Amazon Music HD uses Windows mixer in shared mode only. The ability to use Wasapi exclusive mode is absent from the Windows app. Both Tidal and Qobuz have had the ability to use exclusive mode for years. As a result Amazon Music HD is not bit perfect, and even if you are receiving a 24/192 stream it will be down sampled to 24/96 if that is your user setting in Windows sounds. Same for up sampling. I use Tidal and Qobuz and find Amazon Music HD to sound inferior to both. Hard to understand why they did not launch with the ability to use exclusive mode with an external DAC.
Not to be melodramatic but does anyone else remember a couple of years ago when Tyll was still running the late, lamented Inner Fidelity and wrote that, someday, the really big game changer would be wireless, fuss-free, DSP headphones that were "good enough" for anyone but the most hardcore enthusiasts. Well we're there Hertsens, you magnificent bastard.
Ordered AirPods Pro online at 1:48 pm today, paid $9 for same-day delivery, Postmates courier dropped them at my house at 2:51 pm.
I am listening to them now and they are pretty damn good.
Our section of So Cal is due for 50-70 mph winds (!) starting midnight tonight so by tomorrow the local fires can be anywhere/everywhere and very bad. We plan to stay up most of the night just in case we need to egress.