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    The Computer Audiophile

    By The Computer Audiophile •

    Amazon Music HD Is Still Lossy

    Just over one year ago Amazon launched its Amazon Music HD streaming service. Many people uninterested in the success of small businesses and good customer service cheered the new offering from the 1.7 Trillion dollar company. At the time Amazon's $14.99 per month plan was the lower than all the other lossless or above music services. Not long after Amazon launched, Qobuz matched its pricing and now offers a $14.99 /month plan and $24.99 /month family plan. Let's take a look at Amazon Music HD, one year later. 

     

    I've been an Amazon Music HD subscriber since day one and have used the service off and on since signing up. Most of this use has been on my mobile phone or desktop. There just aren't many options for listening in another way, such as integration with Lumin, Aurender, Auralic, JRiver, Roon, etc... Given that Amazon is notoriously difficult to work with, it's no surprise that we have so few options. One year on, the landscape is still Sonos, Bluesound, and Denon HEOS (I'm sure people will let me know if I missed any). 

     

    The limited number of options for playback isn't a showstopper in and of itself because many audiophiles use computers directly attached to their HiFi systems. A USB cable between the computer and one's system is all that's required and Amazon Music HD will send along its highest quality. 

     

    What is Amazon Music HD's highest quality? I started testing where I always start testing, with bit perfect playback. If a service or app can't output bit perfect audio, then I have big problems because I don't know where the losses are happening and how big the losses are. The quick and dirty truth is that I can't play bit perfect audio from Amazon Music HD on Windows 10, macOS Catalina (10.15.7), or a Sonos Port using coaxial S/PDIF digital output. 

     

    rr.jpgI can match the sample rate of the audio sent from Amazon Music HD, but the stream or the file is being altered somewhere before it hits my house. In other words, when Amazon says it's playing a 24 bit / 96 kHz file, I can get my DAC to say 24/96, but the stream doesn't pass bit perfect testing. 

     

    Note: Not to toot my own horn, but I've been around the bit perfect block a few times and understand what's required to obtain bit perfect playback. If there is something special about Amazon Music HD, that isn't required for Qobuz and Tidal, I'd appreciate someone pointing it out to me. These other apps played bit perfect when I ran them through the exact same tests this morning. 

     

    Furthermore, the Amazon Music HD applications for Windows and macOS will not change the same rate automatically. For example, if I set Windows 10 to output 24/96 audio and set it to give exclusive access to Amazon Music HD, the music will always be output to my DAC at 24/96. Even though Amazon says the file is 16/44.1 or 24/192 etc..., the Amazon Music HD app can't change the sample rate of the audio output. This is problematic for people who think they are streaming what Amazon calls Ultra HD, but are really listening to a CD quality stream because that's what their computer is set to play. Apps that take control of the sample rate have been around for over a decade. There's no excuse to advertise and offer content at multiple sample rates, yet require users to manually change their control panel / audio midi settings between tracks just to hear the native quality. 

     

    It's hard for me to even think about looking further into Amazon Music HD as an option for people who care about sound quality and customer service. The company has had one year to fix issues, but based on its responses to users' request for these basic features, I won't hold my breath that the service or app will improve. There really isn't a reason to look at user interface and catalog if the company can't even stream the lossless audio it advertises. 

     

    One last note. I'm sure some people have seen the newly announced partnership between Amazon and Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to release new high resolution remasters of albums from Eagles, Marvin Gaye, Nirvana, Tom Petty, Diana Ross, Linkin Park, J. Cole, Waylon Jennings, Ramones, 2 Chainz, Lady Gaga, The Notorious B.I.G., Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, and more. While this may seem like a good thing, I'm unfortunately not optimistic. It isn't often that remasters actually sound better when created for the masses. I hope those in this partnership don't cross the audio DMZ and cause the loudness wars to flare up once again. 

     

    nevermind.jpgLast week, and again this morning, I went looking for these new remasters. I was able to see some of the albums because Amazon placed a convenient link to them on the Amazon Music HD app's main page. This link is no longer on my main page, so I went searching. What I found is a soup sandwich. For example, I looked for Nirvana remasters and found a single album labeled Remastered. I clicked into Nevermind (Remastered) and hoped to see an indication that this was the new remaster touted in all the press releases. Unfortunately the only date I can find on this album is "copyright 2011 Geffen Records." This is the same as the Deluxe remaster released in 2011 for the albums's anniversary. Think this is a one-off issue? Think again. I went through many other releases and found the same thing. There's no way to tell if an album has been newly remastered unless you find a link from Amazon, stating it's the new remaster, to the album. Even those albums have incorrect dates on them however. 

     

    And finally, these new remasters are exclusives to Amazon Music HD. Say what you want about exclusives, but I hate them. Dan Mackta, the Qobuz USA Managing Director, believes these exclusives won't last forever and we should see the new remasters come to other services in due time.

     

    As it stands today, one year after launching, Amazon Music HD isn't for anyone who cares about customer service,  audio quality or about using streaming services through integrations with numerous hardware and software vendors. If things change I'll be happy to reevaluate Amazon Music HD. For now I highly recommend Qobuz as the number one choice for streaming lossless high resolution audio. 
     

