Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Tidal gives beta testers a live DJ feature

Derek Malcolm
By

Tidal, the high-resolution music streaming service, announced today that it’s inviting members of its Early Access beta testing program to try out a new feature, dubbed “DJ”, that will allow them to share playlists, albums, and tracks with other Tidal members, live, at the same time, no matter where they are.

Three screens from the The Tidal DJ feature.
Tidal

While limited details of the DJ feature are available, a press release from Tidal says that U.S. subscribers to its HiFi Plus plan that are also enrolled in the Early Access Program can gain access to a beta build of the Tidal app that includes the new capability. These users can then create and name playlists (using text and emojis) for a “session” — be it for a road trip, workout, or party warm-up — to be shared with other Tidal users to listen in, live. Full albums and songs can also be shared, and it appears that listening to the DJ session is open to all Tidal members through the iOS and Android apps, while creating the sessions is currently limited to those on the HiFi Plus tier with the beta app, which is for iOS only at the moment.

Recommended Videos

DJs can create sessions from Tidal’s 90 million-song catalog and then create a link to share it however they see fit — social channels, chat, or text. According to the press release, “Tracks will play in normal AAC quality until high-resolution or lossless quality becomes available at a later date,” but it’s unclear if that means that the lower AAC audio quality is just for the beta testing duration or if any of Tidal’s better quality audio formats will be made available to the DJ feature in the future. Update: Tidal has clarified that the DJ will hear the quality they selected and listeners will just hear the normal sound quality (assuming this means AAC). The music playing doesn’t get interrupted.

Related

To try out the DJ feature, you must be a subscriber to Tidal’s $20 per month HiFi Plus plan (which gives you lossless High Fidelity and Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) formats) and sign up for Tidal’s Early Access Program that gives users the opportunity to download and test early builds and features of the Tidal app.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm
Contributing Editor, A/V
Derek Malcolm is a Toronto-based technology journalist, editor, and content specialist whose work has appeared in…
SiriusXM plans, pricing, and features for the satellite (and internet) service
A person using SiriusXM on a car infotainment system.

Radio has long been a powerful communication tool. And even in the internet age in the 21st Century, it remains so. Perhaps not as relevant as when AM/FM broadcasts were the primary way folks got their information and entertainment at home or even when it was a major feature in the car. But radio has evolved as a technology in the decades nearly 150 years since Marconi did his thing.

That brings us to SiriusXM. The (very) abbreviated history is that once upon a time, there were two competing satellite radio companies. They merged, grew stronger, and evolved beyond only using satellites to spread the wealth of entertainment, news, and sports that make up SiriusXM as we know it today.

Read more
HEOS app refresh adds some of Sonos’ best features
Multiple screenshots from the HEOS app's December 2023 update.

Users of the Denon HEOS multiroom wireless audio system (which also works with select products from Marantz and Definitive Technology) are finally getting features that Sonos users have enjoyed for years, like universal search. The update should be visible in the app starting December 14. If you don't see it, check the Apple App Store or Google Play to see if an update to the app is available.

The new version has improved navigation, which brings another popular Sonos feature: a persistent Now Playing area at the bottom of the screen. Masimo, the parent company of Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio, Definitive Technology, and Bowers & Wilkins, says that the new design makes navigation more intuitive while providing a sleek and modern interface.

Read more
SiriusXM reboots satellite radio with new app, features — and price
An unreleased version of the new SiriusXM app on a Cadillac Lyric EV.

SiriusXM is simultaneously a legacy brand and one that's looking toward the future of satellite radio in a streaming world. And today at a celebrity-laden event in New York City — kicked off by none other than Howard Stern — SiriusXM took a more-than 90-minute look at its history, its present, and where it's going in 2024 and beyond.

Satellite radio was perhaps a bit ahead of its time, allowing subscribers — yes, subscription radio — to listen to music, sports, and talk radio, anywhere in the country. It (brilliantly) worked deals with automakers to work its way into new cars with free trials. And it did so in the space between the advent of the modern smartphone and the introduction of proper streaming media services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. Today, SiriusXM boasts somewhere in the neighborhood of nearly 34 million subscribers.

Read more