Tidal has announced that it is phasing out its HiFi Plus tier, which offers access to higher quality and immersive audio at a higher price. From next month, that audio will be available with a standard 10.99 a month subscription. It brings to an end the idea that offering higher quality audio might be a way to get more income out of a subscriber each month, an idea Tidal initially pioneered.
"The introduction of a single Tidal subscription tier means more fans across 61 markets globally can discover and enjoy music in HiRes FLAC and Dolby Atmos catalogue in addition to over 110 million tracks in lossless quality for a best-in-class listening experience", Tidal explains in a post on its website.
It is also formally phasing out its free tier, launched in the US in 2021, but which seemed to stop being available to new subscribers last year. Tidal's update adds, "starting 10 Apr, users who were on the Tidal Free tier will need to switch to a paid Tidal subscription to continue enjoying Tidal's services".
It was Tidal - then called WiMP - which first started offering higher quality audio at a higher price, so that users paid 19.99 a month instead of the then standard 9.99. Because streaming is a revenue share business, if users pay more for a subscription, there is more revenue to be shared with the music industry. Some other streaming services followed Tidal's lead and also offered a higher priced higher quality audio option.
However, when Apple added higher quality audio to its music service in 2021, it announced it would be available with a standard premium subscription. Apple, of course, also has an interest in selling devices via which users can experience the higher quality sound. Amazon immediately followed suit, and since then most streaming services have added higher quality audio to their standard premium packages.
Tidal does already make what it calls "high quality sound" available as part of its 10.99 package, that being 16-bit, 44.1 kHz FLACs, if you want to be more precise. But what it calls “max sound quality” - up to 24-bit 192 kHz, including HiRes FLAC - and immersive formats, including Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio, are currently restricted to the 19.99 Hifi Plus tier.
From next month all users will get access to all the content, with the customary family plan and student discount plan also still available. There will be one remaining add-on that costs extra, that being DJ Extension, which provides access to Tidal's integrations with DJ platforms like Virtual DJ, Serato and djay Pro.
While Tidal joins the likes of Apple and Amazon in making all higher quality audio available on a standard subscription, Spotify continues to operate without offering any higher quality audio at all. The market leading premium streaming service has long promised that higher quality audio is incoming, with a Spotify HiFi tier announced in February 2021, but it is yet to launch.