Deezer paid music subsriptions within Hi-Fi tier from now on include flac tracks in up to 24 bit/192 kHz quality. The French company is now joining the ranks of Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music in offering its subscribers a selection of content in highest resolution audio.
Better late?
While Deezer is a fairly popular music subscription service, especially in Europe, its product planning did not seem to include those interested in sound quality beyond CD (16 bit/44 kHz). Their compatriots Qobuz were pioneering high resolution audio since 2015 (first stage as Sublime sub), while TIDAL went with MQA (a controversial codec later abandoned) High Res in 2017 (initially on desktop only) and in 2023 switched to FLAC (Hi-Fi Plus sub). Amazon Music HD went 24 bit/192 kHz flac in 2019. Currently TIDAL, Qobuz and Amazon Music HD offer hgih res music within their ‘normal hi-fi’ subscription tiers.
Apple Music and later Apple Music Classical enabled High Res audio support in 2021 although within Apple ecosystem only.
Deezer and Spotify remained in the non-believers camp for quality audio till 2026. Now Spotify is left alone with CD Quality audio throughout the whole catalogue. (We are not discussing fringe streaming services who may have had high res audio before Deezer or don’t have it until now).
How important is Deezer for hi-fi and separates audio?
As a reminder we discussed the situation in Transfer your Spotify playlists to Qobuz or Tidal feature, and offered some arguments towards Qobuz Connect in Advantages of Qobuz Connect with a dedicated streamer feature.
It looks like that, somewhat similar to Amazon Music HD, Deezer is not very interested to work with hardware manufacturers of audio quality above mass market. This goes along well with its previous policy of not going above 16/44 in streaming. Neither Deezer shares API with software solutions like Roon or Audirvana. Its Deezer Connect app was discontinued and shut down officially in May 2025.
If the high res Deezer catalogue is an indication of broader interest in reaching audio quality-minded audience, we may see some changes in the future. May be even re-appearance of Deezer Connect for starters.
Connect audio casting apps generally can bypass on-device audio processing delegating the stream output to be handled in hardware end-point. Audio streamed via dedicated hardware can be handled bit-perfect and be true to the source avoiding constrains of mobile OS audio core. Even Spotify Connect (and desktop app) has this feature.
So far none of the higher end streaming network players like MGY’s own Cary Audio, Gold Note or Chord Electronics do include native Deezer integration. Neither does Roon, as we have already mentioned. This omission stems from Deezer policies.
Hope remains for getting Deezer into more hardware
The announcement of Deezer high res streaming on October 14 raised hopes for a shift in the French company’s attitude towards what we at MGY consider ‘true high fidelity’. Aiming at the lowest common denominator and crowd manipulation ‘high res is for owls and bats’ arguments could not really be a product planning consideration.
So we remain waiting for Deezer Connect and Deezer native in high fidelity streamers. Also may be in Roon or Audirvana. Stay updated, fellow music lovers.
Written by Sergei Taranov
Don’t forget: It’s up to the content provider whether a track is actually high-res
