Tidal and Lossless Streaming

[james45974]

There's an article on engadget (new as of yesterday) about some of the commercial considerations associated with Jay Z's purchase.

 

It's kind of amazing how on the one hand Tidal is looking more appealing (apparently imminent support for playback from Roon and also some near-term possibilities for playing back via Audirvana+), while at the same time, Jay Z's moves may imply imminent disaster. One hopes that Mr Carter will keep in mind that his audiophile demographic is paying a good piece of the freight for the enterprise.

 

--David

 

My opinion, as stated already in another Tidal thread, is that the audiophile demographic is not now nor never will be the market driver for streaming services. It is already a niche and may become a smaller niche once Jay Z gets his plans rolling. I think the key here is how Apple rolls out its service and what the other services have to do to play the inevitable catch-up.

[orgel]

My opinion, as stated already in another Tidal thread, is that the audiophile demographic is not now nor never will be the market driver for streaming services. It is already a niche and may become a smaller niche once Jay Z gets his plans rolling. I think the key here is how Apple rolls out its service and what the other services have to do to play the inevitable catch-up.

 

No question but that Apple will have a huge impact on the subscription-music market. It's looking like they'll launch or at least unveil the Apple/Beats subscription service at WWDC in June.

 

Still and all, I'm not seeing a lot of rumors that Apple is planning on streaming at CD quality or better, so I think the Apple service will have a more pronounced effect on Spotify et al. than it will on Tidal, Qobuz, and their ilk. So "high-quality" streaming will still be a niche market, but it could be a viable niche, IMO. If the Tidal library continues to grow across genres under Jay Z, then I think Tidal has a chance. The Roon stuff is really pretty exciting if it performs as promised, and I think it will be attractive to the sorts of folks who are willing to pony up $20/month for CD-quality streaming.

 

If Jay Z and his team choose to focus only on contemporary hip-hop, pop, and rock, then they're probably screwed.

 

--David