Tidal, the premium streaming music service geared towards audio fans with artist backers like Jay-Z, is making some important adjustments to its subscription plans to herald extra listeners.

Tidal, which has all the time required a paid subscription to stream tunes, now offers a free plan, which is unique to U.S. subscribers. The free tier offers entry to the service’s total music catalog and playlists, albeit with “limited interruptions.” The bitrate of streaming music for the free plan will prime out at 160 kbps.

Tidal can be making adjustments to its paid tiers. The service has upgraded its normal plan to incorporate lossless and high-resolution audio, as much as 1411 kbps. For $10/month, the usual plan affords offline downloads and entry to Tidal Connect, which helps you to solid your music to exterior gadgets out of your smartphone. Additionally, it unlocks entry to My Activity, which lists insights in your listening habits, like how a lot of your streaming has translated into cost for the artists you assist.

Tidal HiFi Plus obtained a lift, too. It prices $20/month and options Tidal’s most premium audio content material, together with tracks appropriate with Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Audio. Tidal’s Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) recordings will stay unique to this tier, so that you solely pay for it in case your sound system can accommodate it. It additionally provides you entry to unique content material and “future features.”

Tidal continues to be trying to woo musicians after being red-flagged a while in the past for inflating the listening numbers of sure artists. As a part of its new subscription tiers, the corporate launched month-to-month direct-to-artist funds, which Tidal can pay out together with streaming royalties. And starting in 2022, Tidal received’t mixture royalties from its HiFi Plus subscribers however fairly the precise streaming exercise of particular person subscribers.

As Tidal explains on its website, that is all to make you’re feeling like your subscription “goes directly to your own favorite artists as opposed to the industry accepted method of allocating it to the most popular artists.” The firm can be working with Square, Cash App, and PayPal to make sure that funds to artists are swift. (It’s value noting that Square acquired Jay-Z’s stake within the firm earlier this yr and is now Tidal’s majority proprietor.)

Tidal’s enchantment has lengthy been the highest-quality music streaming within the enterprise. But with Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited now providing hi-fi streaming for a similar value, Tidal needed to diversify its subscription providers to draw extra customers.

Anyway, that is the perfect time to go for the gold. Tidal’s largest competitor, Spotify, has centered its latest efforts on podcasting and buying content material exclusives. Though it introduced a hi-fi tier earlier this yr, it has but to ship on it for its Premium subscribers. At least this manner, Tidal can say it was first.