Spotify HiFi is the long-rumoured, higher quality audio service from Spotify. It will begin rolling out in selected (so not all) countries where Spotify has a service later this year.

Like other services such as Tidal HiFi or Amazon Music HD, Spotify HiFi will provide streams in lossless CD quality. It will be an upgrade for Spotify Premium subscribers, so presumably will be a 'super premium' tier above the existing premium subscription. 

Just like rival subscriptions, this will probably be a $5/£5 extra cost per month, though Spotify didn't talk about costs at its StreamOn event where it launched the new service. We also don't know how this will work with other subscription tiers like Spotify Family or Duo. 

Spotify did add "High quality music streaming is consistently one of the most requested new features by our users." It also talked about compatibility with Spotify Connect and added that "we’re working with some of the world’s biggest speaker manufacturers to make Spotify HiFi accessible to as many fans as possible through Spotify Connect."

Spotify also got Billie Eilish to make a nice little lockdown video. Billie said: "High quality audio means more info, there are things you will not hear if you don’t have a good sound system. It’s really important just because we make music that [we] want to be heard in the way that it was made."

The new service will put Spotify's subscription model in the limelight again - the UK Parliament is currently investigating the economics of music streaming, while it will once again up the ante against key rivals - particularly Apple (who it complained to the European Commission about) and Amazon.