What Is Tidal? The hi-fi streaming music service explained

When considering subscribing to a streaming music service or switching from one to another, Tidal is one of the services that undoubtedly come up in the same breath as Spotify and Apple Music but tops them both when it comes to its reputation as a source of the highest quality of streaming music you can get.

Home to an immense music library with tens of millions of tracks, Tidal offers some of the best lossless and hi-res music tracks (more on this to come) in the streaming biz. With a couple of price tiers available based on how hi-res you want to go and family-plan versions of them, Tidal has a lot to offer, including podcasts, Dolby Atmos tracks, and playlists based on your listening habits. Here’s everything you need to know about Tidal.

What is Tidal?

Tidal is a music streaming subscription service with a catalog of tens of millions of songs, which includes exclusives. It also has a variety of podcasts, music videos, live concert recordings, and professionally curated playlists. As with most streaming services, it’s accessible on a wide variety of devices, including computers, smartphones, tablets, smart speakers, and platforms like Apple TV and Android TV. However, Tidal has a couple of different focuses that help it stand out.

Tidal was originally owned by a group of musicians, including Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Jack White, Kanye, Madonna, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Chris Martin of Coldplay, and others. In 2021, Square purchased Tidal for around $300 million, ending this artist-based ownership, although its influence remains. Tidal is a very artist-friendly platform compared to other options, and for paid subscriptions, a portion of up to 10% of the subscription is specifically directed toward your most listened artists in addition to their royalties.

Second, Tidal’s HiFi and HiFi Plus subscription tiers give you access to CD-quality audio at a minimum (with the HiFi plan) and a limited catalog of hi-res music, including Hifi and Max tracks, which top out at 24-bit/192kHz with hi-res FLAC files. It also supports Dolby Atmos and Sony’s 360 Reality audio for spatial audio properties. While other services have started to include lossless audio and similar benefits, Tidal still offers the best audio quality for casual listening without paying extra fees (more on this below)

How much does Tidal cost, and what’s included?

Tidal offers two main subscription tiers: HiFi and HiFi Plus. At one point, the platform offered a free version of the service called Tidal Access, which removed access to video content and other extras while introducing ads during playback. If you’re a new Tidal subscriber, you’ll still be able to receive a 30-day free trial for whatever monthly plan you sign up for, but a free version of the platform no longer exists.

Additionally, Tidal offers family bundling and discounts for students, military, and first responders. We’ve listed the most popular Tidal plans below and have broken each plan down by price and benefits.

HiFi — $11 per month: This gives you full ad-free access to Tidal’s entire music library, with audio bit-rates capped at 16-bit/44.1kHz (CD quality)

HiFi Plus — $20 per month: This adds HiRes FLAC, FLAC, Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) support at up to 24-bit/192kHz, along with Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio support.

Family HiFi — $17 per month: This version allows for up to six different people on the same account but limits audio to standard sound quality.

Family HiFi Plus — $30 per month: Here, you get support for six different profiles, plus all the lossless and high-quality format support from the previous plans.

As mentioned, Tidal also offers several discounted plans. That includes 50% student discounts, military discounts, and first responder discounts.

HiFi Plus, FLAC, and MQA tracks

Under Tidal’s HiFi Plus subscription, two of the main hi-res track formats you’ll have at your disposal are HiRes FLAC and MQA. For a long time, MQA was Tidal’s sole 24-bit/96kHz format, but the powers that be decided to integrate HiRes FLAC content too. 

Longtime Tidal listeners may pine for the days of MQA-only content because MQA track quality is determined by the record label, as opposed to the streaming service. However, the convenience of having access to FLAC content pushes bit-rates up to 24-bit/192kHz for applicable songs and artists. Not to mention that the FLAC format is also more widely supported across the AV landscape. When Tidal’s Masters catalog (another name for its MQA library) was the preferred hi-res format, listeners could only unlock the full benefit of the format by having specific A/V hardware. 

So how do you know if you’re listening to a FLAC or MQA track? When you’re using Tidal’s mobile and desktop apps, you’ll see a FLAC or MQA label above the command dashboard for whatever hi-res track you’re listening to. 

As it stands, Tidal’s preferred streaming hierarchy is as follows (from highest to lowest): HiRes FLAC, MQA, FLAC, AAC. And also keep in mind, true hi-res audio quality is very much dependent on the last pieces of the audio delivery chain, namely the digital-to-analog converter (DAC), the amplifier, and the speakers/headphones. If any of these elements aren’t high-quality or are not compatible with hi-res audio, you won’t get the full hi-res experience.

What is Dolby Atmos Music?

Dolby Atmos Music is the same object-based audio system used in cinemas and home theaters to create incredibly immersive sound experiences, but it’s been adapted for studio-recorded and live music.

