By                    Dawn Allcot

See: A Musical Couple Teaches Kids of All Ages How To Rock OutFind: Big-Name Musicians Who Are Dropping Albums During COVID-19

More From Your Money: Choose a high-interest saving, checking, CD, or investing account from our list of top banks to start saving today.

Apple also announced the introduction of high-resolution, Lossless Audio to its catalog of 75 million songs. Additionally, Apple will be adding thousands of tracks mixed with Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos, bringing an even more immersive experience to Apple Music. The offerings will be available at no additional cost to Apple Music subscribers beginning June 1, 2021, Apple reported.

Spotify, the largest streaming service based on listeners and subscribers, hinted at plans to offer its lossless audio offerings, Spotify HiFi, sometime in 2021, CNET reported. However, no timeline has been revealed. Spotify originally said the high-resolution audio offering would be priced at $20/month, compared to the Spotify Premium service, which is $9.99 per month.

What Is High Resolution Audio?

The Digital Entertainment Group, along with the Consumer Electronics Association and The Recording Academy defined high-resolution audio of a quality that can reproduce “the full range of sound from recordings mastered from better than CD quality music sources,” according to WhatHiFi.com. However, streaming services market CD quality sound as lossless audio — and for most listeners, the difference is not noticeable.

Discover: Fintech Company Square Launches Its Own Bank, Acquires Tidal Music Platform

For the tech-inclined, high-definition or high-resolution audio has a higher sampling frequency than CDs, which are 16-bit or 44.1kHz kilohertz. The higher the sampling frequency, the more nuance listeners will hear in the music. Similar to the difference between high definition video or 4K, the more bits per second captured during the analog-to-digital conversion, the greater the depth of detail.

As an example, Tidals’ Premium service is captured and streamed at 320 kilobytes per second. The HiFi quality is 1411 kbps or greater, which equals CD quality or 44.1 kHz. The Master quality delivers between 2304 and 9216 kbps.

Should You Pay for High Resolution Music?

For generations who grew up with audio cassette tapes and recording music off our boombox radios to create mix tapes, high resolution audio may not seem like a big deal. But one of the drawbacks to streaming in the past had been the loss of audio quality compared to high-definition CDs.

See: Kings of Leon Becomes First-Ever Band To Release an Album as CryptocurrencyFind: How To Save Money on All Your Monthly Expenses and Bills

High-resolution streaming offers the best of both worlds: Convenience of a variety of music, on demand, whenever and wherever you want it, combined with audio quality as good as, or better, than CDs. Depending on the sound system you use to listen to music, where you choose to listen, and how important audio quality is to you, high-resolution could be an important upgrade.

  • Housing Breaks That Are Available to Military Members and Their Families
  • Everything You Need To Know About Taxes This Year
  • 4 Tips for Saving Money While in the Military
  • How To Keep Your Financial Planning On Track in 2021