As far as music streaming services go, Deezer isn’t exactly a household name, at least not in the U.S., but that may not remain the case for long. Like Tidal, Deezer offers a high-fidelity lossless streaming plan called Deezer HiFi. Last year, Deezer began offering lossless audio on the Google Home and other Google Assistant-powered devices to HiFi subscribers, but now that feature is finally available in the U.S.
In this case, the lossless audio is provided in the FLAC format at 44.1kHz/16-bit. That’s not quite up there with hi-res audio offerings, which reach up to 192kHz/24-bit but it is CD-quality, and technically it’s quite a bit better than Spotify’s 320kbps “Extreme” quality option, even if many people may never be able to tell the difference. Deezer says it currently offers more than 36 million tracks from around the world in lossless format.
While much of the nuance that FLAC offers over MP3 is going to be lost using a speaker such as Google Home (or any similar speaker in its class), using Google Assistant to stream lossless audio to your home theater or stereo setup is certainly a nice feature to have. Various voice commands are supported like “Hey, Google, play rock music” or “Hey, Google, play my Happy Playlist.” You can also use Google Assistant to play Flow, Deezer’s smart playlist that it describes as “your personal soundtrack.”
To lossless audio via your Google Home or other Google Assistant-enabled device, you’ll need to be subscribed to Deezer’s HiFi plan, which costs $20 per month. If you just want Google Assistant features but don’t need lossless audio, you can subscribe to Deezer’s Premium+ plan, which costs the same as Spotify at $10 per month. Also like Spotify and others, a Family plan is available for $15 per month.
While Tidal remains in the lead for now, that might not be the case forever, as that company has had some issues as of late, and Deezer making headway in the world of smart devices could give the company an advantage. In the meantime, be sure to take a look at our list of the best music streaming services to get an idea what else is out there.
