New Tidal Plans and Changes

I plan to downgrade and save $120/yr ($1,200 over 10 years...God willing!). Seems like all I’ll be giving up is MQA which is OK. If I’m missing something let me know.

I've enjoyed this last year of Tidal and some of the "Masters" selections do sound sublime (A lot of them sound mediocre too.) but I'm not paying double just to retain them when I re-subscribe at the $10-ish/month level that fits my budget.  Will Tidal delete all the Masters/MQA selections that are in the playlists I've compiled or throttle them down to "just" Redbook quality?

I think they oughtta grandfather them in to the previously favorited tracks/albums and playlists but I suppose what will be will be...

Sounds like a good move to be more competitive.  

Good to know.  I could care less about MQA or the "immersive sound options".  I've been thinking about getting rid of Tidal altogether as I listen almost exclusively to Qobuz at home and Spotify in the car, but there are times where I find things on Tidal that aren't on Qobuz and I like the My Mix feature.

As one of the linked articles points out, this is a competitive response by Tidal to what the giants in the industry are doing.

I received an email stating that I was upgraded to Tidal HiFi Plus at no extra cost. Has anyone else received this? 

@toro3  I also received the email. I believe it's an automatic upgrade for those who were already subscribed to the previous top level plan.

@troidelover1499  Yes, and agree. Square's (the new owner's) approach, plans, and business model are likely reasons as well.

@ toro3

I received such an email and found it somewhat suspicious (request for login password to process a basic plan feature inquiry)...

@lg1  My email DID NOT request login ...  you are right to be concerned. 

Though (I'm assuming) there may be an effort to 'upgrade' if you are not already on their top tier plan.

Got the email too, thanks for this thread as I hadn't yet looked into the new tiers.

Just downgraded to the HiFi (vs what I have now; HiFi+) service to save some money.  I don't really need MQA, or '3D sound'. 

I like how they are paying artists directly with HiFi+, but unfortunatly it seems those payments are only going to thier 'most popular' artists. Somehow I doubt the artists I listened to in Tidal will benifit from that.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tidal-hifi-music-12-month-subscription-starting-at-purchase-auto-renews-at-119-99-per-year-digital/6407163.p?skuId=6407163
 

Looks like Best Buy has a year subscription offer on Tidal's Hi Fi Plus tier for $119.99 going presently...

received notice of free upgrade, no password or login required...

@lg1 I'd have concern as well - it's a little fishy. No login required (just checked my email from Tidal).

I prefer Qobuz and that recently went down to $12.99 for the equivalent tier.

Since my DAC is Redbook only, I downgraded to Tidal HiFi. The subscription changed over on the monthly anniversay date. But, the streaming settings need to be checked. Mine defaulted to Normal. I manually changed it back to HiFi. All is copacetic.

Good post. I got the email, no login required. Didn't pay much attention to email, I'll downgrade and save myself some money. I too find myself using Qobuz much more than Tidal these days. The downgrade on Tidal will bring cost in line to my yearly subscription to Qobuz.

For those who have changed their plan from Tidal HiFi Plus to HiFi, have you noticed any loss of content? Given Tidal's strong push for MQA (of which I dislike), they only offer the MQA version when available. It is not possible to choose between MQA and redbook quality.

I am contemplating downgrading my subscription to HiFi as long as I do not lose access to certain tracks and albums. 16/44.1 would be preferred to MQA, and the cost savings would allow for the addition of a Qobuz subscription.

Don't quote me on this, but I don't think there's any difference in content. You'll be able to access all the files but they just won't play at MQA level if you don't have the top tier plan. 

That's great. I'll downgrade my plan. I distrust MQA, and prefer having access to 16/44.1 instead. The lower cost makes it an even easier decision.

Thanks for the verification.

I too have received this email , during my trial subscriptipn . Everything that I receive is in flac quality . I would like to be able to receive the next higher quality between flac and MQA . I think that they call it ' Hi-Res . I am thinking that this is a seperate class of signal quality . Am I correct ? I am new to this  .

Thanks and be Safe

With Tidal anything higher than 16/44.1 FLAC is packaged in MQA. That's a big advantage for Qobuz, which offers hi-res files in FLAC.

Thanks sonic79 , that explains a lot !

Be Safe