Sonos users residing outside of the US now have an option to listen to a ‘high definition-quality’ streaming service.
Related: Sonos adds Soundcloud streaming to its speakers
Deezer, which claims 16 million monthly users and 6 million paid subscribers, just announced that its HD-quality offering, Deezer Elite, will now be available to Sonos users in 150 countries. The service will cost $14.99 per month or $120 per year, regardless of if you pay in Euros, dollars or pounds. The service was rolled out last month to existing Deezer listeners but is now available to new users.
Deezer Elite boasts a 35 million track library, all of which can be streamed at a much higher quality than the streaming service-standard MP3-quality audio, which loses some of music’s intricacies as it condenses tracks for size purposes. Deezer Elite, with the help of the high quality Sonos speakers, will be able to reach the same quality as CDs.
As we mentioned, “high definition” (HD) in the audio world doesn’t have a precise definition, unlike the “high resolution” audio that devices like Neil Young’s PonoPlayer and Sony’s new NWZ-A17 Walkman are capable of playing, which describes audio that exceeds CD-quality sound (16bit/44.1kHz).
In an email to subscribers via Billboard, Deezer said “You can now listen to performances as the artist intended with digital lossless capture of the original audio sources. Experience the music at five times the bitrate [of MP3]: 1411 kbps vs. 320 kbps.”
