A new report indicates that an estimated 25 million music listeners are willing to pay more for higher quality sound. What does this mean for streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, Apple Music and others?

MusicWatch conducted a survey, which asked currently subscribed listeners to a free music streaming service of factors that might induce them to switch to a paid one.

The most popular answer was control, or pure on-demand listening. This was most likely chosen by listeners of services such as Pandora or iHeartRadio, which do not feature on-demand listening at all or listeners of the free tier services like Spotify, which place certain restrictions on on-demand listening and also requires subscribers to hear advertisements between on-demand tracks.

Sound quality, however, was also considered an inducement to pay for a streaming service by a significant number of listeners. 11 percent of music fans would consider paying for a streamer that offered sound quality "as good as the recording studio" while 6 percent were even willing to pay for "sound better than mp3; as good as CD or vinyl."

As the streaming wars heat up, the various services are doing their best to differentiate themselves from the pack. Some, like Apple Music and Tidal, have hyped exclusivity and relationships with particular artists who will share or debut exclusive content. These features appear not to be as important to music fans as sound quality. Only 9 percent of listeners cited "exclusive music" as the one factor that would cause them to switch to a paid streamer, with just 5 percent stating that "music video or concert clips" would make them do so.

Interestingly, both of the aforementioned streamers, Tidal and Apple Music, are also offering or promising higher quality audio streams. Tidal offers "high-fidelity CD sound quality" for a $20 premium tier, which is twice the regular price of Apple Music and other streamers. Moreover, Apple is also widely rumored to be readying a high-quality audio offering for Apple Music.

Whether Apple will offer a second, higher priced tier or simply use the higher quality as an inducement for listeners to switch from current streaming leaders like Spotify and Pandora is still unclear. In either case, it appears that the company is on the right track in satisfying consumer demand for better sound quality.

Photo: Garry Knight | Flickr