[senorx12562]

I think the culprit is some serious coding errors. I suspect the app is not properly interrogating the Fire devices as to their capabilities.

Yeah, I am sure that''s it. Amazon''s coders can figure out how to integrate with all of my other equipment, but can't figure out their own equipment.

 

[exdmd]

At this point I am afraid we can forget about exclusive mode for Amazon Music HD. I might be wrong but Amazon's silence on the issue seems troubling.

 

[richsto]

Nearing the end of my three month trial and am dropping Amazon Music like a hot potato:

1. No exclusive mode - hard for me to consider it “HD” if I can’t even send the unaltered steam to my DAC

2. Doesn’t work with my VPN - and yes I have a very fast connection with no resolution despite constant discussion with Amazon

3. Constant freezes, dropouts, crashes, and endless spinning blue circles - completely unreliable for me on phone and desktop; always waiting and futzing with it.

Completely disappointing. Just my experience and two cents.

 

[tomwoo]

Nearing the end of my three month trial and am dropping Amazon Music like a hot potato:

1. No exclusive mode - hard for me to consider it “HD” if I can’t even send the unaltered steam to my DAC

2. Doesn’t work with my VPN - and yes I have a very fast connection with no resolution despite constant discussion with Amazon

3. Constant freezes, dropouts, crashes, and endless spinning blue circles - completely unreliable for me on phone and desktop; always waiting and futzing with it.

Completely disappointing. Just my experience and two cents.

Lack of exclusive mode is also a dealbreaker for me.

 

[Marlowe]

My three month free trial with Amazon ends on Monday and I cancelled earlier this week. Truthfully, even with fairly good gear I was generally unable to find much if any difference in SQ between Amazon and Tidal, even when switching back and forth in the same track. (In a few cases I thought I heard a slight difference, and it was always in Tidal's favor, but it was small and could well be a placebo effect. Admittedly my ears are fairly old and not well trained.) Nonetheless, the lack of an exclusive mode--an apparently easy feature to add if Amazon was not transparently indifferent to its relatively small base of audiophile listeners--was the primary reason and a truly horrid UI was a large factor as well. (Tidal's UI is no paragon, though it has slowly improved over the years, but it is wonderful compared to Amazon). Library was not a huge factor in my decision. Although Amazon plugged a couple of nagging gaps in Tidal's library (the Four Seasons, Jerry Garcia's '70s solo albums), it also had a couple of troubling gaps that Tidal has (Ringo Starr's best album "Ringo"); in the end there was a well over a 95% commonality between the two services for what I listen to (primarily almost every genre of rock, R&B, and folk since the '50s; I don't listen to much jazz and never to classical, hip hop or EDM).

 

[Pro-Jules]

Hmmmm...

I liked the Amazon search function better than Tidal's - I like rock but also early music, Baroque and monastic chanting (!) . I felt classical music 'discovery' was visually better on Amazon.

BUT amazon music isn't playing ball well with my Hiby DAP, the next track / back buttons dont work, and the USB digital out doesn't work. So I am back to Tidal.. I must have deleted and re-downloaded all my favourites 2 or 3 times now.... its been a journey!

Perhaps in a year or so Amazon Music will be the one to go for.

A question for those sending Tidal to DAC's do you see changes in sample rates per album? Like 44.1k / 96k / 192k ?? I am playing out from my Hiby R6 Pro DAP to my home hifi rig (see below in signature) and when playing ANYTHING Tidal displays 96K no mater what's playing. Is that normal?

Thanks

 

[Brava210]

Well It all works as it should on Fiio M6, I use it line out to an Arcam Headphone amp. Sounds very good

 

[Brava210]

Listening to Sister Sledge, sounds really good

 

[Soundizer]

Listening to Sister Sledge, sounds really good

Your [Currently playing at] might not be correct.

It certainly is incorrect when I connect Audioquest cobalt or Chord Mojo to either my Mac, iPadPro, iPhone.

the only way to know what is being played is if your dac has an indication to show what is being received.

 

[GlennDS]

Your [Currently playing at] might not be correct.
.... the only way to know what is being played is if your dac has an indication to show what is being received.

The way I see it, if he is using the LINE OUT from his player (which I believe would be analog), then his player is the DAC and the CURRENTLY PLAYING AT info should be correct.
If he were using a digital out from his player, then the CURRENTLY PLAYING AT may not match what is being DACed.

Pro-Jules:
It's been awhile since I've tested Tidal, but with my system I think the DAC in my Onkyo AVR matched/changed as Tidal's bitrate changed. My system is PC Windows 10 out with HDMI to Onkyo AVR (using exclusive mode (come on Amazon!)).

 

[exdmd]

A question for those sending Tidal to DAC's do you see changes in sample rates per album? Like 44.1k / 96k / 192k ?? I am playing out from my Hiby R6 Pro DAP to my home hifi rig (see below in signature) and when playing ANYTHING Tidal displays 96K no mater what's playing. Is that normal?

Thanks

No changes here. On Windows Amazon Music HD always uses shared mode and sends the DAC the sample rate and bit depth you chose in Windows Sounds. It cannot use exclusive mode even if asked to. I assume same applies to DAPs.

 

[Brava210]

The way I see it, if he is using the LINE OUT from his player (which I believe would be analog), then his player is the DAC and the CURRENTLY PLAYING AT info should be correct.
If he were using a digital out from his player, then the CURRENTLY PLAYING AT may not match what is being DACed.

Correct. I am using the M6 as a DAC. It doesn't always show playing at maximum capacity.
It changes to the reported track quality, so it is correct.
Pro-Jules:
It's been awhile since I've tested Tidal, but with my system I think the DAC in my Onkyo AVR matched/changed as Tidal's bitrate changed. My system is PC Windows 10 out with HDMI to Onkyo AVR (using exclusive mode (come on Amazon!)).

 

[GlennDS]

New gripe with Amazon Music:
Unhappy with the My Soundtrack station. I want a music app that will see that I like mostly hair metal and hard rock, a bit of country, a smaller bit of jazz, a smaller bit of pop, and little to none of R&B and Rap.
The service started well with almost all hard rock, but played very very little of anything else. I figured as I skipped tracks and thumbed up and thumbed down tracks, it would learn what I wanted to hear. After a few weeks it got better, playing more and more variety of genres. But now it plays 98% pop, rap, R&B, and plays maybe 1% rock and country, and less than 1% hair metal. I try to fast forward and thumb down tracks that I don't want it to play and for the last three days it just keeps playing the same tracks over and over (even ones that I have thumbed down). In the last three days it has played one hair metal track (from Guns and Roses) which it keeps trying to play over and over.

Tidal was the opposite experience where at first it kept trying to force thug rap down my throat, but it started playing more and more rock and country.

 

[exdmd]

Well Jay-Z is the majority owner. I have to give Tidal credit as they have steadily improved the stability of their Windows desktop player. It was horrible back in 2014 - 2016. Qobuz has been doing the same but still slightly lags behind Tidal in stability. Which is not a problem at all if you use Audirvana player.

 

[Pro-Jules]

OK more research shows

USB output - Tidal is seen as a fixed @ 96k sample rate on my dac
SPDF output - changes sample per album on my dac

I have a bunch of gear that can be connected in a lot of different ways so I am actually having fun with it all.

Hiby R6 Pro - has spdif @ USB digital out
Mutec USB 3+ re-clocker (Multiple. i/o)
Grace 903 dac (Multiple. i/o)
Finalizer Plus 96k (Multiple. i/o)