More recently, music listeners’ switch from CDs and downloads to streaming services inspired the launch of Tidal Hi-Fi, a high-resolution service offered by Tidal, the streaming company famously purchased by Jay-Z in 2015. Companies like HDtracks and Acoustic Sounds offer high-resolution downloads of many current and past albums. CD resolution is 16 bits and 44.1 kHz (written as “16-bit/44.1 kHz” or sometimes just “16/44.1”), and that has been considered the baseline for high-quality digital audio since the early 1980s.Ībout 15 years ago, distribution of music in high resolution-usually 20 to 24 bits and 96 or 192 kilohertz-became possible thanks to digital downloads. In both cases, more is generally considered better. Resolution is expressed in two numbers: word depth in bits (which tells you the difference between the loudest and softest sounds that can be recorded) and sampling rate in kilohertz (which lets you calculate the highest frequencies of sound that can be recorded). In digital audio, resolution refers to the precision with which a digital representation of an audio signal matches the original signal. The fact that the world’s 13th-largest company by revenue has entered the high-res streaming business has to be significant for the music industry, but with high-resolution streaming costing up to two and a half times as much as a standard non-high-res service like Spotify, does it offer a benefit that average music listeners will embrace?Īnswering that question demands a brief dive into the basics of sound-recording technology. Since May, the field of companies offering high-res audio in the US has expanded from one to three major players: Tidal, Qobuz, and now Amazon. Non-audiophiles, however, barely seemed to notice Amazon’s HD music launch. They considered the September announcement of Amazon’s launch of HD high-resolution music streaming to be as consequential as Apple’s introduction of the iPhone. Audiophiles have long prophesied a day when all music would stream in high resolution and the MP3 would be retired to a comfortable recliner from which it could swap war stories with 8-track tapes and laserdiscs.

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