Amazon launches Music HD with lossless streaming
Sep 17, 2019 at 4:37 PM Post #16 of 1,996
I’ll be curious to see if Android DAP makers start prioritizing Amazon Music app compatibility as a matter of evolving audiophile listening habits.
 
Sep 17, 2019 at 4:42 PM Post #17 of 1,996
It is available in U.K. as it gave me the option for all the different plans earlier. No MQA all FLAC
I’ve installed it on my iOS device. Am based in the Uk. The sound quality rivals Qobuz and the catalog is very good. For £12.99 for prime users it definitely betters Qobuz and Tidal for value for money.

Using my Chord Hugo 2 with my iPhone. At the moment I can’t seem to get to work on my A&K SP1000.

90 day trial offered at the moment. I’ve already cancelled my subscription for Quboz.
 
Sep 17, 2019 at 7:50 PM Post #19 of 1,996
It’s not here in the UK yet but that seems like a good price. How many users if I may ask?
How does it do the high bitrate stuff? Is it MQA anyone?

6 Users. It's FLAC 24bit/44khz for the UltraHD songs. Have not tried it yet with a HiRes player as i have not unpacked my equipment after a move. Waiting on the SP2000 later this week.

I think UK is planned for soon.
 
Sep 17, 2019 at 10:42 PM Post #20 of 1,996
I coincidentally signed up for a 90 day Amazon Music Unlimited trial yesterday so trying out HD (they let you upgrade the existing trial). Sounds fantastic so far. I am using a Galaxy S9 and had to delete app data to get the app to redownload my music.

Question - anyone else using this notice that for purchased music it does not show Ultra HD, HD, or SD? Unsure if it is just something wrong with my app. Now if only they would let me purchase FLAC...
 
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Sep 17, 2019 at 11:20 PM Post #21 of 1,996
6 Users. It's FLAC 24bit/44khz for the UltraHD songs.

Hmm. The Amazon guy talking about this to the media was saying that some listeners won't be able to go beyond "44 khz" because of their audio capabilities. In fact, if you click the HD symbol, it shows what your device is most capable of running. Perhaps they haven't delivered yet beyond 24bit/44khz though, but they would certainly be planning to given his comments.


Signed up. Thanks everyone. Got it on the iPhone. Is there a web player or do I need to install the amazon music app on pc? Cheers!

They force you to install the PC music app...and then of course you need to do line-out playing or else you're going to be transmitting it via BlueTooth which defeats the purpose. So, yeah, no web player capabilities (which makes sense) and I doubt they'll ever have it.

I was personally already a subscriber to the annual plan ($79.99 a year for Prime Members - easily the best value of any service). They chuck on an extra $50 for HD for a year and then charge you $79.99 on your next annual billing date and then $50 on the next HD billing date (two different dates, obviously, if you were already an annual subscriber).

Not sure if this is totally worth it yet for me (I'm on a month-long trial). It would be a no-brainer if I had a direct device that could access it (maybe try it with my phone and a line-out?). Not really going to want to deal with playing stuff off the laptop (I've been using the Amazon Music Roku TV App).
 
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Sep 17, 2019 at 11:27 PM Post #23 of 1,996
That is pretty cray-cray that you can download 16 and 24 Bit FLAC files in the app. It puts HD Tracks and the like completely out of business, basically.

Most people's phones are useless though. How much room would you really have for 24 Bit albums? Like enough space for 10 of them among your other apps, etc.?
 
Sep 17, 2019 at 11:57 PM Post #24 of 1,996
Most people's phones are useless though. How much room would you really have for 24 Bit albums? Like enough space for 10 of them among your other apps, etc.?

That's why I refuse to give up my microSD cards 400gb cards are pretty cheap nowadays.
 
Sep 18, 2019 at 12:02 AM Post #25 of 1,996
It’s not here in the UK yet but that seems like a good price. How many users if I may ask?
How does it do the high bitrate stuff? Is it MQA anyone?
Still don't get MQA other than those people want to use it to make money...(which is bad news for consumers)
It's not that we don't have the bandwidth to stream 24/192 files, we are already streaming 4K HDR videos for god's sake.
 
Sep 18, 2019 at 1:13 AM Post #26 of 1,996
I'm still on the fence between this and Tidal. Tidal has better PC and Mac app (audirvana) and the app on my music player (iBasso) says it's not capable of more than 24/44khz so it defaults to 16/44, so...identical to Tidal for me at least. Plus theres the political reasons you may not wanna go with Amazon. OTOH - Amazon is FAR less likely to suddenly go under, stop it's service etc, which I feel like is always a chance with Tidal?

What do you guys think so far? Switch to amazon music even if it offers the same audio? Now, the masters, compression etc may be better with amazon music vs tidal, idk yet.
 
Sep 18, 2019 at 2:15 AM Post #27 of 1,996
Obviously iPhones feeding anything through the lightning port are hobbled to 24/48 anyway so I haven’t tried anything above that yet. Looking forward to installing and playing with the desktop thing later. Seems ok so far on the phone though. Decent catalogue and there are things there that I can’t find on tidal. However. I have encountered (twice) the ‘sorry this is not available in your region’ nonsense. Why show me something I can’t play?
 
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Sep 18, 2019 at 4:08 AM Post #28 of 1,996
Obviously iPhones feeding anything through the lightning port are hobbled to 24/48 anyway so I haven’t tried anything above that yet. Looking forward to installing and playing with the desktop thing later. Seems ok so far on the phone though. Decent catalogue and there are things there that I can’t find on tidal. However. I have encountered (twice) the ‘sorry this is not available in your region’ nonsense. Why show me something I can’t play?
Using iPhone to Mojo and iPhone to ifi xDSD. I get up to 24-bit/192khz, not 24/48. The only issue is that even 24/96 is getting updampled to 24/192. On the positive, it seems as though hi-res audio sounds a bit better than Tidal Masters, even though Tidal is giving me proper resolution, 24/48, 24/96.
 
Sep 18, 2019 at 4:10 AM Post #29 of 1,996
Using iPhone to Mojo and iPhone to ifi xDSD. I get up to 24-bit/192khz, not 24/48. The only issue is that even 24/96 is getting updampled to 24/192. On the positive, it seems as though hi-res audio sounds a bit better than Tidal Masters, even though Tidal is giving me proper resolution, 24/48, 24/96.
yea, so all in all seems like it's real tough to get something to do bitperfect with amazon HQ, that's sad.
 
Sep 18, 2019 at 4:26 AM Post #30 of 1,996
yea, so all in all seems like it's real tough to get something to do bitperfect with amazon HQ, that's sad.
True. Glad it's a 90 day trial. The sound is nice. Noticing a bit of an upgrade over Tidal, but I don't like that all audio is being upsampled. I'm adding music to Amazon library, but keeping my Tidal downloads. We'll see if they make some changes before December. If they do go bit-perfect, by then I could see myself switching. $20 for a 6 member family plan, vs $30 for a 5 member family plan via Tidal. Hopefully they continue to work on it.
 

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