     

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    audiobomber
    1 hour ago, Miska said:

     

    Setting default output format in Windows control panel to 192 for example means that is the format Windows audio engine doing software volume, mixing and rate conversion, outputs. It has certain output format because you could be playing hires content at the same time as email application needs to play "ding, you've got new email" notification and you watching a YouTube video on web browser. All three things mixed together into single output, although at different sampling rates from their respective applications.

     

    macOS has equivalent control for CoreAudio engine.

     

    Audiophile players use WASAPI Exclusive mode or ASIO driver to bypass this audio engine and claim exclusive control of the audio device. Also means that you won't get mixing of different source applications.

     

    All "sounds" are muted in my Windows settings.

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    Miska
    2 hours ago, audiobomber said:

    All "sounds" are muted in my Windows settings.

     

    That doesn't matter, because if the audio path goes through the audio engine, it is always ready for some other application to jump in and begin feeding audio. Be it web browser with YouTube or whatever. Audio engine itself is designed primarily to have "decent" audio quality and minimal system resource usage. Same goes for the audio engines powering mobile phones and such. Fidelity is not top priority design factor for these.

     

    In order to bypass the audio engine, specific support is needed from the applications.

     

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    danadam

    I don't use it so I'm not sure it is relevant but I just come across reddit post:

     

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    asdf1000
    14 hours ago, danadam said:

    I don't use it so I'm not sure it is relevant but I just come across reddit post:

     

    As per the comments to that post, Exclusive Mode has been around a while and never worked properly... that's really the main problem. They can't do what Tidal and Qobuz have done with their desktop apps and proper Exclusive Mode.

     

    image.png.5e2ae348ba7ca6e806751a612010b87c.png

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    classfolkphile
    On 10/15/2020 at 10:31 AM, audiobomber said:

    No one answered, so I'll ask again. What is wrong with setting Windows to play all Amazon HD files at 24/192? Why is bit-perfect preferred?

     

    I did some sound checks and found Amazon HD doesn't sound as good as a CD rip, but better than Google Play and YouTube Music. How do Tidal and Qobuz compare? A friend brought Roon/Tidal over with his Mac and I was not impressed at all. PRaT was not good.

    I tried Amazon HD last year for a few months. I also had Qobuz at the same time. I was disappointed with both for different reasons (although both UIs needed improvement). 

    Amazon has a very extensive catalog of music; Qobuz's catalog was unfortunately much more limited in areas that are important to me, i.e., "Americana" and Mediterranean music (particularly Tarantella/Pizzica). However the sound from Amazon was too  forward (emphasized leading edge transients) and had an upper midrange that was glarey. The sound from Qobuz was very natural and pleasing and at about the same level as my CD rips. This was the case through both my main and second systems.

     

    Gordon Rankin had this to say about Amazon's sound a while back on AA:

     

    "Anyway, Amazon's service is not really that great at this time. I am not sure if it will be upgraded and I have already seen some changes since day 1. But here are the two big problems. 

     

    a) The use an adaptive streaming method which means that first off the music is not bit true and the quality varies depending on your link speed and the servers ability to send content. 

    b) They resample all incoming music to the highest sample rate selected. They kind of assume you have the default rate at the max... if you don't they complain and tell you to change it. They don't use Exclusive mode or give you the option for that so it's really so so sonically." 
     

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    asdf1000
    4 hours ago, classfolkphile said:

    They don't use Exclusive mode or give you the option

     

    His comments must be old and overall it reads like he's purely talking about the deskop apps.

     

    They added the option of Exclusive Mode (as per a few posts up) except it isn't working the way we are used to with Qobuz and Tidal Desktop apps. It seems like it isn't working at all.

     

    So someone at Amazon Music has the right idea - it's just failed with execution, up to now.

     

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    goodsource

    @The Computer Audiophile

    how are you playing your amazon HD to your speakers. whats your source?. is it PC/mac thru USB to your dcs rossini or do you have a streamer that supports amazon HD?

    and from your experimentation what was the reasonably optimal playback chain you found it better?

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    classfolkphile
    On 10/21/2020 at 2:14 AM, asdf1000 said:

     

    His comments must be old and overall it reads like he's purely talking about the deskop apps.

     

     

    Yes and yes.

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    whell
    On 10/14/2020 at 11:48 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

    Thanks for the info. However, it’s a common misconception that sample rate = bit perfection. Think about it this way, play the right sample rate but crank the digital volume control way down. That’s chopping off tons of bits, yet the sample rate is right. 
     

    I have a node 2i on the way. 


    Hi - just wondering if you had a chance to check out the Node 2i with Amazon Music yet?  My Amazon Music HD subscription hangs in the balance of your feedback. 😎

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    The Computer Audiophile
    9 minutes ago, whell said:


    Hi - just wondering if you had a chance to check out the Node 2i with Amazon Music yet?  My Amazon Music HD subscription hangs in the balance of your feedback. 😎

    Supposed to receive it soon from Lenbrook. 

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    The Computer Audiophile
    1 minute ago, peter73 said:

    @The Computer Audiophile How does one test bit-perfect transmission if there is no source file to compare the end output to?

