Article: Amazon Music HD Launches

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Lots of technical detail, however the whole point of music is to listen and enjoy what you hear.

Technical details aside how do people think it sounds from an enjoyment factor?

A day in I think I prefer the outputted sound to Apple Music.

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2 hours ago, blue2 said:

You're absolutely right however it's not about going to any trouble. Amazon are good at pushing new stuff out on their website, but not so good at checking/ensuring quality, as evidenced by the millions of 1 star reviews. More specifically regarding Amazon music files I regularly find albums which are linked to wrong/missing digital versions while they can be found on their site by other search methods, so I'd definitely want to check any HD/UD files are as advertised, at least until they establish some credibility. It is the responsibility of the advertiser at least in UK/Europe to ensure the goods are as advertised and correct any mistakes, but mis-selling still happens. This applies to other music websites too. The good thing about Amazon is their no quibble returns policy and product reviews. But like others I don't think the portents are good for consumers: choice is good, monopoly is bad

Latest comments indicate Amazon HD is streaming only, downloads are in mp3. I'd be very unhappy to have paid any money for the service if this is true and not a technical/start up glitch.

 

Untrue, its dependent on the value you set under 'Download Audio Quality'

 

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3 hours ago, rn701 said:

Update on my first impressions after a couple of days.

 

Amazon’s own Fire TV does not appear to support HD playback. The installable Amazon Fire TV Music app does not include HD. The Android app does not cast to Fire TV. The Android Alexa app does not see Fire TV as a playback device and also does not seem to include HD anyway.

 

Most Android mobile/tablet devices are limited to 48K.

 

HD over Chromecast is not supported “at this time.”

 

The Windows desktop app supports HD, but it is not bit perfect. It uses the default Windows sound device in shared mode, so no way to select a device or specify exclusive mode to bypass the OS mixer. Everything gets resampled. It can incorporate your local library and play FLAC files, but the UI, playlist management, etc. is rudimentary and very limited. There is no DSP. Sound quality is pretty good, but not as good as a purpose built player like Roon or JRiver.

 

The only reports in the wild of anyone getting bit perfect HD/UltraHD playback seem to be from Bluesound users. But this is limited to their third-party app which doesn’t seem to have all the bells and whistles of the Amazon app. Amazon says other systems such as HEOS are supported, but a) I’m skeptical and b) the HEOS app is pretty lame.

So it’s not clear how Amazon intends for “normal” users to achieve full “HD” playback on their devices and especially not bit-perfect playback.

Questions in their support forum about all of this go largely unanswered.

 

They apparently have some big new announcements coming next week, so maybe there will be answers.

 

Further, they say they will play the highest resolution file that your playback device supports. So when the little HD button says the file is 24/192, your device supports 24/96 or 16/44.1, so playback is 24/96 or 16/44.1, how does that work? Is the app resampling? Is it being resampled on their servers, meaning, again, not bit perfect in either case? Or do they have a different version of the file in every possible resolution and determine which one to serve up at playback time? It’s very fuzzy.

 

And what about provenance of the files? Lots of discussion about that, but all of the streaming services have the same issue. At least Amazon is not serving up lossy MQA files and calling it hi-res. But where do their 24/96 and 24/192 files come from? Are they Amazon upsampled CD files?

 

It seems like they are just tossing something out there to check off a box. Their expectation appears to be that mass market consumers have maybe heard about “hi-res” music and now they can have it on their ear buds and Echo speakers and be amazed at how much more fantastic it sounds and tell all their friends so Amazon can get an extra $5 per month from them.

 

To their credit, the Amazon Music playlists, radio and recommendations are pretty nice and good for discovery or checking out new releases.

 

But, it doesn’t appear they are very serious about lossless cd or higher quality playback. After all, for years their streaming and download stores have told their market that mp3 is good enough and that’s all you need. Why the sudden change? For 90% of their customers who can’t tell the difference it is meaningless. Maybe it’s good enough for some of the 10% who care.

 

For everyone else, us few remaining geezers who value sound quality and rich people who need their stuff to go to 11 never bought in to Amazon’s music ecosystem in the first place. As it exists today, Amazon’s offering isn’t going to get those people to switch from Tidal, Quobuz, or even Deezer, or dump their curated local libraries and playlists to use inferior apps and services.

 

It might, emphasize might. pull in a few casual, price-conscious Tidal or Deezer users, but it’s unlikely there will be a mass exodus. It certainly won’t get any Qobuz converts. The Spotify consumer mass market has already said mp3 (ogg or whatever) is good enough so they won’t be converting, plus their app is superior and so is Spotify Connect.

 

I’m starting to wonder “what’s the point?”

 

So how does this affect Roon? Right now it doesn’t. This is not for Roon’s market. But mostly, Roon users aren’t going to defect because they would have to give up too much to save $7 per month. Even if Amazon were to allow some sort of integration, the massive effort on Roon’s part would not likely result in converting many Amazon users because 90% of them don’t care about this stuff and the other 10% are just looking for cheaper alternatives.

 

Audirvana might benefit from some sort of rudimentary integration. JRiver won’t do anything because JimH suspects Amazon will soon be going out of business so why bother?

 

Or something. I could be wrong, because I frequently am.

 

The point is in your paragraph below, normal people want it to sound great and better than what they have, the majority of the comments here are chasing numbers and bit perfect. I’ve just been listening and seeing if I think it sounds better than what I’ve got, that’s the point of music to listen too.

 

“It seems like they are just tossing something out there to check off a box. Their expectation appears to be that mass market consumers have maybe heard about “hi-res” music and now they can have it on their ear buds and Echo speakers and be amazed at how much more fantastic it sounds and tell all their friends so Amazon can get an extra $5 per month from them.”

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5 minutes ago, wgscott said:

So far, I can honestly say that the three month free trial has been worth every penny.

 

 

I’m the same, I’m not technically bothered about the numbers, but I like the interface, seems to sound better than Apple Music , good playlist , if I want to make the most of it I’ll plug my Mac directly into my dac.

For everyday use via iPhone, Sonos and CarPlay I’m quite impressed.

 

I know all my music is in iTunes but in these modern days the only time I need local content is on my phone while I’m on holiday.

My music file collection is largely unused but sits on a nas being constantly back up.

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Subscription Renewal 
On 16 December 2019, your Individual Plan HD subscription will renew at £14.99/month.

 

in the UK I’ve payed nothing as per the above

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14 hours ago, HC515 said:

Anyone have problems with skipping? I have 500mb internet so bandwidth shouldn't be an issue. My mesh network give priority to my computer. Can't imagine Amazon wouldn't provide enough bandwidth on their side. 
 

nope used it all day in the UK and it’s been perfect.