Dolby Atmos is not available on all songs, but if you have a HiFi Plus subscription, you can access the format wherever it is available. With the right plan, you should be able to find suggested Dolby Atmos content in the Explore tab when logged in.  To hear Dolby Atmos Music tracks at their full quality, you need an Atmos-compatible streaming device, such as an Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire TV devices, Nvidia Shield and Shield Pro, or Chromecast with Google TV, and an Atmos-compatible A/V receiver, TV, soundbar, or wireless speaker.

Which speakers, devices, and software work with Tidal?

With an active Tidal subscription, you have many choices when it comes to listening to or watching Tidal content.

Tidal provides its own software for use on:

• iOS devices and Apple Watch
• Android devices
• Roku devices
• Vizio Devices
• Macs and PCs
• Apple TV
• Android/Google TV
• Amazon Fire TV
• Samsung Smart TVs (2017 and newer)
• Samsung Gear watches

There’s extensive support for the Tidal music service on third-party sound systems, like Sonos, Denon HEOS, BlueSound, Yamaha MusicCast, and many more. Within the dedicated apps for these systems, Tidal can be added as a streaming music source using your Tidal account login email and password.

You can also integrate Tidal content into popular media player/server software, like Plex and Roon, plus there’s a Tidal add-on for Kodi and lots of other software.

In October 2020, Tidal announced Tidal Connect, a new way of casting Tidal audio to compatible wireless speakers. Using the Tidal app as a controller, you can select a specific speaker for playback and send it the highest-quality stream possible, whether it’s lossless FLAC, MQA, or even Dolby Atmos. Tidal Connect is similar to Chromecast or AirPlay, but these casting protocols do not support Connect’s higher-quality audio streams. Here’s a look at the devices that currently support Tidal Connect.

Then, there is voice assistant compatibility to play music on Tidal via a voice command, which is a bit more limited. Tidal has added support for Alexa and Google Assistant in past years, but Siri support is limited. While Tidal works with Siri on iPhones, the only way to play Tidal on Apple’s HomePod Mini is via AirPlay from your iOS device. The same is true for Google’s Home line of smart speakers — you can cast Tidal to them from a mobile app, but there’s no native support for Tidal, so you won’t be able to say, “Hey Google, play Nipsey Hussle on Tidal.”

Alexa and Google Assistant voice assistants are supported on Sonos smart speakers, such as the Sonos Era 300 or the Sonos Ray soundbar. However, as we pointed out, you cannot add Tidal directly to Google Assistant; you can only add it to the Sonos app, which Google Assistant can then control.

Tidal extras

Beyond its extensive music catalog, Tidal also offers some noteworthy extra features.

Playlists

You can create, edit, and delete your playlists from Tidal tracks. Using either Tune My Music or Soundiiz, you can import your playlists from other music services like Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Soundcloud, YouTube, Google Play Music, and more. Tidal also publishes and maintains its own collection of playlists organized by mood and genre. Moods are often activity-oriented, like driving, focus, relax, or party, while genres are the more traditional categories like dance, metal, jazz, and rap.

If you want a playlist created for you, Tidal’s My Mix feature uses an algorithm to build playlists based on your favorite music. You’ll need to listen to music for a while so that My Mix can get an accurate read, but otherwise, it’s very effective at building instant playlists and making new suggestions. While Tidal used to provide playlists curated by experts like Jay-Z, this effort has dwindled in recent years, although you can find older curated lists from various artists.

Tidal Magazine

Just as impressive as the human-curated playlists are Tidal’s collection of articles and interviews found in its Magazine section. These range from album reviews like Patterson Hood’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars to Alan Light’s deep dive into the forces that shaped Prince’s obsession with perfection. These aren’t just hot takes on the latest trends — they’re considered posts by those who know music best: musicians, producers, and expert journalists.

Podcasts

While Tidal’s collection of podcasts doesn’t match that of Spotify or other platforms, it has an eclectic library with various topics, especially podcasts that examine new music or books and interview artists and authors.

Videos

Speaking of videos, this is one area where Tidal really shines. With over 450,000 music videos, live concert recordings, and special shows like In Praise of Prince, Rough Draft, and Fresh Cuts, it’s worth downloading the Tidal app to a video device like Apple TV or Android TV to experience these videos on the big screen. However, videos are not available on the free version of the service — you’ll need to pay for a subscription to access them. You can also access live-streaming concerts thanks to Tidal Rising, which spotlights rising artists via a partnership with Horizon Worlds, a Meta virtual venue project.

Tidal Beta Program

Want early access to brand-new Tidal features before they’re released to the general public? Consider signing up for the Tidal Beta Program, which is available for iOS and Android versions of the Tidal mobile app.

The Beta Program used to be called Early Access, requiring you to download the TestFlight app to your smartphone. Fortunately, new Beta Program enlistees just need to download the latest version of the Tidal app. Then, head into Settings, tap Join Beta, and toggle Beta on.

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