Article: Amazon Music HD Launches

[Ajax]

6 hours ago, PAR said:

I do have  DAC that reports bit depth but unfortunately I can't access my audio system until the builders that are carrying out work at my place quit. However,as a corollary I haven't found any 24/44.1 files from Qobuz that display as 16 bit when played.

 

Nevertheless I have always had a suspicion that there is something odd about 24/44.1 recordings. After all if you are going to master @24 bit why do this with a sample rate of 44.1 when, almost certainly if you have a 24 bit ADC , 96KS/s is available to you? It is also not a standard for supplying to clients  in the A.E.S. guide to studios where 24/96 is the recommended minimum.

 

Having met many administrators at record companies over the years I have to say that not all are particularly technically savvy. So imagine that Amazon asks or even requires a record label now to send it 24 bit files in preference. That instruction gets passed to whoever sends out files to radio stations, streaming services etc. They therefore ask the studio ( nowadays probably independent) to send them a copy file of a given album but in 24 bit. The studio finds that their copy master is 16 bit. But their client has requested 24 bit. So they take the master and run it through a sample rate converter and , hey presto, 24 bit. The studio has met its client's request and the record label Amazon's. Everyone is happy. Nobody outside the studio  is any the wiser until somebody analyses it.

 

Fictional?  The record industry will supply whatever format is wanted, just how it does it can be open to question; from LPs cut from CDs , CD's mastered from old LPs, mono recordings made into artificial stereo ones etc. etc.

Hi PAR,

 

FYI the Society of Sound recordings, a joint venture between Peter Gabriele and B & W speakers, were originally distributed at 24/48 and sounded amazing. Their files were available as downloads and you received 12 albums of "new" artists for 50 GBP. It was Gabriel's way of giving back by helping new artists get a start. Good bloke.

 

The several albums I received were very good in terms of the music, however, the sound quality was simply stunning, certainly the best recorded sound I have heard to this day. I'll never forget my then 12 year old son coming into my home office one night and exclaiming "that's spooky Dad, it's like she's in the room with us". 

 

At that time (about 2011) their web site quoted an English professor in psychoacoustics who stated that the bit rate was more important than the sample rate, however, I note more recently they have increased the sample rate to 96. I assume as you suggest that their ADC equipment was capable of 96, and with the increase in bandwidth and better internet speeds why not take out some "insurance" and ensure they left nothing on the table, however, from what I was hearing through my then Benchmark DAC1 and ADAM A7 active speakers, I doubt it was really necessary.

[robocop]

Don't bother joining Amazon Australia no Hi res files here and may never be. Australia not known for bothering with Hi res anything. I didn't try other sites but thought they may not work as does Quobuz not, etc where they don't have music permissions or can't be bothered with small countries. Robert from New Zealand next to Australia.

[left channel]

56 minutes ago, robocop said:

Don't bother joining Amazon Australia no Hi res files here and may never be. Australia not known for bothering with Hi res anything. I didn't try other sites but thought they may not work as does Quobuz not, etc where they don't have music permissions or can't be bothered with small countries. Robert from New Zealand next to Australia.

 

At this time they've only launched the service in US, UK , Germany , and Japan: https://press.aboutamazon.com/news...

Maybe by the time they come to your region they'll have worked out the technical issues we've been discussing here. Meanwhile I think most of us would say don't worry about it, you're not missing anything.

[PAR]

12 hours ago, Ajax said:

FYI the Society of Sound recordings, a joint venture between Peter Gabriele and B & W speakers, were originally distributed at 24/48 and sounded amazing.

No doubt. I am not claiming that high sampling rates are necessarily always better than ( reasonable) low ones. Firstly the quality of the original recording trumps the subsequent way it is treated ( again within reason). Secondly if there is an audible difference between ( keeping with your 48KS/s example), 48 and 96 KS/s rates then, aside from audiophile nit picking,  it is pretty subtle . In fact virtually inaudible for many people  and I suspect for many musical genres ( does Death Metal really sound better at 24/192 compared to 16/44.1 ?).

