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

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There is a thread commenting on Amazon Music HD active for one month now at the Amazon forum. Posters have been complaining about sound quality on Windows 10 and lack of exclusive mode from the start and Amazon keeps posting the same polite canned responses thanking for feedback with no indication they are actively addressing the problems we have with the service. It looks like posting has slowed down as readers are realizing Amazon does not appear to be really interested in correcting problems audiophiles have with Amazon Music HD.

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Amazon certainly knows that both Tidal and Qobuz offer exclusive mode playback. Who enters a market without checking out the competition?

 

Considering they aren't addressing complaints on their own forum they may feel that the current product is "good enough" at the price. I think the best chance we have for bit perfect playback on our computers is if they open their API to Audirvana or Roon, and I don't believe we will hear about that until it happens.

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On 10/17/2019 at 11:05 PM, Ryantherockgod said:

"How does the user know which sample rate is being streamed from Amazon?". 

 

I don't understand. If you click on the Ultra HD square it tells you. It also tells you what your device is capable of. So if I play from my iPhone using the Apple dongle it recognizes it's only capable of 48/24. If I plug in my Dragonfly it recognizes it's capable of 96/24. And it always says it's playing at the resolution it was downloaded at--unless it's 192/24 and it has to downgrade it to my device's upper capability. So if I download a 96/24 album it says it's playing at 96/24 with the Dragonfly but only 48/24 when I rely on Apple's dongle or my Bluetooth headphones.    

 

I'm not an audiophile expert, but I'm not understanding the issue. Unless Amazon is lying, aren't these tracks already playing at the resolution they are supposed to be playing at?

 

The information Amazon Music HD provides when you click on the "Ultra HD" square is not correct. My external DAC tells me what sample rate is being sent to it and even when I stream a 192 track from Amazon Music HD Windows shared mode down samples the file to 96 which is the sample rate I have set in Windows sounds. Same with a 44 track it is up sampled to 96. This is why we need exclusive mode playback bypassing the Windows audio stack.

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The chances of getting exclusive mode are zero. Amazon cares for the bottom line, not the quality of the music served. You won't ever see Roon integration either as Amazon likes to work with their business partners in a closed system. They can afford to break even or even lose a little money on Amazon Music HD as long as hardware sales more than make up for it. After a year with the experiment they might just pull the plug if the bean counters don't like the numbers.