THE magic of music has been marred by iPods and streaming – but musicians are fighting back with high-resolution music . . . and it’s a bargain if you are savvy.
Amazon’s new service is £12.99 a month. And little-known Qobuz, the first to ever offer hi-res, is less than £5 a month per person for shared plans.
Spotify and Apple Music are market leaders and have made it easy to listen to any song for a tenner a month.
But whether you are listening on home speakers or smartphone earbuds, the sound quality will be worse than listening to vinyl in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties or CDs from the Nineties onwards. And that is strange, because gadgets are more advanced than ever.
After all, TVs are capable of showing blades of grass on a football field and cars have the technology to swerve if you’re about to crash.
Sound good again
But hi-resolution music, already well-known in the industry, is now making songs sound good again — and it is getting cheaper and easier to access.
Key to this is Amazon’s bargain service — just £3 more than lower-quality versions from rivals.
Liam Gallagher’s new MTV Unplugged album hit No1 on Friday — and is proving a hit on Amazon’s service in hi-res.
Hi-res refers to music that is higher quality than a CD — which itself is a lot better than normal streaming on Spotify or downloaded MP3s.
CD quality is 16-bit, and hi-res at 24-bit is a step up from that. Basically the higher the bit, the better.
Amazon offers “millions of songs” in hi-res and the rest in CD quality.
It takes time for streaming services to get hold of older songs in hi-res.
Here, I detail the services providing hi-res music and the best ways to listen to it.
THE STREAMING SERVICES
The three HD music services – and those that are SD only
Amazon Music £12.99 a month for Prime members (£14.99 if not)
Bringing CD quality and hi-res streaming to the masses. Serious competitor to Apple Music and Spotify
Songs: 60+million CD quality and “millions” hi-res
Qobuz. £14.99 and £24.99 for Family Plan
Launched a family plan for six people this week – making it better value. Be savvy and share with your mates. Plus there are “digital” version of booklets found in vinyl and CDs.
Songs: 50million overall and 2million hi-res songs
Tidal. £19.99 a month
Best known for being set up by star Jay Z – and having exclusives from stars such as his wife, Beyonce. Priciest and also requires your phone or hi-fi to have a special MQA chip – which only the fanciest gadgets have.
Songs: 60million standard and around 1million hi-res
Apple Music and Spotify £9.99 a month
The two market leaders only offer lower quality music – but are only £3 less than Amazon.
Both have around 45million songs in standard resolution, which you can download to listen offline or stream when on wi-fi or mobile data.