Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming What HiFi announces Tidal available on Sooloos in 'early 2015'

OK now the furore is starting to die down with TIDAL suddenly becoming United Artists mk2 or the 'Avengers of Music' as a be-helmeted member of Daft Punk quipped let's see how quickly they start to talk about MQA as they haven't mentioned it yet?

Maybe Bob Stuart, Madge and Jack White need to meet up to sort it!

Also found a useful TIDAL Support in Sooloos document on the Meridan website.

Phew! The debate widens / thickens and concerns are expressed! See this recent Guardian article TIDAL: 10 things you need to know.

Further info suggests all is still not rosy in the garden? see here and that Spotify are not just going to lie down & go away. Even the Washington Post has chipped in as well.

Looks like Mr Zed and his pals aren't as well liked as they maybe thought?

If Tidal want to prove themselves they need to dig in and actively support the Independant artists globally. That's the root of all future music and where their long term success will come from.
Doing this, along side all the mainstream work they must also excel at, will also give them credibility, and scotch the accusation that it's just rich artist getting richer.
Wether they (the rich Artists) can see this from their world view is a moot point. I hope so.

Thoughts, Chris

IMHO..........

* Tidal wont "win" because it offers Lossless CD Tracks

* Tidal wont "win" because it offers MQA

* Tidal wont "win" because Jay Z is the CEO (or whatever)

* Tidal will only win if it can convince the biggest Artists in the world to follow Taylor Swift's model (hopefully not her music )

She negotiated with Spotify last year to get them to withdraw her music from their Free service........and when they refused, she pulled all her music from Spotify

As one of the biggest selling Artists, she had the POWER to force her recording company to withdraw her music.......I'm sure they were dragged along kicking and screaming........the smaller selling and "Independent" artists will not have the power to force their recording companies to do anything of the sort

If Jay Z et al can get all the Artists on the stage last week......plus many of the other "big sellers"......to pull their music from Spotify & Pandora and make their music "exclusive" to Tidal......where they can earn twice the royalty rates offered by Spotify.......then that will force the regular punter, who listens to Spotify in their car and on their phones, to subscribe to a service that offers ALL the music they want and not just a subset of it

Right or wrong, these Artists just want to make people pay $10 to $20 a month to listen to their music......as well as X-Million other Albums.......which IMHO is a justifiable request......

Many people are used to not paying for their music enjoyment......and it will take a paradigm shift to convince people that paying for music is worthwhile.....and it's only the most successful artists in the world that have the "power" to make such a change

United Artists 2 as someone said earlier in this thread.

Paradigm shift indeed!

A lot of the furore in the US is because TIDAL at $19.99 per month costs twice as much as Spotify at $9.99 and people are saying it's not worth twice the price.

Lest we forget, here in the UK it costs 3X as much per month (�19.99 = $29.81). Maybe Alicia's Nietzsche quote should have been slightly amended to.

This is part of the 'Music is Free' culture kicking and screaming. If you buy 2 or more mainstream ish CD's a month, Tidal is cheap without a quality loss.

If your used to getting music free and don't care about quality, then the price is horrendous, the world will end, those rich B.....d's are just getting richer etc. etc.

If you want good quality free music, YouTube is the place to go as independent artists put up recorded and live content for free.

I often post some of this content on the site in the hope it will lead people to enjoy and eventually support the artist buy buying music or better still, Tickets.

Thoughts, Chris

Just for the record, Tidal is the same price as Spotify, i.e. $9.99 a month for their "Premium" 320kbps Tier.

It's Tidal's Lossless service that costs the extra $10 a month.

Or $20 extra a month if you reside in the UK.

Also, although not yet confirmed TIDAL Premium when launched later this month will cost �9.99 in the UK and $9.99 elsewhere which is again a 50% hike up for us 'wealthy' Brits.

Russell, the US/European disparity is well documented and there are many reasons for it. TBH, when some of my US friends reel off a list of all of their financial outlay considerations (many of which we take for granted as provided for us in the UK), having to pay the current equivalent of $30/month is the least of my first world worries. Please let's keep this "above the line" rather than dragging this old chestnut up again; it is what it is and there are ways round it if it bothers you that much.

Anyway, I was musing about the extra $10/�10/�10 a month above and beyond Spotify and Tidal "Premium".

Premium (320kbps lossy) is not a substitute for a ripped CD collection; typically, it's something that Audiophiles run alongside their lossless ripped music. But Tidal (and Qobuz and Deezer Elite) are a viable substitute, particularly if you can get your head around the "perpetual" nature of the subscription model. In this respect, the lossless service might be regarded as only $��10/month (above and beyond what many audiophiles already have). It does depend very much on your point of view.

Where streaming services really win for me is that I listen to music that I would never normally buy. This is interesting. It means that for albums I don't like, hardly anything goes to the artist. This contrasts with having to buy a CD (for �10-14 at peak) which you might only play once, not enjoy, and has slurped money which might have otherwise gone to another artist. The corollary is that my music �s (which still get spent) simply end up (partially) going to the artists for the music I listen to.

Which brings me on to an interesting initiative from Qobuz which is reduced outright purchase costs for subscribers. I've not looked into this in detail, but I would take it further. I can see that an option to purchase albums, listened to a minimum X number of times, at a greatly reduced rate might be worth considering. Allay the worry over lack of ownership by being able to buy the music you really care about, in perpetuity, but getting another couple of quid to the artist. Best of both worlds for artists and fans?

Hi thanks for this. The last two paragraphs certainly resonate with me & I like the sound of the hybrid model being proposed by Qobuz. I've bought excellent quality stuff from them before and think I'll have a closer look at their suggestions.

Just to clarify, from memory, Qobuz are offering a nominal (but not great, given the �20/month subscription you will already be paying) discount. By "taking it further" I was suggesting that there was a hybrid model that the studios and streamers might consider.