“Apple Inc. is in exploratory talks to acquire Tidal, a streaming-music service run by rap mogul Jay Z, according to people familiar with the matter,” Daisuke Wakabayashi, Hannah Karp and Patience Haggin report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The talks are ongoing and may not result in a deal, these people said. Apple is exploring the idea of bringing on Tidal to bolster its Apple Music service because of Tidal’s strong ties to popular artists such as Kanye West and Madonna,” Wakabayashi, Karp and Haggin report. “Terms of the potential deal aren’t known.”
“Tidal charges $20 a month for a high-fidelity version of its 40-million-song catalog or $10 a month for standard-quality sound. Tidal said it has 4.2 million paying subscribers,” Wakabayashi, Karp and Haggin report. “But the company has experienced management turmoil, churning through three chief executives, including one hired by previous management and one interim, in less than a year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Consolidation.
YAY! Tidal’ higher Rez music is so much better than iTunes…. Apple should have been distributing access to cd quality sound already.
Next maybe they can upgrade the resolution of their iTunes movies…..
People have been forced to enjoy low Rez music and movies for so lone they don’t know what they’re missing.
I’ll play you two tracks over the same headphones, one at 256kbps AAC and one off of a CD while you’re blindfolded and I dare you to tell me the difference unless you have perfect pitch and the frequency response in your ears of a top vocalist or violinist.
Sorry, but I’m a vocalist and a musician, and there is definitely a difference between downloaded music and CD’s- much more so through good headphones than even good monitors. I play music from iTunes, but for a few bucks more I make sure I get the CD first.
How does being a vocalist and musician give you better hearing? I like to see you do this same test. Blindfold and play ten tracks and see if you can tell them all apart.
I don’t deny there’s a difference over good headphones… But my test just says the “same” headphones. That could be $30 earbuds…. And I also said if you have perfect pitch (that’s important). And if you’re blindfolded and don’t know the source it’s going to be really hard… Remember that AAC is different than MP3. It sounds very similar to cd’s especially at 256kbps.
There’s a massive difference.
Trust me.
If you want to hear pure sound, listen to vinyls.
Snap, crackle, pop. Unromanticize that crap.
I love Tidal. Hope they don’t give it the iTunes treatment. Uncompressed music is nice.
I think you should look up compression with regard to music. It isn’t what you think.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
—Inigo Montoya
/h
Why bother?
YAY! High-fidelity crap music where talking is considered singing, and regardless of no instruments being played, it is still considered music.
Well, I guess if it sells, I can see why Apple wants to be involved.
I miss Steve Jobs as he knew what real music was; the groups that wrote their own beats, tempos, lyrics, or simply – songs.
It’s not even Hi-Fi crap if it’s been over-normalized under the insane & moronic idea louder is better when it’s just relative, and dynamic range and actual transients are sonically superior. not to mention less distorted. It’s all a waste anyway to rinky-dink talk-sing & imbecilic lyrics music production, regardless of format. Not all of today’s artists are musical lost souls without an ounce of class, just the self-proclaimed “creative genius” types.
How was the Trump rally?
You do realize that you get to choose your music, don’t you?
In case you haven’t noticed, you only get to choose what is offered for sale in the format it’s offered.
With middle men like Apple “curating” music for you, you will be fed the same 40 computer-corrected overproduced tracks everyone else listens to this week.
Sounds like a deal…gotta be worth at least a few billion, huh?
Is this gonna be another ‘tärd move like Beats?
Yeah sure, they made one thug a billionaire or so he claims, now to make another one.. So we all know what is apple using its billions of dollars of cash for..
Why do they want to buy this loser company? Beats was a bad idea, this is even worse!
Oh Wow. If Apple bails out Tidal and makes Jayz a profit on this misguided adventure I will be selling ALL of my Apple stock.
Jimmy L. and Dr Dre taking care of their own.
Acquiring several million more subscribes at a fire sale price?
Does Eddie Cue have a thing for wasting money buying out rappers who fancy themselves media executives? First buying the worthless Beats to line serial abuser Andre Romelle Young dba Dr Dre now more money for another me too service owned by another non-musician that runs their mouth over a drum machine.
Piss away billions more and maybe make 20 million by next year.
Probably the only way Jay-Z can make money off that service.
Is Tim Cook now using Apple money to do reparation payments for slavery to America black rap artists? Is that now Apples purpose?
This is about the third time now that Apple has jumped the shark …..