HI-RES MUSIC-STREAMING SERVICES COMPARED: WHICH SHOULD YOU SIGN UP FOR?

The battle to become the best music-streaming service to offer hi-res streams is well and truly underway. Gone are the days when all a streaming platform had to do was offer up low-quality Ogg Vorbis or MP3 streams and make you endure a few ads for the privilege. In 2021, the key to victory is ad-free, unlimited streaming in high-resolution quality – and, crucially, for the best price.

Tidal is perhaps the most established. It’s our favourite service, too, and holder of a 2020 What Hi-Fi? Award in the music-streaming service category. Since January 2017, its £20 per month HiFi tier has granted access to hi-res (typically 24-bit/96kHz) Tidal Master streams, encoded using MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) technology. So is Tidal the answer? It’s certainly one answer, but not the only one.

Qobuz, which was first to the hi-res streaming game, is still kicking about with a £15-a-month hi-res service. It also has a £250 annual subscription called Sublime that combines hi-res streaming with discounts on 24-bit downloads.

There’s also Amazon, which has recently announced that its hi-res-inclusive Music HD tier (which we remarked was “up there with the best”) will now be free for all Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers. This means hi-res streaming for £8 per month for Prime members, or £10 per month for Amazon customers.

And then there’s the recent news that Apple Music is offering subscribers lossless audio (and Spatial Audio) at no extra charge – and it just went live! That’s right; Apple Music Lossless and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos tracks are available now. That leaves the soon-tolaunch Spotify HiFi looking like it will have to come as a free upgrade just to stay competitive.

So where does the arrival of these newer, competitively priced hi-res services leave Tidal and Qobuz, and even services not in the hi-res game (Deezer, for example, offers ‘only’ CD quality)? How will they convince customers to stick around for hi-res