[exdmd]

I spent a few hours listening to the same songs on Amazon Music HD, Tidal desktop and Amarra Luxe desktop, all running on macOS Mojave 10.14.6. It was a laborious process as I made sure I only had one of the apps open at any time to stop exclusive access to my Topping D50 DAC becoming an issue, plus I had to check the settings each time I opened one of the three apps to make sure that the settings hadn't changed. Anyway, a side interest to me was Tidal have updated their app twice in 24 hours!

My objective was to see which app produced the best sound to my ears, as that's all that matters to me.

In order of 'best sound quality' to my ears:

1. Amarra Luxe desktop for macOS Version 4.3.510-208 - a very poorly written app in terms of UI and adhering to macOS app standards - seems to break every standard there is for macOS apps BUT...sounds simply delicious. I use Amarra Luxe to play my Tidal playlists so the source files are streamed from Tidal. The app produces a thoroughly engaging representation of the music. Rich timbre, wide sound stage, beautiful separation of instruments. It's hard to see how the sound could be bettered on my current hardware.

2. Tidal desktop app for macOS Version 2.7.0.5 - not far behind Amarra Luxe, to my surprise! A lovely UI and some really useful features to discover new music. A glorious representation of the music, deep and wide soundstage, a full-bodied richness to the tracks. It's progressed a long way from a year ago.

3. Amazon Music HD for macOS Version 7.8.2.2104. UI-wise it's probably where Tidal was a year ago so will improve with new updates I imagine. Unfortunately the sound, possibly due to lack of exclusive access and lack of overriding the OS mixer and volume control, was a little flat and anaemic compared to the other two apps. It's a pleasant enough sound but lacks engagement - better suited to background listening as far as I am concerned. I'm really hoping that Amazon can rapidly update this app as there's no technical reasons why they cannot make it sound as good as the Tidal app. I'm guessing it's a step up for Spotify users, but it's a couple of steps down from Tidal at the moment. Needless to say I've set up the reminder from within the app to notify me three days before my free trial ends.

Thanks nice review! Substitute Audirvana+ for Windows 10 for Amarra Luxe and your findings agree with mine. You got me curious about demoing Amarra Luxe but when I investigated it only plays up to 96 kHz while Audirvana also does 192. There is a lot of 192 content on Qobuz.

 

[rkw]

Has anyone tried an Amazon Echo Link? I assume it's for streaming Amazon HD? Strangely, it only does 16/48!

Amazon will probably announce new Echo models at their event tomorrow, which are expected to support Amazon HD streaming.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/23/...ware-event-echo-fire-tv-kindle-what-to-expect

 

[Taz777]

Thanks nice review! Substitute Audirvana+ for Windows 10 for Amarra Luxe and your findings agree with mine. You got me curious about demoing Amarra Luxe but when I investigated it only plays up to 96 kHz while Audirvana also does 192. There is a lot of 192 content on Qobuz.

I'm not sure about that. I run Amarra Luxe on macOS and it runs bit-perfect. The confusion may arise out of MQA which would be limited to 96kHz if your external DAC doesn't do the MQA processing. It has MQA pass-through for external MQA DACs and that needs to be selected for the second unfold on the DAC.

 

[exdmd]

jkauff posted at Steve Hoffman Forum that he was able to get Amazon Music HD running in exclusive mode on Windows using JRiver:

JRiver Media Center users can run Amazon Music in Exclusive mode. Load the JRiver audio driver (WDM, for Windows), set it as your primary audio device, and all audio will be directed to Media Center where you can select a WASAPI (or ASIO) audio output that can be set to exclusive.

Instructions for loading the WDM driver are at the jriver.com Wiki here. I don't have JRiver Media Center so have not tried this myself.

 

[Papa253]

This morning there was an update for Android.

I don't know what changed and Amazon didn't give any details.

Does any one know what changed?

 

[Left Channel]

This morning there was an update for Android.

I don't know what changed and Amazon didn't give any details.

Does any one know what changed?

Looks like you've just received the update that adds the new Music HD service, unless they forgot to change the What's New info for a minor bugfix release. I saw that same update message over a week ago, and haven't received any new updates since.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

jkauff posted at Steve Hoffman Forum that he was able to get Amazon Music HD running in exclusive mode on Windows using JRiver:


Instructions for loading the WDM driver are at the jriver.com Wiki here. I don't have JRiver Media Center so have not tried this myself.

It still goes through the shared mode mixer and only then get piped into JRiver selected driver. I was looking at it myself yesterday.

 

[exdmd]

@Andrew_WOT thought it sounded too good to be true. Thanks you saved me the trouble of d/l a demo copy of JRiver to try it out.

 

[mixman]

Has anyone tried Amazon HD with the JRiver WDM driver yet? If so, has the SQ improved?

 

[Blueshound24]

jkauff posted at Steve Hoffman Forum that he was able to get Amazon Music HD running in exclusive mode on Windows using JRiver:


Instructions for loading the WDM driver are at the jriver.com Wiki here. I don't have JRiver Media Center so have not tried this myself.

This is exactly right. I use it for all music applications.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Has anyone tried Amazon HD with the JRiver WDM driver yet? If so, has the SQ improved?

You cannon bypass shared mode mixer, it still does resampling based on specified bit rate in WDM driver control panel. Not sure if adding middle man does more harm than good. There is also VoiceMeeter that can do the same. But shared mode is shared mode you can't cheat around core OS thing like that.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

This diagram may help, in shared mode it always goes through audio service with mixer and only then to audio driver.

Taken from https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WASAPI.htm
good article to understand limitations and possible workarounds to improve shared mode performance.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

And if anyone wondering why it is suboptimal to rely on Windows resampler.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...indows-resampling-not-actually-that-bad.9092/

Hope Amazon comes to their senses and give exclusive mode for HD tier. Seems like they just wanted to beat Spotify and Apple Music to the market with client apps clearly not ready.
Well, 90 days trial for everyone, a lot of time to fix things if they really want our money.

 

[tomwoo]

If it only takes a programmer half a day to get it done, why not bringing in Tidal/Qobuz users? Even though there are only 10K users I cannot imagine how great this deal is...

 

[Left Channel]

If it only takes a programmer half a day to get it done, why not bringing in Tidal/Qobuz users? Even though there are only 10K users I cannot imagine how great this deal is...

Qobuz has 25,000 subscribers in the USA, and 200,000 worldwide, most of them audiophiles. Tidal has millions of subscribers, but only a small portion are audiophiles. Those numbers are just "rounding errors" to a company like Amazon. But to Qobuz and part of Tidal, it's their whole business model to charge more to fewer customers, and the Qobuz USA GM has publicly stated their goal is to capture only 1% of the market: audiophiles. Will Amazon care? Hard to say.