 

Of course 24 bits per se  and the available dynamic range ( 144dB) is overkill for musical reproduction purposes.  However there is an interesting corollary regarding bit depth that was proposed by Paul Miller ( editor of HiFi News and , I guess CEO  of Stereophile etc - he also has a PhD in electrical engineering) that 24 bit processors work better given 24 bit data. And the majority of  modern DACs use 24 bit devices.

 

Anyway all I was saying is that whilst the OP reported his DAC was showing 16 bit output from what were nominally 24 bit files from AmazonHD I Had not found anything similar from Qobuz.

[PAR]

14 hours ago, photonman said:

This stinks!  What if we just set it to 24 Bit 44.1 Khz.  I would be happy with that for everything. Or would it have to be 16 bit 44.1 Khz? 

There is a difference between being happy with something or if you want correct reproduction of the original source i.e. bit perfect. If you play 16/44.1 (Amazon HD) files with the sound engine set to 24/44.1 then 16/44.1 files will have the bit depth upsampled to 24 ( basically 8 digital zeros added as padding). All Amazon UHD files ( 24/96,176.4,192) will have the sampling rate downsampled to 44.1.  Of course there is no additional data created when converting 16 to 24 bit -  you haven't added any dynamic range so it isn't the same as real 24 bit sound. However if you have a 24 bit processor in your DAC then it may prefer to process a file to match and there may be some small audible improvement.

 

If you are a rock/pop music fan, however , there are quite a lot of real 24/44.1 files available. So by setting your computer's sound engine as this you would have a fair percentage of incoming Amazon UHD files playing bit perfect . This is a bit like a broken clock being correct twice a day. Nevertheless the majority of files at present will still be Amazon HD ( 16/44.1) and be bit depth converted.

 

If you are happy with that then fine.

[Miska]

On 9/17/2019 at 7:15 PM, labjr said:

Tidal & MQA offices in panic mode! 

 

I doubt, same problem as with Qobuz:

 

IOW, only available in very few countries.

 

Actually Qobuz is giving me this now

 

Tidal is unfortunately still the only one with a bit more global availability. Until that changes, they have not much to worry about.

 

[rn701]

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.

[charlesphoto]

I have an old friend who works for Amazon in streaming (not the music side of things). He's also a singer in a band, record collector and has a pretty nice traditional hifi setup (cd player and TT). For the life of him he has no idea how to stream to his system despite working in a very technical computer field. Partly due to lack of time to research, but also a lot of people just can't grasp moving beyond the one device/one click paradigm, whether it be a phone or a turntable. Roon? May as well be talking about some obscure code writing software. And that's pretty much what's going on behind the scenes at Amazon, if you ask me. I would bet somebody heard that hi-res is a thing and a hundred meetings or so later, here you go. I would seriously doubt the name Roon ever materialized in any of those meetings. 

 

Of course, the whole premise behind streaming was to make our lives simpler (no cd/lp storage, access whenever/wherever, etc). But sometimes I look at my setup with it's fiber bridges, linear power supplies, etc and shake my own head, let alone visitors. Of course, I come from a family of tinkerers, so it's all in fun (and sounds glorious for not a lot of $) but for most people it would be a bit like the first time I encountered Naim gear - what are all those boxes without knobs doing! 

[IH8usrnames]

28 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

Of course, the whole premise behind streaming was to make our lives simpler (no cd/lp storage, access whenever/wherever, etc). 

You tell me what is simpler;
- install app on phone, enable air play, connect to DAC, open Tidal/Roon/Deezer/qobuz ....  CRAP, I do not have that installed on my phone, its on my tablet. Crap, my tablet is dead; where is the charger? Plug in charger, open applications, connect air play, search catalog, Play.
OR
- open CD, place in tray, press play.

