Article: Amazon Music HD With iOS, macOS, Windows 10, BluOS, and a Sonos Port

[adam2434]

For Sonos, it would be interesting if someone could clock the Sonos device on their router while playing "HD" and "Ultra HD" tracks to determine if both are in the right bitrate range for 16/44.1 FLAC.

 

I figured that Amazon Music would also have a "HD" 16/44.1 version of every track they have in "Ultra HD", rather than doing real-time downsampling to each Sonos device, for example...unless Sonos can downsample.

 

Heos (at least built-in Heos) supports "HD" and "Ultra HD" at their native bit depths and sampling rates.  But, as I've mentioned before, the Amazon Music app within Heos in clunky and lacks My Music. 

 

Not sure if the Heos Link HS2 will do 24/192 from the digital outs, but I would guess it can.

 

If Heos adds My Music, it will become a great platform for Amazon Music HD.  The $350 Heos Link HS2 is not "too bad" of an add-on cost, IMO.

 

I'm surprised Amazon does not make a streaming box that can decode and digitally output the full native native bit depths and sampling rates.  Seems like they should have had this available at the time of the launch.  However, if such a box existed, it's not clear how it would integrate with the Amazon Music app, since Alexa Cast only directs the "SD" lossy stream, IME.