Tidal appears to be streamlining its subscription plans by integrating lossless audio and high-res audio into one new ad-free, separate plan for just $1099/£1099/$1299 AUD/month This is great news for high-res audio enthusiasts like myself, and includes full access to Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio spatial audio content This change brings Tidal's prices in line with Apple Music and Amazon Music

The new plan, which will launch on April 10 and will be called simply Tidal, will merge Tidal's current HiFi and HiFi Plus plans

As a paid member of several excellent music streaming services, I regularly listen to Tidal's HiFi (CD-quality lossless audio) tier I subscribe to a $1099/month personal subscription (I confess, I've been overpaying since I foolishly reinstated my Tidal subscription via my iPhone), and I've already received a Tidal subscription change I have received a notification The price will remain the same as my current subscription, and I have the option to cancel my subscription if I wish

Tidal's new plan means that I will have access to Tidal's entire library of high-res music files at no additional charge This is good news for any high-res music fan, as previously, in order to access Tidal's high-res music content, one had to sign up for the expensive $20/month HiFi Plus plan, and follows the simplification of the company's streaming offering that began last year

Tidal is known for its high-res MQA format At the time of its launch, MQA allowed high-resolution audio files containing large amounts of data to be easily streamed from music servers on bandwidth-limited digital networks and "packed" for "unpacking" on compatible MQA playback devices in the home

However, as digital networks and infrastructure improved, Tidal began phasing out support for the MQA format and began offering its high-resolution library in the FLAC format in June 2023

1 Full access to Tidal's high-resolution library: Tidal's music library offers over 110 million songs in lossless audio and high-resolution FLAC Approximately 200,000 high-resolution songs are added each week

2 Spatial Audio Content: Two other features bundled with this new Tidal package are 360 Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos spatial audio integration

3 offline listening: Tidal tracks and videos can be downloaded to your phone for offline listening

4 exclusive content: consists of concerts, curated mixes, discovery radio stations, podcasts, shows, etc

5 best content curation: algorithmically generated recommendations are personalized to music and video mixes that fit the user's listening habits, making my Daily Discovery a surefire way to find new artists and songs It's a tool

While Tidal has streamlined its subscription plans to bring it closer to its market rivals, Spotify is the only streaming service without lossless, high-resolution, or spatial audio streaming tiers We look forward to more discoveries at Spotify Stream On 2024, rumored to take place later this month