When it comes to getting our hands on music these days, in a legal and easy manner we’ve never had it so good. With choices from Google, Apple, Spotify, Deezer, TIDAL, Rdio, Pandora and more, there’s enough choice out there to find a service that fits you. Just as Samsung did with their Milk Music service, LG is to launch one exclusive to their devices starting this month. Where Milk Music was more of a rebranded service akin to that of Spotify and Deezer, LG aims to differentiate itself by offering “HiFi” quality, with playback of 24-bit music. There’s been a big debate surrounding whether or not high-resolution music (that of the 24-bit variety) is actually any better than CD quality, and we recently ran an article on the matter.
For those not in the know, CDs feature 16-bit music with a sample rate of 96 kHz and a bit rate of 1,411 kbps, while Spotify and co. only stream a fraction of that around 256 – 320 kbps. Services like TIDAL are starting to offer lossless music at full CD quality, but LG’s offering will a bit depth of 24-bit and a sample rate of 192 kHz. This is similar to the hi-res audio that Sony has been trying to push with their Xperia Z smartphones for some time now. It doesn’t appear as though LG’s offering has a name just yet, but the company say it will be available in 70 countries “including the United States, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Italy, Russia and the United Kingdom.” LG have said it will be available on devices starting with the G2, G3, G4 and G Flex 2 and will arrive this month through the LG SmartWorld app.
Pricing and such has yet to be relieved, but considering TIDAL offers up lossless CD-quality at $20 a month – with a discount for students – LG will have to come close to or undercut that price if they expect their loyal users to sign up for the service. There’s also no telling just which music LG’s service will offer up, so it’ll be interesting to see just who and what they’ve managed to secure rights to stream. We should found out more later this month.