Popular Post wgscott Posted September 17, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted September 17, 2019 Quote Here's a link to get details from Amazon and sign up. It's an affiliate link so we make a a couple pennies if you sign up. We are beta testing this on items like books and music. Amazon Music HD I used the link. Do you get any feedback as to whether it worked, or do you only find out after 3 months and I forget to cancel? If Damien adds this to Audirvana, I think I will subscribe. wdw and Jud 1 1 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
Ralf11 Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said: The one where you stream into the store and your money streams into the cash register? They ALL do that. Costco's streaming service is different because you buy big blocks - the frames are YUGE 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 🙂). crenca and lucretius 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
joelha Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 2 hours ago, shadowlight said: I would give it couple of weeks/months to see if it makes any progress. Folks on the BubbleUPnP thread on xda-developers are already asking if there are plans to add support for that. Thanks again, shadowlight. Patience has never been one of my strengths, but I'll consider this another opportunity. Joel Link to comment
wdw Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 3 hours ago, Ran said: The service is not available in Canada (yet...) bummer...and no Qobuz as well...I'd easily pay for Qobuz if they'd finally get their act together and offer it to Canadians. Cannot even access their site to get some notion of a timeline. The French! lucretius 1 Link to comment
Popular Post miguelito Posted September 17, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted September 17, 2019 7 hours ago, kirkmc said: 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). Unfortunately most Echo devices are terrible sounding. I would like to see something like Spotify Connect - but much more than that I would like to see Roon integration. lucretius and IH8usrnames 2 NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul system pics Link to comment
TAV Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 3 hours ago, shadowlight said: @Jud is the Amazon app the same one that you use for Amazon Music or is there a different one? If different can you share the name. Search apple store but not finding anything other than amazon music It's the same app, I had the Amazon app installed on my phone then signed up for the 3 month promo and voila HD content became available. lucretius 1 Link to comment
Popular Post djwalter2000 Posted September 18, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted September 18, 2019 For the Windows app, ASIO or WASAPI integration would be appreciated. oneway23, lucretius, rn701 and 1 other 2 2 Link to comment
Popular Post Superdad Posted September 18, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted September 18, 2019 1 hour ago, miguelito said: Unfortunately most Echo devices are terrible sounding. Hi Miguel: I am pretty sure that @kirkmc was being sarcastic regarding Amazon Echos benefiting from the HD service. lucretius and miguelito 1 1 UpTone Audio LLC Link to comment
Sevenfeet Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Very interesting turn of events... I for one am very happy that Amazon has decided to go this route since it will likely push the bigger services (Spotify and Apple) to follow suit. It's an open secret that Spotify has been testing this for some time. Apple has been asking for hi-res recordings from content providers for some time but as it stands, has only been offering 256 kbit "Mastered for Apple Music" recordings. Yes, the advent of cheaper, wider bandwidth is a motivating factor but disk space in data centers is a lot cheaper too and frankly is a fraction of the space of all the video content out there. But I think the real motivation is the fact that HiRes music likely has a higher profit margin than regular compressed music given the increased cost to the user versus streaming/storage. And the streaming services and content providers would love to have higher margins any day of the week. Of course, audiophiles are a fickle bunch, often difficult to attract as a permanent customer. Amazon launched HD music today with a lot of partners but not any "front ends" like Roon or Audirvana, at least not yet. Still, competition is good. I subscribe to both Apple Music and Tidal so I'l curious to see what Apple and Spotify do in response. Link to comment
rn701 Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 44 minutes ago, Superdad said: Hi Miguel: I am pretty sure that @kirkmc was being sarcastic regarding Amazon Echos benefiting from the HD service. I'm thinking the echo link will work with the hd service. Wish it wasn't $200. They have some more announcements coming up soon, so... Link to comment
rickca Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Wow! On the launch page https://www.amazon.com/music/unlimited/hd it says Hear music the way the artist intended Geez, didn't MQA use nearly the exact same words? Given Amazon's world class infrastructure (AWS) and datacenter scale, they can implement this service and make it extraordinary if there's enough interest. It's a natural fit with lots of other things Amazon is doing. Amazon is announcing new devices on 9/25. It will be interesting to see what they have in store. Just like Apple is trying to expand its services revenue, Amazon is in the same game. Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs i7-6700K/Windows 10 --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's Link to comment
