Tidal aims to be the first lossless music streaming service in the US

[Shawn Knight]

A new streaming music service is headed to the US in the coming months and it could be a game-changer. Unlike the countless streaming services already on the market that offer up compressed MP3, AAC or OGG files, TIDAL will stream tracks in lossless quality (FLAC/ALAC 44.1kHz / 16 bit - 1411 kbps) from its catalog of more than 25 million tracks.

The service, an extension of Scandinavian music streamer WiMP HiFi, says they’ll stream tunes to customers at more than twice the bit rate of competitive services. What’s more, subscribers will have access to more than 75,000 high definition music videos, all ad-free.

In a press release on the matter, the company said their editors will hand pick the music presented in the service, personally selecting and showcasing the best new albums and tracks across all genres.

TIDAL will be available in the US and the UK for a monthly rate of $19.99 / £19.99 starting later this fall for Android, iOS, PC and Mac. That’s twice the amount that you’d pay for a membership to a competing service like Rhapsody or Spotify but if you’re an audiophile or simply someone that appreciates a higher quality product, the extra 10 bucks might be worth it.

Aside from price, the only potential concern I could see with TIDAL’s offering would be the additional bandwidth needed to stream higher quality tunes. I’ve reached out to the company for more information on the matter and will report back as soon as I hear something back.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/57950-tidal-aims-to-be-the-first-lossless-music-streaming-service-in-the-us.html

 

[wastedkill]

£19.99 someone's been on the pipe a little took long...
Silicon valley finally have the pied piper lossless compression its called tidal!

No but seriously now you must be tripping, the amount of people that will buy the £19.99 if its any good will be soo tiny they will be forced to reduce costs or go into bankruptcy

 

[seefizzle]

As far as I'm concerned this is all a rather stupid marketing ploy. It's particularly stupid after you consider the way music is made today.

A higher bit rate allows for a higher 'resolution' of sound. It allows for there to be more dynamics between loud and soft. This means that it will be easier to notice the little nuances played by an instrument or performer.

But none of that matters because of the way music is produced. Music is compressed beyond belief. Music producers compress tracks on songs hoping to make it sound better, or just because they think that everything needs to be compressed. Individual tracks get compressed. Groups of tracks get compressed. Then the whole mix might be compressed another once or twice. Music today is compressed beyond belief. Everything is just trying to be as loud as possible. No dynamic range.

Compression in music works by reducing the dynamic range. All the peaks you see on a wave form are chopped off making a more uniform signal, that signal is then boosted back up to as loud as possible thus reducing the dynamic range of the signal. Music today is quite literally made with reducing dynamic range as much as possible as a goal, nullifying a service who's major goal is to increase the bitrate / dynamic range of music.

I guess you have to ask the question, is this service going to make musicians start making better music? Increasing the dynamic range and bit rate of garbage music is just putting lipstick on a pig. But hey, some people like paying a premium for pig lip stick I guess.

 

[Movatheaiur]

This is great for only a few genres but the majority of music produced now is highly compressed and "loud", And you ask any engineer they will say it does not matter since the age of the portable mp3 players.

When they make music they just have the ipod listener in mind.

 

[SNGX1275]

@seafizzle - that is true for a lot of pop music and stuff you hear on the big syndicated radio stations, but not all music being produced today is like that.

 

[Bubbajim]

$19.99 is currently worth about £12. Unfair pricing is so annoying.

 

[davislane1]

As far as I'm concerned this is all a rather stupid marketing ploy. It's particularly stupid after you consider the way music is made today.

A higher bit rate allows for a higher 'resolution' of sound. It allows for there to be more dynamics between loud and soft. This means that it will be easier to notice the little nuances played by an instrument or performer.

But none of that matters because of the way music is produced. Music is compressed beyond belief. Music producers compress tracks on songs hoping to make it sound better, or just because they think that everything needs to be compressed. Individual tracks get compressed. Groups of tracks get compressed. Then the whole mix might be compressed another once or twice. Music today is compressed beyond belief. Everything is just trying to be as loud as possible. No dynamic range.

Compression in music works by reducing the dynamic range. All the peaks you see on a wave form are chopped off making a more uniform signal, that signal is then boosted back up to as loud as possible thus reducing the dynamic range of the signal. Music today is quite literally made with reducing dynamic range as much as possible as a goal, nullifying a service who's major goal is to increase the bitrate / dynamic range of music.

I guess you have to ask the question, is this service going to make musicians start making better music? Increasing the dynamic range and bit rate of garbage music is just putting lipstick on a pig. But hey, some people like paying a premium for pig lip stick I guess.

Depends on the genre. Outside of the pop & rock scene the compression crutch is generally frowned upon. Personally, I'd like this service for classical, fusion, and a few other genres. For rock and metal, however, Spotify will do just fine.

 

[seefizzle]

Depends on the genre. Outside of the pop & rock scene the compression crutch is generally frowned upon. Personally, I'd like this service for classical, fusion, and a few other genres. For rock and metal, however, Spotify will do just fine.

This isn't true at all. Music producers, all of them, use compression in some facet or another. It's just a tool in the tool box. Compression isn't inherently bad, the problems come from over use. You can't claim the, "Well I listen to better music so this doesn't apply to me" excuse. Your music is compressed too.

I'd bargain that most people couldn't actually perceive the difference between 16 and 24 bit tracks just in general. What would be nice is to have a bunch of comparison tracks to test for ourselves. Put together 5 tracks with 16 and 24 bit versions of the two then play them back to back and have people vote and try to determine which is which. Do this with any kind of radio music and it'll be nearly indistinguishable.

 

[Guest]

Cisco currently own and markets computer system scheduling software by that same name. Wonder if this company got permission from Cisco to use the name. Will be interesting to see what the end result will be.

 

[Mandark57]

Oh, not only kind of stupid, but... I guess they want to really eat up customers data