Audiophiles, rejoice! If you have been looking for an alternative to the average to low-quality sound being streamed by services like Spotify, Beats Music and YouTube, then a new audio service called Tidal is here for you. The service launched in the United States market last week as the first streaming service to offer only high-quality audio.
Deezer Elite, which launched in the United States last month, offers high quality as part of its package, but you must be hooked up to Sonos to get the quality. Tidal streams high-fidelity lossless quality, which means it is at 1411 kilobytes per second. To put that in perspective, Spotify streams at 160 kbps for standard desktop and Web player users, iTunes downloads at 256 kbps and Beats Music at 320 kbps, widely considered to be the threshold for good quality for an MP3.
Tidal has a library of 25 million songs, comparable to Spotify and Beats Music, and comes with a curation aspect as well. The service creates playlists and gives you recommendations from their editorial team. Not only do you get high-quality music, but you also get HD video for music videos as well.
As reported by Rolling Stone, the service costs $20 a month, which comes ad-free and allows you to take your music off-line so you can listen on the go. If you care about the quality of your music and have the means to listen to it with either good headphones or speakers, then this product may be for you.
The question is whether or not people will notice. On laptop speakers and standard Apple earbuds, listeners will not be able to tell the difference between a Tidal FLAC file and a low-quality "mastered for iTunes" song. Tidal is taking the gamble that there is a large enough audience out there willing to cough up $20 per month to create a sustainable business model.
It will be interesting to follow the company as it grows and looks to expand into more markets. For now, it is must focus on the United States and how it will win over enough American fans in a competitive American market.
Listen to Bruce Springsteen's "We Take of Our Own" below, which as per RS is found exclusively on the service for streaming:
