A week after launching a free, ad-supported version of its Music Unlimited service in the U.S., Amazon.com Inc. is reported to be planning a new high-definition music streaming service.

According to Music Business Worldwide, Amazon is currently in discussion with music rights holders about the service with at least one major record company having already signed on.

The as-yet unnamed service is said to be priced at around $15 per month and is currently scheduled to be launched before the end of 2019.

While already competing with market leader Spotify Technology AB and Apple Inc.’s Music service, the latter now the market leader in the U.S., Amazon’s new hi-def service would compete more directly with Tidal. Launched in 2014 by Swedish/Norwegian firm Aspiro under the ownership of rapper Jay Z, Tidal relaunched with much fanfare in 2016. Although its overall share of the online music streaming market has it relegated to “others” in reports, it’s believed to be the dominant player in the niche hi-def music streaming segment.

High-definition online music streaming involves the provision of CD-quality lossless streams at 44.1 kHz/16 bit and in some cases 96 kHz/24 bit. Put more simply, it’s offers high-quality music loved by audiophiles for being clearer and more lifelike.

“It’s a better bit rate, better than CD quality,” a source told MBW. “Amazon is working on it as we speak: they’re currently scoping out how much catalog they can get from everyone and how they’ll ingest it.”

Should Amazon bring a high-def music service to market for $15 per month, it may find a willing audience given that Tidal starts at $19.99 per month. The service would also see Amazon providing a full range of music streaming services to its customers.

Amazon may only have about 13% of the online music streaming market, but the company has always been about offering its customers everything they could possibly want, and a hi-def music streaming would serve yet another segment of music fans.

Photo: geertschneide/Flickr