Article: Amazon Music HD Launches

[kirkmc]

"High definition." Um, that's CD quality. "Up to 850 kbps." Um, that's just the way the compression works; it doesn't mean that an 850 kbps FLAC sounds better than a 400 kbps FLAC. (And I have lossless files at higher bit rates than that.) Then there's the bogus quality graphic shamelessly ripped off from Qobuz....

 

I seriously doubt that the people who care about lossless or high-res music are likely to want to use Amazon. 

[kirkmc]

I bet this will sound great on an Amazon Echo (and I bet there are people using an Amazon Echo who will subscribe, thinking it will make the music sound better). 

[kirkmc]

I'm just wondering. Since Amazon has ripped off the Qobuz graphic, is there any chance that they have quietly bought Qobuz? 

[kirkmc]

So are they applying DRM to FLAC files, or are they using Apple Lossless? Because it's always possible to retrieve files from a cache, so they must have some form of DRM. Anyone have any thoughts on how they could be doing this? 

[kirkmc]

9 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

All services that allow offline music use DRM. All streaming services also have to use watermarked content if provided by the label. 

 

Yes, but can DRM be easily added to FLAC files? 

[kirkmc]

3 minutes ago, greyscale said:

Chris, I was signed up and in.😁 Was using the Amazon app.

 

Obviously you were not correctly signed in. Do you really think that with a full account they'd only let you play 30 seconds of each track? 

[kirkmc]

Actually, this website is not encrypted; all that HTTPS does is ensure that sensitive information - user names and passwords - are encrypted. 

 

But my question was more about FLAC with DRM in general. I haven't heard of this being done before. 

[kirkmc]

6 minutes ago, joelha said:

Taking the risk that there's an obvious answer to my question, what can I do if I want to stream HD music from my NAS? 

 

Joel

Assuming you can download music from Amazon for off-line streaming (which is almost certainly the case; I haven't looked), you would have to find which folder stores the files for the app's settings, cache, etc. and put them on the NAS. But you cannot "stream from the NAS" as you are probably thinking; you need to use their app. 

[kirkmc]

7 hours ago, Superdad said:

Hi Miguel: 

I am pretty sure that @kirkmc was being sarcastic regarding Amazon Echos benefiting from the HD service.  

Indeed. I thought that would be obvious.