Article: Amazon Music HD Launches

[Jeremy Anderson]

12 hours ago, Gus141 said:

Can’t Get 24/192 on Bluesound Node 2i.

 

Neil Diamond - 50th Anniversary Collection, Sweet Caroline:

 

@cscamp and @The Computer Audiophile have you been able to get 24/192 from Amazon Music out of your BluOS devices to an external DAC? What tracks? I’ll try them.

 

My experience isn't about bluOS per-se, but have found it possible to get 24/192 (in 'shared mode') via the Windows 10 Amazon Music app:

 

 

For those seeking the same, you have to go into your DAC's sound settings and change the Default Format sample rate and bit depth to match the track in question. Yes, this is clunky, but that's all we get until Amazon adds Direct / Exclusive mode playback support... no telling if or when that will happen. I've already called them to request the feature. I suggest y'all do the same.

 

How-To:

 

Right click the volume/speaker in the Taskbar, pick 'Open Sound Settings'

 

Pick 'Device Properties':

 

 

Find and click 'Additional device properties' on the next page:

 

 

In the classic control panel that pops up, click the Advanced tab and then change the Default Format to match the output you want:

[Jeremy Anderson]

6 hours ago, PAR said:

Yes but the procedure that you provide does not mean that the Windows sound engine will allow or support streams up to 24/192 rather  that everything will be upsampled to 24/192. If you set a lower rate in Windows then everything will be downsampled to that. Most of us just want bit perfect audio.  So in order  to get this using your method it means carrying out that reconfiguration each time that the source resolution changes, album to album or even track to track.

 

Yes, I agree it's very clunky and requires it to be changed on a track-by-track basis, and even then it's not (bit) perfect. (I tried to say as much in my post -- sorry if that didn't come across clearly!). 😎

 

Currently, Amazon Music on Windows 10 only supports Shared Mode playback (aka the Windows kernel mixer), which does just as you say... it does the math to re-sample and mux together every shared-mode audio source in the system to the selected output resolution: it samples up, samples down, applies various boosts and corrections, etc. As such, it stands little chance of being "bit-perfect" unless the bit depth and sample rates match the source *and* no other sounds are happening in the system *and* there are no psychoacoustic filters applied (room modes, bass boost, etc.) *and* the volume is set to 100% on both the source and on the system output... and even then, it's probably a crap shoot.  

 

WASAPI Exclusive Mode or ASIO are much better options, if/when Amazon gets around to support them (I wouldn't hold my breath for ASIO, but WASAPI is trivial to implement)...

 

Which is why I urge everyone who uses Windows 10 to call Amazon, ask to speak with an Amazon Music specialist, and then say you're calling to request that the Developers add 'Exclusive Mode' playback to their Windows 10 application! 🤩