Once it is all setup it may be easier but it requires a great many gyrations.

I have NAD C658 with all the BluOS goodness.
- Using BluOS to search Tidal Sucks.
- Using BluOS to search Spotify Sucks.
- Using BluOS to search Amazon Sucks.
Since BluOS kinda sucks for searching streaming services I rely on the service applications.

Tidal, must use AirPlay, or similar
Amazon, must use AirPlay or similar

Deezer, Music use AirPlay, or similar

Spotify, Effing AMAZING! Open app, select the 658 as an endpoint, play. Sound quality Sucks.

My wife wants nothing to do with BluOS, Amazon, Deezer, or Tidal for the reasons outlined above. She still uses Spotify for the reason outlined above.

I went to Tidal for sound quality and extensive catalog (I hate the lack of user created playlists).
I use Roon because it interfaces directly with my 658; no need for Airplay, etc, and interfaces better with Tidal than BluOS.

If Amazon, Tidal, or Deezer develops an app with the ease and functionality of Spotify (stream directly to endpoint without Bluetooth/AirPlay), I will drop Roon and run to that service.

If Spotify begins to offer truly lossless 16/44.1 FLAC, I will run back to them so fast it would make your head spin.
 

[charlesphoto]

My point exactly. My ten year old wants a Spotify account - but what about the great Roon setup we have? Too complicated.... my wife prefers to just Alexa on the Sonos in the kitchen vs wrangle with Roon. Pretty normal I would imagine. 

[findog3103]

2 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

My point exactly. My ten year old wants a Spotify account - but what about the great Roon setup we have? Too complicated.... my wife prefers to just Alexa on the Sonos in the kitchen vs wrangle with Roon. Pretty normal I would imagine. 

Same here. My wife and son want nothing to do with connecting airplay speakers. Open Tidal or Spotify hit play, then listen. But what they love the most is listening to BBC6 via the iPlayer Radio app. The human connection of the DJ is something the miss and the other day we heard Prince Buster followed by Fat White Family followed by The Shadows followed by Brian Eno. No algorithm does that for you.

[The Computer Audiophile]

16 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

My point exactly. My ten year old wants a Spotify account - but what about the great Roon setup we have? Too complicated.... my wife prefers to just Alexa on the Sonos in the kitchen vs wrangle with Roon. Pretty normal I would imagine. 

HiFi is often like the world of Super Cars. Can be complicated, expensive, and not for everyone. 
 

My family loves the one button presets on the Dynaudio Music speakers. Nothing simpler (after I set it up). 

[firedog]

So I tried HD and it's okay. But for me to consider subscribing, they need to let us get away from using OS mixer, and integrate with Roon. 
I don't really see any value there that would make me want to switch from Qobuz. The Qobuz-Roon library integration is worth a few bucks a month to me.

With a service like Amazon HD, it means switching between apps, etc. Not part of the user experience I'm looking for. 

[keeper]

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.”

[Jud]

While absolutely wanting to have Qobuz for the sound quality, I would like Amazon to succeed in this. I imagine other companies are watching Amazon closely to see whether streaming in CD and higher quality is commercially viable. If so, we can look forward to greater availability for streaming and perhaps downloads. If not....

[charlesphoto]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

HiFi is often like the world of Super Cars. Can be complicated, expensive, and not for everyone. 
 

My family loves the one button presets on the Dynaudio Music speakers. Nothing simpler (after I set it up). 

 

Let's face it, we're really nothing more than hobbyists with really expensive train sets.  

 

For most people music is about the connection, an emotional marker in their lives, not about the quality of sound. Which can be tantamount to pulling nose hairs if stuck on a bus for hours with a blaring out of tune radio, or heavenly if at the beach on a windy day and an impromptu dance breaks out over the tinny cafe's outdoor speakers.

