Amazon Launches Amazon Music HD

 

https://www.amazon.com/music/unlimited/hd

 

Ooh , more bits ...

For less ..

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20869526/amazon-music-hd-lossless-flac-tier-spotify-apple

Oh, Hi Neil, Pono?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/business/amazon-music-hd.html

Earth will never be the same again, apparently.

https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-music-hd-launches-to-compete-with-tidal/

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/amazon-music-unveils-hd-highest-quality-audio-streaming-1203338552/

90 day free trial. Nice.

Will be interesting to see 1) what TIDAL and Qobuz do in relation to this, and 2) if/when Amazon is integrated into Roon.

I will eagerly await both results.....

I hope Apple Music and Spotify add a lossless tier as well. Tidal has worked great but I'm open to trying something new.

Amazon will charge $14.99 a month for the HD tier... Tidal’s Hi-Fi plan costs $19.99 monthly.

I will happily pay an extra $5 to not support Amazon. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/12/25/streaming-music-services-pay-2019/

 

Can I pay an extra $5 to get Neil Young to stop talking about compression? 

I got nuthin' better to do for 90 days. I might have to at least 'try' it out. 

Not needing an MQA compatible DAC to stream hi-res is nice. Cheaper is nice. 3 months free is nice. 

I paid Tidal for a year but will try it out after that ends. 

Edited September 17, 20196 yr by robm321

Amazon:  “I’m-a hop aboard the high-res bandwagon, hee-yuk!”

Interesting... I've already succumbed to Alexa, so I might need to give this a try at some point.

I don't want to give up tidal / roon, but this could be a nice convenience to ask Alexa to play some High Def music.

I was already looking at Echo Link as a possible transport.  I'm not sure how this will all tie together.

Edited September 19, 20196 yr by Kerry

Alright, I'll take the plunge on the trial.

I'm not really unhappy with Tidal, but I worry about their ability to survive with (IIRC) around 5mm subscribers when Amazon, Apple and Spotify all have many multiples of that.

I'll check back in with thoughts after some use.

On 9/17/2019 at 6:04 PM, dsavitsk said:

 

 

I will happily pay an extra $5 to not support Amazon. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/12/25/streaming-music-services-pay-2019/

 

You and me too.

Looks like it's $12.99 for prime members.  Interesting

 

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.

I agree, the sound is bright and thin compared to Tidal. And regarding the hi res, without Wasapi in exclusive mode, Amazon HD is useless to me. I'm keeping my 3 month trial active in case they remove that bottleneck.