audio source. lossless audio gained mainstream recognition in 2021 after the introduction of lossless audio on apple music’s platform.
lossless audio uses lossless compression, which is a form of data compression that allows for data to be compressed with no loss of information. this is done by first generating a statistical model of the inputted audio then mapping the data into probable bit sequences. the sequences are determined by an algorithms, a set of instructions designed to accomplish a task.
huffman coding, an algorithm developed by David A. Huffman at MIT in 1952, is commonly used in free lossless audio codec (FLAC), an open-source audio coding format, to create lossless audio. first, audio samples are analyzed by their frequency and given a symbol. from these symbols, a corresponding huffman code is given. shorter codes are awarded to symbols that are frequent in the file while less frequent symbols are given longer codes. once mapped, the audio is compressed. during compression, audio data is divided into smaller frames to maintain soundness and symbols are replaced with their huffman code equivalent. the audio is decoded once the listener presses play, where the decoded symbols are used to reconstruct the original audio data resulting in a near perfect reproduction of audio from the recording studio.
remixes and re-releases (swifties, see you july 7th for speak now taylor’s version) are some of the recent trends taking the music industry by storm. lossless audio is important to artists and their management as it allows musicians to share their art to be enjoyed by their fans the way intended — with the details and dynamics of their music fully intact.