Great news for Tidal subscribers, or anyone keen to give it a try – the high-res streaming service has announced that its monthly cost is coming down, across all regions.
As part of a move to simplify its subscription tiers, it will no longer keep its high-res, lossless and spatial audio content locked behind a £20/$20-per-month “HiFi Plus” subscription. Instead, it will be moved into a single individual user plan, costing a Spotify-matching £11/$11 per month.
Currently, users pay that price for CD-quality FLAC files, but need to opt for the pricier plan to unlock 24-bit/192kHz tracks and Dolby Atmos content.
That will all change from 10th April when the new plans will be implemented. This will also include the Family plan, for up to six family members for £17/$17 per month, and the Student Plan, offering the same as the Individual plan, but at a 50% discount, now costing just £5/$5 a month.
Not everyone will benefit from the tier shake up. The discounted Military and First Responder plans available in the US will be discontinued, though they will be kept running until 10th June 2024, and any DJs who had previously been using Tidal's DJ integrations will now have to pay separately for the new DJ Extension add-on.
This used to be included in the HiFi Plus tier, but will now cost an extra £9/$9 a month – effectively keeping the cost the same.
All eyes on Spotify
This price drop only puts further pressure on Spotify to improve the quality of its catalogue, which is currently capped at 320kbps in its Premium tier, and has no native support for spatial audio tracks.
More recently it has been putting its efforts into getting audiobooks on to the platform, instead of the much-rumoured Spotify HiFi (or perhaps “Spotify Supremium”), and as the only major platform not to offer options when it comes to sound quality and spatial audio, for music fans, it's starting to stand out for all the wrong reasons.
As for Tidal users, current HiFi Plus subscribers will have the cost of their subscription adjusted automatically from 10th April, while current subscribers at the HiFi tier will see their music quality options improve from the same date. Happy days.
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