 

I've been fortunate enough to have a pretty strong connection with music in my life, so I'm pretty comfortable with dis-connecting to a degree, same with no longer needing a darkroom. Yea, I miss record stores and making my own silver prints, both better in their own ways, but I also need the storage space and no longer feel like killing myself with chemicals. But I can see how people still need that connection, the pride of ownership, and the feeling that the physical medium brings them that much closer to the artist.

[Daren F]

2 hours ago, findog3103 said:

Same here. My wife and son want nothing to do with connecting airplay speakers. Open Tidal or Spotify hit play, then listen. But what they love the most is listening to BBC6 via the iPlayer Radio app. The human connection of the DJ is something the miss and the other day we heard Prince Buster followed by Fat White Family followed by The Shadows followed by Brian Eno. No algorithm does that for you.

I find Stingray Music very good for human curated playlists. It streams in 320 kbps and is included with most cable TV subscriptions internationally. IMO, the sound quality is slightly better than Spotify and dead simple to use. It integrates with Sonos, not sure about other platforms.

[Jud]

10 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

 

For most people music is about the connection, an emotional marker in their lives, not about the quality of sound

I’ve had great emotional experiences without high quality sound. A cassette recording of a bootleg LP of a Springsteen concert was something I treasured until my cassette player gave up the ghost. But I’ve also had wonderful experiences hearing old familiar performances more clearly (particularly Beatles and John Lennon). So I think it’s not either/or, but both.

[wgscott]

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

 

 

[labjr]

19 minutes ago, Jud said:

I’ve had great emotional experiences without high quality sound. A cassette recording of a bootleg LP of a Springsteen concert was something I treasured until my cassette player gave up the ghost. But I’ve also had wonderful experiences hearing old familiar performances more clearly (particularly Beatles and John Lennon). So I think it’s not either/or, but both.

 

The cassette probably sounded better than the Born To Run remaster.

[keeper]

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.

[The Computer Audiophile]

57 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

 

Let's face it, we're really nothing more than hobbyists with really expensive train sets.  

 

For most people music is about the connection, an emotional marker in their lives, not about the quality of sound. Which can be tantamount to pulling nose hairs if stuck on a bus for hours with a blaring out of tune radio, or heavenly if at the beach on a windy day and an impromptu dance breaks out over the tinny cafe's outdoor speakers.

 

I've been fortunate enough to have a pretty strong connection with music in my life, so I'm pretty comfortable with dis-connecting to a degree, same with no longer needing a darkroom. Yea, I miss record stores and making my own silver prints, both better in their own ways, but I also need the storage space and no longer feel like killing myself with chemicals. But I can see how people still need that connection, the pride of ownership, and the feeling that the physical medium brings them that much closer to the artist.

+1

[The Computer Audiophile]

41 minutes ago, Jud said:

I’ve had great emotional experiences without high quality sound. A cassette recording of a bootleg LP of a Springsteen concert was something I treasured until my cassette player gave up the ghost. But I’ve also had wonderful experiences hearing old familiar performances more clearly (particularly Beatles and John Lennon). So I think it’s not either/or, but both.

The other night I connected the Sonore Signature Rendu optical and EMM DV2. I played Bob Seger’s greatedt hits. Not an audiophile album by any means.

 

Lights off, volume up. The experience was amazing. I had chills several times. I was transported in my mind to the 1970s recording studio. I enjoy this album from YouTube via iPhone speakers, but through my system the other night I had a physical reaction in addition to the emotional. 
 

 

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, charlesphoto said:

 

Nice boots and belt buckle Charles. But you might want to ease up on the cervezas. 

[MarkS]

4 hours ago, IH8usrnames said:

If Spotify begins to offer truly lossless 16/44.1 FLAC, I will run back to them so fast it would make your head spin.
 

 

Upon reading this, I’ve completely changed my view. Yesterday, I lamented that Amazon’s offering might tank Qobuz and Tidal. Now I’m happily hoping it pushes Spotify to hires.