Amazon prepares a new high-quality music service for the end of 2019

At the gates of the weekend, Music Business Worldwide reported, referring to sources unidentified but familiar with the company's plans, that Amazon is in negotiations with large music rights owners in order to obtain the necessary licenses that it allow the launch of a new high-quality streaming music service. The arrival of this new option would take place later this year and would have a price much higher than the current Amazon Music Unlimited .

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The move that Amazon seems to be giving could give it some advantage over its more immediate competitors, Spotify and Apple Music. And according to the sources consulted, he would have already reached an agreement with a major record label.

According to industry experts consulted by Apple Insider , the new high-quality music service could be launched with a subscription of fifteen dollars a month, a price that is 50% higher than its competitors. Thus, Spotify and Apple Music have a cost of $ 9.99 per month, however, they offer music to users at a “normal” bit rate.

With these plans, Amazon appears to be targeting consumers willing to pay more for high-quality sound. Tidal is among those who cater to audiophiles and offers CD quality streaming (44.1 kHz / 16 bit FLAC) and a limited number of “Masters” tracks (96 kHz / 24 bit FLAC files with MQA encoding) via your hi-fi subscription level of $ 20 per month.

Details of the purported Amazon service, including bit figures, compression and encoding methods, and song availability, are not yet available. Additionally, the company has not yet partnered with Master Quality Authenticated , owners of the MQA codec, suggesting that the service may be dependent on different audio technology.

"It's a better bit rate, better than CD quality, " said an unnamed source. "Amazon is working on it as we speak: They are currently evaluating how much catalog they can get from everyone and how they will integrate it."

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