Sprint Announces Spotify Partnership, Unveils HTC One M8 Harman/Kardon Edition Smartphone

Sprint has gathered the NY media today to reveal a new smartphone in collaboration with HTC and Harman/Kardon, as well as a discount partnership with Spotify.

Sprint unveiled a partnership with Spotify alongside a new service called Sprint Sound sessions, the carrier’s own portal to premium discounted live event, advanced music releases, and of course, discounted access to Spotify.

Here’s how the pricing works for Spotify on Sprint.

Starting May 9, all existing Sprint customers will receive access to a discounted Spotify premium. Those with a Framily plan will get a six-month free trial, and then pay anywhere between $8 and $5 month, depending on the size of the family (1-5 family members pay $7.99/month, where 6-10 family members will pay $4.99/month).

If you’re not in the Framily plan, you will get a three-month free trial before paying $9.99/month for Spotify Premium.

As for the phone, it’s the HTC One M8 Harman/Kardon edition, and it has the ability to play back “Lossless music straight from the device”.

According to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, the technology used in the One M8 HK edition reads 6x the amount of information that would be played from a compact disc.

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Harman CEO Dinesh Paliwal explained that two different technologies go into making a more rich listening experience for the user. Clarifi analyzes music in real time and reconstructs the song to add back in the highs, lows, and reverbs in real time. It’s not like boosting the bass or equalization, as “that’s not the scientific solution.”

The other technology is LiveStage. LiveStage takes a live stage recording and makes it sound like it’s coming from a band spread out across a stage, as opposed to hearing it on a single channel.

The phone also comes with a set of Harman/Kardon earbuds at a value of $149 complete with volume, play/pause buttons.

HTC also made a few tweaks to the design of the HTC One M8 HK by adding a “high quality metal to the phone, with a black finish and a champagne accent, so that as soon as you see it, you know it’s premium,” according to Peter Chou. But that’s not all.

No word on pricing yet, but the phone is also available on May 9.