Deezer Elite streams on Sonos systems outside of the US
If you live outside the US and want to try Deezer's high-quality streaming option, you're in luck -- so long as you fancy Sonos gear. Folks in Europe, Latin America, the Asia-Pacific region and Canada that also own a piece of the aforementioned audio tech can now opt into Deezer Elite: the company's streaming option that wrangles 35 million lossless FLAC files for your listening needs. The service debuted in the States back in September, where it's also a Sonos exclusive, and that'll be the case in other locales too, for both current and new customers.
Current Deezer Premium+ subscribers will get the first crack at the upgrade, and it'll be free of charge if you're willing to pay for a full year when your plan is up for renewal. Trying Deezer via a promotional offer when you splurged for a Sonos setup? Upgrading from there for €36 will save a little coin when subscribing for a full year. On March 19th, the option will open up to all, so if you've been eyeing a Playbar or Play:3, you'll be able to equip it with some 1,411 kbps and higher streaming.
So when will Deezer let other hardware take advantage of its higher-quality Elite tier? According to US CEO Tyler Goldman, as soon as the company is finished fine-tuning it. "At this point, we're still trying to optimize for this use case," he explains. "Before we bring it out to a wider audience, we want to make sure that we continue to refine the product." Making those tweaks to improve the experience includes features in addition to FLAC, and Goldman says Deezer learned a great deal about what folks who prefer better sound quality are looking for. Clearly there's interest: In the time the service has been working with Sonos, it added 200,000 users through the collaborative effort across both Premium+ and Elite.
