Article: The Next Track: Episode 159 | Amazon Music HD

[The Computer Audiophile]

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[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, ShawnC said:

After following several threads on this website related to this topic and now listening to this podcast, I'm still not sure what people are finding interesting about this new streamer.  I'll pass and stick with Qobuz.  With Qobuz I know exactly what I'm getting (excluding 100% provenance) and how to get bit perfect play back every time I use it.

I agree for the most part. I think Amazon entering the fray is like a sideways validation of lossless and high resolution and that makes people happy. There’s also a chance that other people will enjoy better sound. 
 

over all though Qobuz is 100x better than Amazon. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

7 hours ago, kirkmc said:

At the time we recorded, we hadn't seen the rumors of the new "audiophile" Amazon Echo, which was announced yesterday. So one of the reasons for their lossless/high-res service is, perhaps, to provide "better sounding" music for that device. 

 

Thanks for putting "Audiophile" in quotes. By no sane definition is the new Echo Studio an audiophile device. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, Michaelb4 said:

Observation. Qobuz has upgraded its library enough that I no longer see a need for Tidal. This is particular to me I guess since I listen mostly to Jazz and Classical.  Pretty good alternative to Amazon. Since it is EU based hopefully it will survive Amazon HD. 

I agree. There are no longer any albums I care about that Tidal has and Qobuz doesn't. 

 

As I said in the podcast, in my opinion there are only two players in the high resolution streaming market, Amazon Music HD and Qobuz. The choice between these two is a no brainer. Qobuz is a boutique company while Amazon is the Walmart of the internet. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

25 minutes ago, Abstraction said:

 

What is 100x better? 

Right now I have Tidal running with Roon,  a trial  subscription to Qobuz and to  Amazon HD.  I also have over 3tb of CDs ripped to a drive. I am not the kind of person to make my ear's bleed doing a-b comparisons, but it seems to me that the noticeable variation in sound quality is more from recording to recording than from service to service. I am more interested in the catalog offerings of relatively, what should I say, far out music-- jazz from small record companies, avant-garde contemporary classical music, and non-pop world music. This involves a very large amount of music, and I haven't scratched surface, but there is no question that Amazon on my measure--the offerings of the music that I listen to--is incomparably better.

Hi Abstraction - I have all three service as well. I agree with your assessment about sound quality.

 

I find Qobuz music selection, recommendations, and navigation so much better than the other two services. For example, I love the ECM records catalog. In Qobuz I can view the entire catalog by selecting the label. In Tidal forget about it. In Amazon I have to search ECM Records and it does return a dump truck full of albums, but I have no idea if this is actually all the ECM stuff in Amazon or a partial list or everything with the letters ECM or Records etc... Amazon search is just like the store, search for a hard drive and you'll get 30,000 results to weed through. Qobuz has information about many releases when you click on them as well. 

 

Then, think about playback. Right now the only way to enjoyable play Amazon bit perfectly is a BluOS or DTS PlayFi capable product. Forget about the desktop and mobile apps. They aren't built with audio quality, output selection, and sample rate switching in mind.

 

In just about every category of what makes me select a product, Qobuz wins. Sure Amazon beats everyone on price, but in the grand scheme of things the price difference between all the services doesn't even amount to the sales tax on a USB cable for some people.

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 hours ago, bbosler said:

no

 

I signed up for Amazon but when they charged me $7.99 for the free trial I cancelled, still don't believe they are delivering native HD content

 

have been using Tidal, jut signed up for Qobuz to see what that is like

They charged you for the standard definition because you'd already used your free trial. They gave you a free HD trial. I don't now of any service that gives several free trials. 

 

Based on my DACs that indicate sample rate and bit depth, Amazon is delivering the same native HD content as Qobuz. 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 hours ago, kirkmc said:

 

It's interesting, because for a very short time - a year or two? - there were exclusives, and Tidal was notably trying to sell their service on that feature. I haven't heard of any big-name exclusives in a while; has that stopped? 

That game seems over as fast as it started. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, bbosler said:

 

correct, i get that now. they counted my former Amazon music unlimited as a free trial.

