Last week we told you that Spotify was planning on a new range of services for its premium users. Well music lovers, the first of these services is being launched this week – CD quality streams.

Currently Spotify streams the songs in its catalogue at 160kb/s but this will be doubled to 320kb/s using an ogg vorbis q9 codec. Premium users need to change their preferences in order to benefit from this upgrade by ticking the box that says ‘enable high bitrate’ in their options menu.

To begin with the improved quality will only be available on the most popular tunes but will be rolled-out to the whole database within a few weeks. Spotify CEO and founder Daniel Ek says the upgrade means an “unparalleled listening experience” for premium users.

Spotify also claims that the upgrade means they will be offering “the highest streaming rate for any digital music service”.

It will be interesting to see how the market responds to this news. Will the amount of subscribers to Spotify’s premium service increase? Will you be upgrading your account?