Spotify Lossless: Delivering Exceptional Playback with QRONO d2a
The arrival of Spotify Lossless marks a major milestone in the audio industry. Their millions of listeners will soon have access to higher-quality streaming, confirming that people care about how their music sounds.
Streaming at 24-bit/44.1kHz is a solid step forward. But while competing services already offer higher sample rates, numerical resolution alone doesn’t guarantee that better sound will reach the listener. How the music is played matters. The way that analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue conversion is handled plays a decisive role in what the listener hears.
For device manufacturers, the launch of Spotify Lossless is clear evidence of listener demand – and an opportunity to deliver a better Spotify Lossless experience through superior digital-to-analogue conversion.
QRONO d2a: Unlocking More From Lossless
QRONO d2a takes digital playback beyond the sampling rate and bit depth. Through carefully designed filters and noise shaping, it improves impulse response and timing accuracy to give sound its natural, analogue-like presence.
To put this in context: 44.1kHz audio (as offered by Spotify Lossless) played through QRONO d2a achieves the time-domain precision of 96kHz audio played through conventional DAC technology.
QRONO d2a delivers better performance across all sample rates by minimising the errors inherent in digital audio, known as time-smear. The benefit is especially noticeable at lower sample rates, where timing errors are typically greater and there’s more room for improvement.
The audio enhancement is instant, with more clarity, detail and dynamics.
Why Timing Matters: Beyond Bit Depth and Sample Rates
Resolution isn’t just about the numbers. The human ear is highly sensitive to timing, so time-smear in digital-to-analogue conversion can degrade the sound of a recording.
QRONO d2a addresses this with filters designed without unnatural pre-ring and with minimal post-ring, preserving the subtle musical details that our ears can detect. With every DAC equipped with QRONO d2a, playback is more immediate, transparent, and faithful to the original performance. Learn more in our whitepaper.
How Hardware Manufacturers Can Deliver More
Spotify’s move into Lossless highlights that sound quality is now a mainstream priority. Hardware manufacturers now have an opportunity to go further. With QRONO d2a, you can:
- Deliver an upgrade over standard Spotify Lossless playback
- Differentiate products with technology that reveals more detail at lower sample rates
- Give listeners more than numbers – a richer, emotionally engaging musical experience
Bring Spotify Lossless to Life with QRONO d2a
Spotify Lossless is a watershed moment, making higher-fidelity streaming more accessible. But streaming at 24-bit/44.1 kHz is only part of the equation. To unlock real gains in resolution, the signal must be reproduced with the precision required to reveal the full content of the recording.
With QRONO d2a, hardware manufacturers can support Spotify Lossless while elevating the listening experience, delivering perceptual performance closer to true high resolution.
QRONO d2a enables flawless playback, whether reproduced the source is lossless or lossy, CD quality or hi-res. With flexible integration in software, hardware(*), or a hybrid of both(**), QRONO d2a fits seamlessly into your design.
Get in touch to integrate QRONO d2a into your products.
(*) Hardware-only integration available on select ESS chips
(**) Hybrid integration supported by most ESS chips
