Qobuz drops the price of its Premier service offering a HiRes and CD Quality streaming service in the UK for £14.99 a month or £149.99 with a yearly plan. In addition, the streamer will be dropping its MP3 streaming service ‘to focus on delivering best-in-class studio quality audio’. The streaming service will offer CD-quality (lossless) or HiRes (from 24-bit/44.1 kHz up to 192 kHz studio quality) on its new Studio Premier plan, for its first 100,000 subscribers (and existing customers) until 31st May 2020.
Qobuz will continue to offer its Sublime+ yearly plan, now priced at £249.99, which includes all the streaming offerings plus a substantial discount on HiRes download purchases from the Qobuz store.
Back in November 2019, Dan Mackta, General Manager of Qobuz USA, said, “MP3 is really bad for music, artists and listeners – so Qobuz is saying ‘no to MP3’ and now offers only real studio quality in one accessible plan. Studio Premier is a special offer we’ve been dying to make. With the new plan, we will be pouring gasoline on the growth that has been kindled by our unique relationships in the premium audio hardware and retail industries. Our unequalled editorial and curation in specialist genres and our focus on the culture around music and audio will continue to create value for listeners.”
Existing monthly HiFi and Studio subscribers will be automatically transferred to Studio Premier at £14.99/month when their monthly subscription is renewed. Annual subscribers to the Premium, HiFi and Studio subscription can take advantage of an annual subscription to Studio Premier for £149.99 here and will receive either a discount or a refund based on the remaining value of their current plan. Pro rata refunds are available for HiFi and Studio subscribers if they have renewed within 3 months or 5 months respectively. Sublime and Sublime+ subscribers are also entitled to either a refund or discount when renewing at the reduced price of £249.99. Go here for further details on how these discounts are calculated.