 

 

That means nothing, I can resample 160K MP3 files to 24/192 and it will show on your DACs as 24/192, so unless you look at the spectrum you can't rely on what the DAC is telling you

Are you suggesting Amazon is using DSP to get high resolution files? This would be quite a story.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

I think he means re-sampling, kind of like what HD tracks sometimes does (or at least sells).

I know of zero cases of a reseller changing the sample rate of what it was delivered. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

(I also have wondered if Amazon (via their player), or whomever provides them the files, is somehow enhancing the bass. It sounds significantly more pronounced/boomy in my system.)

That should be fairly trivial to analyze. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, left channel said:

 

@#Yoda# and others have caught otherwise reputable download resellers offering upsampled albums as Hi-Res many times. As you say, those files probably came from the labels that way and it was not the resellers who changed the sample rate. Once presented with an analysis the resellers usually did offer refunds, but did not remove the files. Not sure if you can analyze a stream the same way. I do wonder about the provenance of Amazon's "Ultra HD" catalog.
 

Just need to capture a stream for analysis. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, left channel said:

 

OK. I'll leave it to others to determine if one can do that given the way Amazon's app currently works.

BluOS device with digital out will do it. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, bbosler said:

 

I am suggesting that it is odd that all of the sudden they have Neil Young at 24/192 and Elvis at 24/96 along with many others. I am stopping short of accusing anybody of anything, but if they want to make a believer of me and many others they need to tell us where they got all these high resolution files. 

 

We got burned by HDtracks when they first started up when they were selling upsampled files. They claimed they were victims of the people supplying the files, but If I could see they were upsampled why didn't HDtracks take the time to verify what they had? And again, not accusing Amazon of anything, just a bit leery. Ask yourself this, do you think the executives at Amazon really understand the difference between  16/44.1 upsampled to 24/192 and files that are natively remastered at 24/192 ??

 

I haven't figured out how to show the spectrum of the feed from Amazon HD, but if somebody can do that it will clearly show a brick wall filter just below 20KHz if these are upsampled CD files, hopefully they are not

 

 

Neil released his content at 24/192 years ago. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

58 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

 

"a noisy power supply on their servers..." 

 

Um, okay. I guess you need to worry about every server between Amazon's A3 repository and you, including every ethernet cable and power supply in every datacenter through which the data transits. And your ISP's hardware. And your telco's hardware. And everything els. 

It’s a long standing joke that I’m sure had many readers shaking their heads. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

57 minutes ago, mindfulhermit said:

I am confused about the offline listening feature of Amazon Music HD.  I live in the Ozarks and my only internet connection is through satellite internet with significant download caps.  So on-going streaming is not feasible.  I must go into town and download through the public library’s WiFi to successfully stream music for subsequent offline listening.
I have searched Amazon’s site trying to determine the “quality” of their downloads for offline listening.  Elsewhere it was suggested that the actual downloads were only mp3 quality.  Does anyone know what Amazon is storing under the “available offline” tag?
 

The offline download is whatever quality you select in the app settings. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

11 minutes ago, NOMBEDES said:

 

On the new Abby Road the bass has been enhanced.  According to Mike F. at Stereophile.

Enhanced by the remix or by a streaming service?

[The Computer Audiophile]

27 minutes ago, Abstraction said:

 

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I don't doubt that for most people who listen seriously to music Qobuz is a better product, but no stream is any good if it does not stream the music you want to hear. To be sure my interests in music are fringy, some might say weird.  The cutting edge of jazz is mostly to be heard in venues often with audiences less than fifty. These people are not being recorded by ECM.  I rarely use an audio service to discover music.  I search for new music on the NYC Jazz Record and the jazz blogs. It's a quandary. I retired and moved to an NYC apartment, so I could hear live music.  I sold my vinyl, but there is no place to store CDs.

 

 I don't know what I will do.  I still have free time left on Amazon.  Tidal is somewhat better for my musical interests than Qobuz.   The point is, I guess, that the problem of digital music distribution is still not solved. The musicians, especially the ones who are not big sellers, are being ripped off. I feel somewhat better about this because I hear and pay for a lot of live music, but that does not deal with the issue. I have Roon and Sonore rendus running on two systems. So, then what?

I certainly hear you. If your music isn’t on a service, it’s useless. I’ll take my favorite music via AM radio over stuff I hate via high resolution streaming.