From April 10th, Tidal won't charge extra for hi-res audio

Good news from Norway: Tidal is soon to make a substantial change to its pricing structure.

In Germany right now, Tidal’s Hifi tier goes for €10.99/month but all audio streams are capped at CD-quality. The Portuguese pay €7.49/month for the same service. If we want hi-res audio, we have to pony up €19.99/month in Germany (or €13.99/month in Portugal) for the Hi-fi Plus tier whose 24bit/48kHz, 24bit/96kHz and 24bit/192kHz coverage spans less than 10% of Tidal’s 100 million songs. Hifi Plus subscribers also get a smattering of Sony’s 360 Reality Audio but the upcharge for hi-res audio was the source of a recent grumble.

Grumble be gone because, come April 10th, the CD-quality Hifi tier and hi-res-smattered Hifi Plus tier will be no more. They are to be replaced by a single tier that will offer everything previously available on the Hifi Plus tier – CD-quality audio, hi-res audio and Sony 360 Reality Audio – for €/US$10.99/month.

This price restructuring will bring Tidal into line with Apple Music – whose single €/US$10.99/month offering gives us CD-quality audio, hi-res audio (again, on less than 10% of titles) and Spatial Audio content.

What we don’t yet know is if Tidal will stream the highest quality available (as do Apple Music) or if users will still need to select their preferred streaming quality.

Further information: Tidal