Popular Post Archimago Posted September 17, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted September 17, 2019 47 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said: I really don't see Amazon getting into the audiophile market for streaming. I see Amazon as having a much more mass market appeal and because of that I see this failing because 99% of consumers don't care about the differences between their MP3s and 24/192 nor do they want to invest a bunch of money into it. However, if Amazon can get audiophiles and take over the streaming market I see it all going to hell and them destroying everything. Like Walmart and Amazon have done to Main Street USA. I don't think Amazon cares about the audiophile market at all - nor should they. Hi-res IMO for them is just a checkbox item to say they could do it. Hi-res streaming with the bandwidth we have these days costs peanuts and if this is their way to differentiate themselves from everyone else and tell the world they can do it ALL - lossy, lossless, hi-res at a competitive price, it's a fine business tactic to grab as many customers as they can. As we all know, bandwidth is not an issue. MQA was always barking up the wrong tree to claim that their proprietary compression scheme was anything more than a transitional step just slightly ahead of lossless 16/44 (ignoring the other nonsense like "authentication" and BS around "deblurring" to make us think there was anything more). Well, it looks like Amazon has now leap-frogged over everyone; including Apple, Tidal, Spotify and on the same streaming playing field as Qobuz. This is clearly very big news. I feel bad for the little guys even though as a consumer, I'm happy to give this a try when it comes to Canada (which is still awaiting Qobuz). Jud, Rt66indierock, Matias and 5 others 8 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 54 minutes ago, Jud said: I think it's a little more than that. I think they're after making just a couple bucks per customer more than competing mp3/AAC services, aiming at the kid or 30-something with what they consider a decent pair of headphones. If you want to appeal to as wide as swath as Amazon, a couple bucks per can add up pretty quickly. Think of it in somewhat the same way as Apple becoming a music industry behemoth, and launching iPods and iPhones, basically on the idea of the 99 cent download. Yeah, true @Jud. There are a few more bucks here. And they're smart in packaging this with having a Prime account which also opens up Prime Video. For Prime members already, at $13/m, this is highly compelling compared to Tidal Premium at $20/m. Heck, even without Prime membership, $15/m is undercutting the competition in a rather big way; occupying the price gap between lossy Apple or Spotify at $10/m and the lossless Tidal/Qobuz at $20+/m. Yup, for once I can agree with Neil Young as per Chris' quote above :-). Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted September 17, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted September 17, 2019 2 hours ago, Superdad said: What these "hi-res" streaming services never tell you is the provenance/version of the mastering they are streaming. This is relevant especially with older material for which there may exist at least a dozen versions. I have downloaded HD releases, and ripped SACDs of many titles only to be sorely disappointed in the SQ in comparison to the better Redbook version of same. And I am not alone in this. And with the streaming services one never knows how many times the files were manipulated throughout their path to the drives from which they are eventually streamed. How many cycles of compression, up/down sampling, etc. take place? And that's even assuming the source was close to an original master as completed in the studio. I'm all for choice, I just like to have some idea of what I'm getting... Yeah, it would be nice to know provenance. But when have we ever known provenance!? Going all the way back to the questionable SACDs, to upsampled HDTracks material, the "hi-res catalogue" has never been of a high standard unless the user was vigilant in selecting music known to have originated from a true hi-res record label (like 2L, AIX, Channel Classics...). IMO, it ain't gonna happen. I believe as audiophiles we have reached a point now where we're "post-hi-res" knowing what the technology is capable of but accepting the reality of the situation. Hi-res by itself does not make recordings great, and that the industry's claims around how great hi-res sounds is almost all hype including the fact that the vast majority of 24-bit productions of mainstream music never needed those 24-bits. By Amazon going lossless and hi-res, we're basically seeing that they're "opening the taps" to take advantage of cheap and fast bandwidth. While most of that hi-res 24-bit content is unnecessary, just like most 4K video streams never really achieve the potential of image quality, it's available and hopefully the "good stuff" will not be compromised as it's passed thru the stream... I just hope the apps allow us to throttle the bandwidth if we're on mobile and do have data limits (I'm happy to keep my subway listening to 256kbps MP3 🙂). lucretius and crenca 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
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