DIYAUDNUT I have another possible solution for your effort to implement "Ultra-HD" playback on Amazon Music HD without upsampling or downsampling. I haven't tried this in Windows 7, but maybe it will work for you.JanesJr1 my experience doesn't seem to match what you described. I'm using a win7 computer if that might have something to do with it.
I will check again.
Thanks.
I am now using Qobuz via Roon since finding out that Amazon isn't outputting correctly. I'll pretend that I can hear the difference . The UI of Roon is much nicer too. It's such a shame that I can't have Qobuz Hi Res AND listen to other sources without having to quit Qobuz.Switch to Qobuz, problem solved. Better supported on various streaming platforms too.
Spotify Lossless would be amazing and would win me back too, Roon or not.. I've been waiting for that for years..I'm actually waiting for Spotify lossless and them supporting Wasapi. The former is coming apparently, the latter who knows, they've been ignoring this feature for years.
@JanesJr1 - Looks like I've ended up in the same place as you.. I posted a reply to your Amazon Forum post which I'll screenshot here too.
Amazon Music HD is still 'upsampling' to match the Windows 10 Sound settings. I can't confirm the rate as my DAC doesn't display a rate only a red light for any output over 48 kHz. If I play a 44.1 kHz track in Amazon Music HD, the red light on my DAC goes on and it shouldn't.
If I play the same track with the same settings in Qobuz (or Roon), the light stays blue showing output is less than 48 kHz, which is correct.
Also, try the Sennheiser HD 600 if you are disappointed with the HD6XX's. I haven't tried the 6XX's but I bet you won't be disappointed with the HD 600's. I've had many, many headphones over the years and these are the most neutral I have found so far. Yes, they are open back so external sound will filter in but they sound divine. YMMV.
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Everyone else has convinced me that Amazon HD doesn't actually play back at the Track Quality resolution even when it seems to say so, unless the Windows audio setting happens to be the same. Semantics may be partly at fault, but it's still mostly deceptive.Well I have played with this aspect on two different DACS which most people have not been able to and with both those DACS the behavior is different.
On the TOPPING D90SE with USB, the DAC will autoswitch to match the track quality offered by Amazon. I might add that most of the tracks I compared against TIDAL with and without MQA, Amazon Music UHD beats TIDAL with a fair amount of ease and is perceptible. The only issue is that each time you start a session with the Amazon app, you must enable the exclusive and it is automatic. However once it is enabled it sticks until the Amazon App closes. Essentially the Amazon app is not aggressive enough.
Now I have a second DAC that is using a XING ASM3176 USB adapter. With this adapter the behavior is as you experienced. Once a bit depth and sample rate is set in the windows properties of the driver. It sticks and needs to be manually changed to match the native track quality otherwise all tracks, once set is upsampled/downsampled etc. by the USB adapter. Now this same adapter needs no nudging when TIDAL is used as it switches automatically.
At this point I am unable to clearly say that Amazon Music app is improperly coded or whether the USB adapter is not responding to a certain flag etc. sent by the Amazon app.? For some reason, Amazon does not want to boldly take control of the exclusive mode for some reason. maybe they will modify this aspect.
When one hears the possible quality once everything is set up properly, the omission is acceptable on the first DAC, on the second DAC, since it is mainly for the office, I'll live with the issue at this time. I will pull out my Khadas tone board and see how that responds. That might shed more light on the situation.
Sorry I didn't respond to your August post; I was out of circulation for a while. To wit: thanks for the HD600 idea.@JanesJr1 - Looks like I've ended up in the same place as you.. I posted a reply to your Amazon Forum post which I'll screenshot here too.
Amazon Music HD is still 'upsampling' to match the Windows 10 Sound settings. I can't confirm the rate as my DAC doesn't display a rate only a red light for any output over 48 kHz. If I play a 44.1 kHz track in Amazon Music HD, the red light on my DAC goes on and it shouldn't.
If I play the same track with the same settings in Qobuz (or Roon), the light stays blue showing output is less than 48 kHz, which is correct.
Also, try the Sennheiser HD 600 if you are disappointed with the HD6XX's. I haven't tried the 6XX's but I bet you won't be disappointed with the HD 600's. I've had many, many headphones over the years and these are the most neutral I have found so far. Yes, they are open back so external sound will filter in but they sound divine. YMMV.
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Just so you know, any application using WASAPI exclusive mode or ASIO will bypass all APOs setup in Windows, including your EQ.I've APO-equalized my HD6XX's to a fair-thee-well
Thanks. I find that Equalizer APO is much more valuable than exclusive mode to me. I have tamed the frequency response irritants in my ER4's, and to a lesser degree, in my HD6XX's and still enjoy those changes every day. I can't hear any benefit from exclusive mode in practice, other than pre-empting the occasional interruption from Windows notifications, which I mostly turned off anyway.Just so you know, any application using WASAPI exclusive mode or ASIO will bypass all APOs setup in Windows, including your EQ.
And you really shouldn't. Windows volume mixer works with 32bit floating point precision, the windows audio resampler has been measured as being completely transparent, so while the result of using shared mode or a higher level API is not "bit perfect" it shouldn't actually be bad either, not unless some APO is messing with the sound.I can't hear any benefit from exclusive mode in practice
Hello, I'm a TIDAL user and started to try Amazon Music. I have a Micro iFI DAC that has its own driver. I followed all the steps you posted but my DAC does not switch the resolution. It keeps the resolution I left on windows control panel!! And on TIDAL it does switch when I'm using exlusive mode so I believe Amazon Music does not bypass windows, just prevents other sound from windows to bug us when exlusive mode is on!!Then Amazon does autoswitch, but only if the default Windows rate is set at least at that resolution. Amazon takes that rate as the device's maximum capability. So if you set it to 24/192 for the Windows default rate and play back a 24/96 ultra-hd recording, Amazon does auto-switch up to 24/96 and does NOT oversample. However, if you play a 24/96 recording while Windows default is set at 16/44.1, then Windows does seem to downsample down to the 16/44.1 device limit.
This means I should change the advice on my 3 steps to set up wasapi exclusive on Amazon HD Music to provide for a max sampling rate of something like 24/192, and then autoswitch will work correctly, So I will edit my earlier posting.
(Lest it go unsaid, I'm not entirely sure that going above 24/44.1 is all that audible without focusing attention on equipment rather than the music and doing A/B testing and so forth. If it is just-barely-audible, is it really both audible and an improvement in normal use?)
Hello, I'm a TIDAL user and started to try Amazon Music. I have a Micro iFI DAC that has its own driver. I followed all the steps you posted but my DAC does not switch the resolution. It keeps the resolution I left on windows control panel!! And on TIDAL it does switch when I'm using exlusive mode so I believe Amazon Music does not bypass windows, just prevents other sound from windows to bug us when exlusive mode is on!!
I have not been able to make it work with my D10sOn the TOPPING D90SE with USB, the DAC will autoswitch to match the track quality offered by Amazon.