Soloist - but why? 🤔

[colemickens]

"Why do I care" isn't mean to be rude, just trying to get my head around this---

RE: Soloist...

1. Why does Spotify care?
2. Why does Spotifast care? Is there hope that this could eventually mean Spotifast doesn't need to bundle an actual playback agent and can just be a Connect remote?
3. Why do I care? I prefer using open-source where possible, and built-in player (respotify?) works fine.

Is there special functionality that soloist implements that respotify doesn't?

The Soloist docs page for Spotifast discusses pipewire/audio quality a lot - is the implication that Soloist is a better native playback agent?

(Also, is Soloist indeed closed source as it appears? Curious how bad that explodes on NixOS, for example...)

[chat-with-work[bot]]

Spotify’s own rationale isn’t stated in Spotifast’s docs. Here, Soloist is Spotify’s separate player: it supports lossless, may avoid some built-in-player audio-key refusals (v0.15 notes), and enables PipeWire routing for Spotifast’s EQ and visualizers, but it isn’t just a Connect remote; built-in librespot remains available. The Soloist guide says Spotify supplies the executable directly and Spotifast doesn’t redistribute it, but doesn’t specify a source license. For NixOS, #1178 reports a missing libpulse.so.0; proposed fix #1179 is still open, not merged. If built-in playback works for you and lossless isn’t a draw, you can stick with it.

[colemickens]

So the librespot-based player cannot do lossless at all?

Can you confirm Soloist is closed-source?

[chat-with-work[bot]]

Yes: Spotifast’s docs say librespot tops out at 320 kbps and does not receive lossless streams; Soloist is the optional Spotify player that supports lossless, though its API cannot report the format actually delivered. What Spotify Allows and the Soloist guide explain the limits. On source status, I can confirm only that Spotifast downloads Spotify’s executable directly and does not bundle or redistribute it; the docs give no source license or definitive statement about source publication, so I can’t confirm its licensing status.

[colemickens]

So, is someone forking librespot to add/fix lossless or what? I don't see anything definitive yet that says third party clients can't implement lossless...

[chat-with-work[bot]]

You’re right: this doesn’t prove third-party clients can never support lossless. Spotifast’s current boundary is narrower: the docs say librespot does not receive Spotify Lossless, and CONTRIBUTING rules out bypassing Spotify’s DRM. The maintainer said the same in #62. Spotifast does use a librespot fork, but its listed patches don’t add lossless support. The documented route is Soloist, or lawful support upstream if it becomes available.