Right on cue, Tidal begins rolling out hi-res FLAC streaming

(Image credit: Tidal)

Tidal now offers over six million songs in hi-res FLAC format courtesy of its latest app update.

As we reported back in April, Tidal CEO Jesse Dorogusker announced via an AMA session over on Reddit that Tidal “will be introducing hi-res FLAC for our HiFi Plus subscribers soon”. A following statement suggested these could reach HiFi Plus subscribers in August, and right on cue here they are. (If only Spotify could be so punctual with its hi-res promises…)

The hi-res FLAC streams sit alongside the service’s current MQA-powered hi-res streams, which have required HiFi Plus subscribers to have a device or software capable of decoding the MQA technology, such as the mobile apps or an MQA-compatible music streamer. By adding hi-res FLACs to its library, the service’s high-resolution streaming offering is more accessible than ever before.

The highly anticipated upgrade has taken effect this past week and applies to users across all platforms. As a result of this latest change, Tidal has renamed its audio quality levels to make it easier for users to choose based on their hardware specs and data strength.

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New audio quality settings:

• Max – High fidelity lossless audio up to 24-bit, 192 kHz with HiRes FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and Master Quality Authenticated audio (MQA).

• High – Lossless audio with FLAC (16-bit, 44.1 kHz)

• Low (up to 320 kbps) – Listen to the music you love using lower data usage with compressed AAC files.

This followed the news that MQA Ltd had entered administration, which created uncertainty around the question of whether the MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) format would continue to be supported on Tidal.

Although it is still unclear what the future looks like for MQA Ltd, Tidal confirmed that its “existing MQA catalogue will continue to be available on the platform” when we reached out to the company for comment earlier this year.

MORE:

Read our Tidal review

Tidal CEO confirms hi-res FLAC roll-out – and drops hint on MQA support

Tidal is introducing hi-res lossless FLAC but says the MQA catalogue will remain

MQA is going into administration

TOPICS

Ainsley Walker is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi?. He studied music journalism at university before working in a variety of roles including as a freelance journalist and teacher. Growing up in a family of hi-fi enthusiasts naturally influenced his interest in the topic. Outside of work, Ainsley can be found producing music, tinkering with retro tech, or cheering on Luton Town.

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3 Comments Comment from the forums

Titntin

Far too late to ever regain trust from this previous user. The whole attempt to sell us on a losy format and sell licenses to decode it was a an obvious attempt to 'snake oil' users to paying for something inferior to the free, bit perfect format they have had to come back to.
Having ran tidal and qobuz for some months through Roon, Tidal has demonstrably worse sound quality, even playing redbook standard flacs. Almost anyone who has compared for any length of time reaches the same conclussion.
It costs more to subscribe and pays less royalties to artists too. It also deosnt allow you to purchase and download high resolution albums either.

Nice to see them climb down and finally offer users real high res files, but this is still an inferior and expensive service compared with the best alternative, and I would never go back, and never trust them again.
Reply
Navanski

Absolutely. I mean, nobody else fell for the illusory MQA format.
Just to remind you that some very reputable hifi manufacturers also jumped on board. Bluenode, Cambridge Audio and LG to name just a few. I fail to see the reason for highlighting Tidal as the main contributor to an industry faux pas.
Reply
Titntin

Navanski said:
Absolutely. I mean, nobody else fell for the illusory MQA format.
Just to remind you that some very reputable hifi manufacturers also jumped on board. Bluenode, Cambridge Audio and LG to name just a few. I fail to see the reason for highlighting Tidal as the main contributor to an industry faux pas.
Tidal were the only streaming service offering this nonsense and they had a deal with MQA to push it.
Hi fi manufacturers simply had to offer the tech, or risk being seen as 'non-compatible' with a major steaming service. Without Tidal, no one would have paid a licencing fee to decode a new lossy format.
There are also well documented cases of Tidal deliberately trying to ensure people could not decode and check their 'MQA' encoded files, and Artists who never submitted a Studio Master file, who's files were then offered as such. The whole situation was very 'dodgy' and a good example of why many people believe all 'Hi Fi' talk is snake oil.

The above reasons are a clear indication as to why Tidal were as guilty as the parent company of foisting this nonsense on people, whilst hi fi manufacturers were simply trying to remain compatible.
Reply

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