    Hi Peter, here's how I test. 

     

    I use a Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC that identifies and decodes HDCD on all sample rates. When an unaltered HDCD file is played, the HDCD indicator on the DAC is illuminated. The HDCD flag is on the 16 bit for CD files and the 24th bit for high resolution files. Any alteration, DSP, volume leveling, etc... changes this least significant bit and won't enable the HDCD indicator to illuminate. That's the hardware piece. 

     

    With respect to source files, here's what I do. 

     

    I have a list of roughly ten known HDCD albums (although I could use more if needed). Many of these albums were only released as HDCD encoded CDs/files. There is no alternate lossless version. For example, Reference Recordings only releases music that's HDCD encoded. 

     

    I set a baseline by playing my own local copy of the albums and make sure the HDCD indicator illuminates.

     

    Then I try Qobuz through its own apps and third party integrated hardware and Roon. In this instance, the music illuminated the HDCD indicator. 

     

    Then I do the same with Tidal. Again, in this instance, the HDCD indicator on my DAC was illuminated. 

     

    When I tried Amazon apps with this same material, about ten different albums, the HDCD indictor never illuminated. I'm still waiting on the Bluesound Node 2i I was promised a couple weeks ago, but Lenbrook is way back ordered on them. This would enable me to test third party hardware with Amazon Music HD integration. 

     

    Possible holes in my methodology: Absolutely there are possible holes, but I believe I've minimized them as much as possible. The two major ones are source material. Sure Amazon could have different source material from all other lossless streaming services, but after checking with labels, I highly doubt this is the case. The second one is Amazon's adaptive bit rate. Amazon could be sending me lossy versions of the files and sending other people lossless versions, but I think this is highly unlikely as well. I have a 1 gigabit upload/download unmetered fiber internet connection. I routinely check the speed and see between 800 Mbps and 940 Mbps. If Amazon doesn't think this is a fast enough connection for lossless audio, then I doubt anyone else is going to receive lossless audio, thus making the platform lossy. 

     

    I'm happy to discuss this further if necessary. 

     

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    peter73

    @The Computer AudiophileYour way of testing for bit-perfect seems perfectly fine with me. Even if Amazon do stream bit-perfect data in certain configuration, the fact that they can't do so reliably in every configuration is enough for me to conclude that their lossless is half-baked at best.

    Thank you for letting us know. Let's hope they fix that.

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    whell

    One thing I do really like about Amazon - I couldn't find a similar feature on Qobuz - are Amazon music "stations".  I can pick a genre of music and that music will play all day in that genre of finding them it off.  Great for just playing music of my choice unattended.   Also, after about a week or so, Amazon will create a "station" called My Music based on the music genres I typically listen to.   It also sound pretty darn good to my ears.  

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    The Computer Audiophile
    Just now, whell said:

    One thing I do really like about Amazon - I couldn't find a similar feature on Qobuz - are Amazon music "stations".  I can pick a genre of music and that music will play all day in that genre of finding them it off.  Great for just playing music of my choice unattended.   Also, after about a week or so, Amazon will create a "station" called My Music based on the music genres I typically listen to.   It also sound pretty darn good to my ears.  

    Stations would be a welcomed feature of Qobuz @David Craff

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    Stereo

    Didn’t David or Dan mention that they were working on it in the Qobuz feature request or issues threads a week or two ago? March timeframe they were hoping for?

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    David Craff
    On 11/16/2020 at 7:02 AM, Stereo said:

    Didn’t David or Dan mention that they were working on it in the Qobuz feature request or issues threads a week or two ago? March timeframe they were hoping for?

     

    We are working on hebdo playlist for customer where you can discover content link to your listening.

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    Stereo

    @David Craff

     

    Sorry but your reply makes it seem like you had been drinking when you wrote it. Can you please explain what it is in better English? Thanks.

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    dmackta
    Quote

    @Stereoit's a weekly algorithmic personlized recommendations playlist. Once that's launched, autoplay and radio features will come next. 

     

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    juleepriest
    On 10/12/2020 at 3:39 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

    There are a few reasons. I like lossless high resolution not lossy MQA. I like the Qobuz interface on mobile 100% more. 

     

    But it doesn't have things like Spotify Connect, and I need to use Roon to control it across devices, yes? 

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    The Computer Audiophile
    1 hour ago, juleepriest said:

     

    But it doesn't have things like Spotify Connect, and I need to use Roon to control it across devices, yes? 

    It supports Chromcast, which is just like Spotify Connect. Multiple devices are best done through Roon. 

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    asdf1000

    Speaking of Chromecast, it seems the Amazon Music HD app is the only one missing from the list of apps supporting Chromecast!

     

    Even Apple Music made it in 2020 - something I never thought I'd see !

     

    If the desktop and iOS and Android apps eventually supports Chromecast, that should enable bit perfect playback up to 96kHz (for things like Chromecast Audio if you have one).

     

    image.thumb.png.ad6251f44c7218d8f2a7c6dbd17ab1dd.png

     

    image.thumb.png.a8320dee1aac8db2cfaebbbce8fc7bdc.png

     

     

     

     

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