TIDAL offers CD quality streaming for audiophiles

For the true audiophiles the current audio streaming services won’t be anywhere near good enough, neither will (relatively) low quality MP3s that you can buy from online music stores. Fortunately there is a service that can cater to your needs, offering CD quality audio streaming so you don’t drive yourselves mad.

Aiming to to take on the likes of Spotify, TIDAL from WiMP will be offering the opportunity to stream FLAC and ALAC music, as well as giving subscribers access to editorial content and HD music videos. On offer will be 25 million individual music tracks, that can be streamed in FLAC to Android devices, and ALAC to iOS devices. There is an option to stream music at a lower bitrate, but if you’re going to settle for less you might as well choose a cheaper service that doesn’t have such a focus on CD quality audio. Mobile data allowances are an issue, but since TIDAL has offline play so that shouldn’t really be an issue.

The service has been incredibly popular in Scandinavia, but is finally making its way to the UK and the US this autumn. Of course subscribing is going to cost you, and it’s going to cost you £20 a month to access everything TIDAL has to offer. Irritatingly it’s going to cost $20 a month for US subscribers, meaning we have to pay an extra £6 or so a month. What’s up with that?

If you like what you hear, and are happy to pay the rather high subscription fee, you can sign up to the mailing list now to get early access to the service. [What HiFi?]

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