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Article: UPDATE: Amazon Music HD Is Still Lossy*


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Man, I'm confused.  Have the Amazon app on my music Mac Mini, pay for HD version, and who I played a couple of new albums yesterday - Dave Grissom's, Matt Scofield's and a tune by Scary Goldings with Josh Smith (I like guitar).  It all sounded pretty nice and my Mytek B+ displayed that the files fed by USB from Mini to B+ were CD quality? 

 

Not sure how to find stuff on Amazon Music HD that is higher resolution than CD quality to test? 

 

FWIW, the Mini is connected to the web by WiFi (Netgear hub is in next room, 6 ft linear from the Mini).

 

 

Tone with Soul

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4 hours ago, firedog said:

The issue is the Amazon app sends it to Windows mixer where it gets altered. If you set your Windows mixer to hi-res then it will stay in that sample rate. Still won't be bit perfect.

 

Guess I don't understand sample rate versus bit perfect. Par for the course for me as I miss 80% of the tech talking here. 

 

 I use a Mac so where does Amazon app "send it" to get altered, iTunes?

 

FWIW, the Amazon HD files sound better than MP3s, made the mistake of assuming that iTunes sold CD quality downloads years ago and bought an album (Gregg Allman's) and it sounded miserable. 

Tone with Soul

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12 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hey @57gold, you’re in the same boat as most people. Thanks for asking the questions/making the points. 
 

Sample rate vs. bit perfect:

 

Start with a CD quality file. It’s 16/44.1.  Play it without altering anything and it’s bit perfect at 16/44.1. 
 

Using iTunes, turn down the volume 90% and it will still be 16/44.1, but no longer bit perfect because the digital volume control removes bits to reduce volume. 
 

In this case it’s simple to hear the loss because it’s a massive volume reduction. All DACs and software that only show sample rate will still say 16/44.1, which doesn’t indicate the bits are no longer all present. 

 

OK, may be a dumb question...but if the shoe fits!

 

So, if I stream from Amazon HD on my Mini with both the app volume and iTunes volume maxed, and then use the analog attenuator on the B+ to modulate volume, do I have bit perfect play back from Amazon HD?

Tone with Soul

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14 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

No. The apps for Windows and macOS are incapable of bit perfect. 

 

OK, so how "imperfect" are they with no digital attenuation in terms of signal/data degradation?  Are they taking a CD or better signal and converting it to MP3 compressed quality?  Or something better but not 100% of the original file quality?  

 

Seems dumb for Amazon to advertise HD and then not deliver it, especially when they charge extra for it and it's not like they do not have the resources to develop an app that delivers as advertised.  

Tone with Soul

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