UPDATE: Deezer will now offer its HiFi subscribers Deezer 360 Sessions, which are live performances that have been formatted in Sony 360 Reality Audio. If it does, it could encourage a few more listeners to make the jump from Spotify, especially now that the streaming service is planning its own rival to the Deezer HiFi tier. It’s just a shame the company hasn’t made the jump to true hi-res audio yet.

A robust music catalogue, decent music curation, simple interface, and support for Sony 360 Reality Audio sweeten the deal. Overall, Deezer is a great alternative to Spotify if you’re looking for higher-quality streams, but you don’t want to shell out $19.99 / £19.99 / AU$23.99 a month for Tidal HiFi. Tidal offers this, too – but again, it’s more expensive. These tracks have been given the spatial audio treatment, sounding as though every instrument is coming at you from a different angle within a virtual sphere of sound. However, Deezer’s HiFi tier does come with access to Sony’s 360 Reality Audio format, via a dedicated app. Note, though, that there’s no access to true hi-res audio files with Deezer. Costing $14.99 / £14.99 / AU$14.99 per month, it allows you to stream songs in CD quality, with 16-bit / 44.1kHz FLAC files at 1,411kbps, which is the same as Tidal’s more expensive HiFi tier. What interests us most, however, is the Deezer HiFi tier.

The audio quality on offer depends on the subscription tier you sign up to: Deezer’s Free subscription plan offers MP3 files at 128kbps, while its Premium tier tops out at 320kbps, matching Spotify’s own Premium tier. The latter, while perhaps not as well curated as Spotify and Tidal’s offerings, are pretty good, and the platform’s innovative Flow technology means you can listen to an infinite stream of personalized tracks with just one tap/click.

Deezer spotify amazon music