What is Spotify Lossless Audio, is it any good & how much data does it use?

One of the most common behaviours with our Sim Local customers both in store and online is this: people absolutely love streaming their normal everyday media while travelling. Same playlists. Same listening habits. Streaming music, audiobooks and podcasts via apps like Spotify is seen as an absolute essential while travelling.

That is why this new Spotify Lossless audio setting is worth talking about as it increases the quality of the audio that you are streaming. Although, it also massively increases the amount of data you use while streaming so you need to be mindful of using Spotify Lossless audio if you plan to step onto a roaming network while travelling.

Here is everything you need to know about Spotify Lossless if you are a frequent traveller who loves to stream via Spotify.

Lossless audio is audio that has not had information removed to make the file smaller. It is closer to the original studio master. This means more of the original frequencies and detail are still there when it reaches your headphones.

If you think of normal MP3 or AAC as the audio equivalent of a vacuum bag for jumpers in your suitcase, lossless is like not compressing anything. You are getting it in its full shape.

On paper this is great. More detail. More nuance. Vocals with more realism. Instruments with more depth and micro texture. But again, bigger files means you are using more data - so keep that in mind.

Lossless is most impactful if you have quality headphone hardware and a quiet environment. Travellers in a hotel room at night. Travellers working from a quiet co-working space. Travellers on long haul flights using wired headphones. Or music enthusiasts who crave bigger sounds, big bass and intricate beats and rhythms.

If you are listening on the tube with standard ear buds then the sound difference will be very small, if anything.

Open Spotify. Go into Settings. Go into Audio Quality. Set Streaming to Lossless. You can set Download to Lossless too if you want to pre download albums.

Important detail: lossless settings are device specific. If you use Spotify on more than one device you need to turn it on in each device.

We strongly advise: turn off lossless for mobile data while you travel and only enable it for Wi-Fi unless you are very sure about your data allowance. This way, you will avoid an expensive data roaming bill as lossless uses a lot of data.

This is the real potential horror story for travellers who love to stream Spotify. Lossless consumes dramatically more data per minute than normal high quality streaming. Normal high quality streaming is roughly in the tens of megabytes per hour.

Spotify's lossless can use 1GB/per hour. So if you switch lossless on and keep streaming the same way you always stream, your data usage does not double, it can jump by more than ten times.

We see this pattern over and over. A traveller thinks they are doing nothing different. They play music while walking around a city. Then they get a warning text from their network about their data roaming usage. Or worse, they do not get a warning message at all and instead they get a huge phone bill.

Lossless is an upgrade in sound quality. But it is also a massive multiplier of data roaming charges risk.

Yes. And if you are abroad this is what we recommend. Turn it on for Wi Fi. Turn it off for mobile data. Or download playlists while on Wi Fi in your hotel or apartment and listen offline.

That way you get the quality without the roaming risk.

Early feedback on lossless is mostly positive. People who care about audio can definitely hear improvements. But those improvements are not always obvious and often require wired headphones or higher end earbuds.

Outcome so far: people who care about bigger sounds and use high quality headphones, love it. People who use standard audio accessories, genuinely cannot hear a difference and opt to stay on lower audio settings. So, lossless audio on Spotify is not for everyone.

Lossless is for people who actively want a more intense music listening experience and have the gear to make it worthwhile. It is also for people who mainly listen at home, or on stable Wi Fi, or offline. Lossless is not a default setting that everyone should enable blindly. Especially not travellers.

In our opinion - not really.

With the right gear and the right context, lossless audio is genuinely more satisfying and intense for people who crave that.

But for most every day people and travellers, Spotify's other audio settings are more than enough already.

If you want to try our Spotify Lossless for yourself then have it on for controlled environments with strong Wi-Fi and turn it off on mobile data while roaming, unless you truly have the roaming data capacity. Unless you have high quality headphones or audio set up, then don't expect to notice much of a difference in your sound quality.

If you want peace of mind while travelling, we recommend getting a roaming friendly data bundle from your network or an international eSIM from Sim Local before you fly, so you can stream what you like, including lossless audio, without anxiety about data charges.