Lossless quality music streaming has been around for years, thanks to dedicated lossless streaming services like Tidal, but it's always been expensive (like twice as expensive as most "Premium" subscriptions). Now that Apple and Amazon are getting into the mix, lossless audio is about to get way more affordable and accessible.
After Apple and Amazon began offering lossless and high-resolution music streaming at the same price as their former lossy-only tiers, TIDAL is finally responding by launching a new, less pricey subscription.
FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed without any loss in quality. FLAC is an open-source format that every artist can create and deliver their music in.
Tidal dropped support for Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) and 360 Reality Audio formats on July 24th, 2024 and use FLAC as default for stereo, while Dolby Atmos will be the format of choice for immersive sound.
Tidal now allows users to stream in three tiers of audio quality: low, high, and max. Low uses AAC files, which go up to 320kbps. High offers CD-quality lossless FLAC files (16-bit, 44.1 kHz). Max offers High fidelity lossless audio up to 24-bit, 192 kHz with HiRes FLAC.
TIDAL Lossless content(1411kbps) is 4.4x the bitrate of the highest Standard Definition streams offered by other services(with a bitrate or 320 kbps), allowing you to hear the music in its purest form. "Lossless" doesn't mean uncompressed, but rather it refers to a type of compressed digital audio file that uses advantaged data compression algorithms so that the audio track doesn't "lose" any detail in the compression process. When downloaded to your device, a 3½ minute song in HiFi (lossless, 44.1 kHz sample rate) - usually takes 20MB.
Although Tidal streams and downloads songs in FLAC format, the downloaded songs are only for offline playback within the TIDAL app. You can't transfer them to other devices or play them other music player. However, with Pazu Tidal Music Converter , you can easily download any songs, albums and playlists to your computer in FLAC format.
Download , install and run Pazu Tidal Converter on your Windows, which features a built-in Tidal web player.
If you have purchased a license, click the key icon to register the converter. If not, continue using the trial version.
Follow the onscreen instructions to log in yout Tidal account.
Click the Gear icon on the top right corner and choose FLAC as output format.
You can also customize output song name with any combination of Title, Artist, Album, Track Number, Playlist Index.
Click any playlist you want to download.
Then click the red icon to load songs. All songs in the playlist will be added by default. You can uncheck the songs you don't want to get.
Click Convert button to start downloading Tidal music to FLAC on your computer.
After conversion, click the folder icon to quickly locate the downloaded FLAC Tidal songs. FLAC music files have been popular for years, but the downside is that they are not supported by Apple's devices and services. If you have an iPhone or Mac, you can download lossless AIFF songs from TIDAL.
Download Tidal songs/albums/playlists to M4A etc.