Deezer, a French music streaming service, is now upgrading its offering in the Asia-Pacific region. Deezer Elite is a new premium subscription tier that allows users to stream songs from Deezer's library of 35 million tracks as .FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) sound files.
The .FLAC format uses 1,411 kbps as standard, which means your favourite songs will be played at a much higher quality than the standard .mp3, which only uses a rate of 320kbps.
The new Elite tier is now available in Asia-Pacific markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.
This new service will be an upgrade from the existing Deezer Premium+ model, which offered users unlimited ad-free music streaming, but not in a lossless format.
Before you start jumping for joy, there's a catch. Deezer Elite is only available on the Sonos wireless music system, but if you own a Sonos and have a Deezer Premium+ subscription, the upgrade to Deezer Elite is totally free. This exclusivity could end in five months, though there's no official word yet on Deezer Elite's availability on other platforms.
Deezer Elite's regular price is at S$20 a month in Singapore and AU$24 in Australia. For local pricing in other countries, check the Deezer website.
Deezer first started in Paris before expanding to the rest of Europe and, later, worldwide. In late 2014, Deezer launched Deezer Elite in the US.
If you don't own a Sonos but are hanging out for lossless music streaming, try Tidal, a streaming service provided by Aspiro Group, currently owned by Jay-Z. Tidal works on most audio systems and offers 25 million tracks in its library, including Taylor Swift's songs -- which are notably not available on streaming top dog Spotify's service.