Within the streaming sector, prices only seem to be going in one direction, so kudos to Tidal for lowering the monthly costs: the music platform’s HiFi Plus subscription will be included in the standard HiFi subscription, so there will only be one Tidal level.
If you’re already paying for HiFi at $10.99 / £10.99 / AU$12.99 per month, you’ll get the audio upgrade from 16-bit, 44.1kHz to 24-bit, 192kHz for free. If you’re already paying for HiFi Plus at $19.99 / £19.99 / AU$23.99, then your Tidal subscription is about to get a lot cheaper.
The HiFi Plus tier comes with a few other extras, like a wider selection of FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) tracks and support for formats like Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio. All these benefits are added to the new single level.
According to Tide (through The edge), the change will come on April 10, 2024. Tidal is also ending the free and discounted tier previously offered to first responders and those in the military.
Families and students
A few more details: The current Family plan ($16.99 / £16.99 / AU$19.99) also gets the HiFi Plus upgrade, at no extra cost. The student discount plan – $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$5.99 – will remain as is, with no quality improvement.
Tidal also offers DJ integrations, which now become the DJ Extension package – this costs extra, so if you use these tools you’ll still pay the existing HiFi Plus rate every month.
This welcome move puts Tidal on par with Apple Music and Amazon Music, which also offer lossless music quality for the same monthly price. Spotify is the odd one out, as even the Premium level uses lossy audio compression.
Spotify has been promising a lossless audio layer since 2021, but it hasn’t appeared yet – although recent leaks suggest it’s still on the way and could be called Spotify Supremium. When it eventually sees the light of day, Tidal is now ready.