Gus141 Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 10 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Using BluOS, this abum shows an HR logo, perhaps for high resolution. I tried Amazon Music on my Node 2i (S/PDIF Coax out connected to an RME ADI-2 DAC, which shows SR and bit depth). I see the “HR” icon too for anything in my library I added via the Amazon apps that was labeled as “Ultra HD”; and the RME shows the correct kHz/bit-depth (based on comparing it to clicking “Ultra HD” text in a native app. to see what it’s playing). Also, Chris, have you tried Amazon Music app with your DF Cobalt with CCK on iPad? My DFC lights up indicating 96kHz even if I play “HD”-labled music (44.1kHZ). Got the same behavior with a Monolith AAA THX Portable DAC attached to iPad via CCK (this DAC has an OLED screen that shows sampling rate, and it shows 192kHz for everything out of the Amazon Music app regardless of actual SR. So I tried an iFi xDSD on 5.3 firmware (versus 5.3c, so that the LED lights mean something) and the LED is indicating yellow (PCM 176-384 kHz) for *All* content. Something is going on here. It looks like everything is getting upsampled on the iPad when connected to an external DAC. But the BluOS on Node 2i is working fine (just that the UI sucks! for Amazon on BluOS; you can’t see what’s “Ultra HD”, you have to use another app and add it to your library). I hope mConnect adds this so I can use my DLNA/UPnP capable streamers on iOS (I don’t have Android so no BubbleUPnP). rando 1 Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted September 18, 2019 Author Share Posted September 18, 2019 Just received a press release from Lenbrook / NAD / Bluesound / BluOS. It contains some info about the partnership with Amazon for this new service. Mainly stuff we all know, but want to post it anyway. It's attached. I requested an NAD C 658 DAC with BluOS integrated for review. Could be a great solution for $1,649. NR BluOS Among First to Integrate with Amazon Music HD 18SEP2019.pdf Vassago 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
AudioDoctor Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Just received a press release from Lenbrook / NAD / Bluesound / BluOS. It contains some info about the partnership with Amazon for this new service. Mainly stuff we all know, but want to post it anyway. It's attached. I requested an NAD C 658 DAC with BluOS integrated for review. Could be a great solution for $1,649. NR BluOS Among First to Integrate with Amazon Music HD 18SEP2019.pdfUnavailable Chris, I get this when I click your link: The Computer Audiophile 1 No electron left behind. Link to comment
rickca Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 @The Computer Audiophile have you sent Amazon an invitation to have a representative participate in the forum here on AS? I'm thinking about the audio writers who have gone all in with MQA. I hope this is giving them conniptions. Gus141 1 Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs i7-6700K/Windows 10 --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's Link to comment
Popular Post The Computer Audiophile Posted September 18, 2019 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 18, 2019 17 minutes ago, rickca said: @The Computer Audiophile have you sent Amazon an invitation to have a representative participate in the forum here on AS? I'm thinking about the audio writers who have gone all in with MQA. I hope this is giving them conniptions. I've been trying to contact someone at Amazon for months about this, but I got crickets. With respect to those all in on MQA, truth and facts don't matter. They will see a way around this huge loss and reframe it as a win. They are quite Presidential. JimCo06, opus101, MarkS and 3 others 1 5 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
rando Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 @Gus141 exactly. Reality. Link to comment
IH8usrnames Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 If they implement something like Spotify Connect, I will drop Tidal and Roon pretty much immediately. If they integrate with Roon then I would keep it too. Waiting with baited breath for the NAD C658 to support it. Vassago 1 Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted September 18, 2019 Author Share Posted September 18, 2019 1 hour ago, AudioDoctor said: Chris, I get this when I click your link: Try this link AudioDoctor 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted September 18, 2019 Author Share Posted September 18, 2019 1 minute ago, IH8usrnames said: Waiting with baited breath for the NAD C658 to support it. Should support it now. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
cscamp Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Just tested it with my Bluesound POWERNODE and it works Great. Shows up as HR and CD. Wish Bluesound had a category for all HR tracks. I tested Qobuz a few months ago and I always thought FLAC sounded better than MQA. Well, after listening to Amazon HD I can definitely confirm that I like FLAC better. More detailed IMHO than MQA. Tracks seem louder as well. What do you guys think? Link to comment
cscamp Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Just tested it with my Bluesound POWERNODE and it works Great. Shows up as HR and CD. Wish Bluesound had a category for all HR tracks. I tested Qobuz a few months ago and I always thought FLAC sounded better than MQA. Well, after listening to Amazon HD I can definitely confirm that I like FLAC better. More detailed IMHO than MQA. Tracks seem louder as well. What do you guys think? Link to comment
cscamp Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 Just tested it with my Bluesound POWERNODE and it works Great. Shows up as HR and CD. Wish Bluesound had a category for all HR tracks. I tested Qobuz a few months ago and I always thought FLAC sounded better than MQA. Well, after listening to Amazon HD I can definitely confirm that I like FLAC better. More detailed IMHO than MQA. Tracks seem louder as well. What do you guys think? It's too early to say, but think this is a winner from Amazon. Now what to do I do with my Raspberry Pi Ropiee? Roon unfortunately doesn't support Amazon and I doubt that they will. Link to comment
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