Earlier this week, Jay Z admitted that the Illuminati is real by hosting a live signing of a new Declaration of Independence.
Er, wait. Sorry. What actually happened is, Jay Z introduced a new artist-owned streaming music service to the world via a rather intense press conference (Alicia Keys quoted Nietzsche). This new venture, similar in format and presentation to Spotify, is called Tidal, and Jay purchased it from a Swedish tech company in January. Jay, along with his star-studded list of partners, wants to change the industry, take the power away from records labels, put money back in the pockets of musicians, and give listeners access to music in as hi-def a format as possible. That's one of Tidal's big selling points, sound quality. In fact, there are two levels available to subscribers: $9.99 a month, which gets you sound in standard definition, and then $19.99 a month, which gets you pristine lossless quality.
But who will be able to tell the difference between Tidal's pricey lossless quality and, say, plain old Spotify? To find out, we walked around New York and conducted a blind hearing test. First we played the participant a song on Spotify, then we played a song using Tidal. Could anyone tell the difference? Find out in the video above.
