Tidal recently sent an email to industry members, e.g. reviewers like me, who had been enjoying a free Tidal account to let us know the free ride would end on December 12, 2023.
My reaction was twofold—what a great free ride it’s been (Thank You!!), and I will absolutely continue using Tidal by ponying up the monthly fee. A handy dandy link in that same email led to this option so I clicked and entered my cc info faster than you can say this is a silly amount of money to pay to have access to endless amounts of music.
I chose to pay for Tidal’s HiFi tier, which gets me CD-quality streaming for $10.99/month. And I chose HiFi over HiFi Plus because the extra $9.00/month for hi-res isn’t worth the spend. For me.
The majority of the file-based music I listen to is offered in CD-quality and that fact is more than OK by me. And it’s more than OK because my interest in music is piqued by music, not some set of parameters related to its makeup. What’s more, CD-quality can sound as good or better than hi-res because the quality of the recording is more important than its delivery container. Suggesting that hi-res music sounds better than CD-quality music just because it’s hi-res is like saying Flint, MI tap water tastes better than other water as long as you drink it out of a hi-res bottle.
To recap, the quality of the music matters most (to me).
While we’re accounting for music, I also happily pay for my Qobuz Studio account that includes hi-res for about $11/month and I buy my lion’s share of new music from Bandcamp because the musicians get a healthy % of the purchase price. Bandcamp also offers the lossless download in CD-quality, or better when available [footnote 1], included with the price of the LP (I typically buy the LP).
Why Tidal and Qobuz? That’s easy—their libraries are not the same, so I’ve found music I enjoy that’s only on Tidal and some that’s only on Qobuz. And I’m greedy when it comes to music.
[Note: this post, albeit in slightly different form, was first made available to TM Patrons earlier this month]
- I will note that stuffing higher resolution originals into CD-sized containers when distributed as files makes no sense. I also believe there’s no good reason to sell lossy downloads but that may be my age and bad attitude talking. Lossy downloads sold as tracks, not albums, are a symptom of a much larger problem that’s not restricted to music. Harumph!