Amazon launches lossless high-res music service!

[Tup3x]

Interesting change—Amazon SD is now using Opus (rather than LAME mp3)! Just noticed it this morning. That seems to show at least some real commitment to sound quality. Streaming Amazon SD in Opus right now (in bedroom; I use Amazon HD (FLAC) on my HiFi.

Also, at least on my IPad, the Amazon music app tells you what CODEC it’s using now i.e., Opus, FLAC, don’t know if there are others.

Unfortunately they sell crappy 256kbps MP3s which is rather ironic.

 

[dmac6419]

Interesting change—Amazon SD is now using Opus (rather than LAME mp3)! Just noticed it this morning. That seems to show at least some real commitment to sound quality. Streaming Amazon SD in Opus right now (in bedroom; I use Amazon HD (FLAC) on my HiFi.

Also, at least on my IPad, the Amazon music app tells you what CODEC it’s using now i.e., Opus, FLAC, don’t know if there are others.

Yea i notice that too.

 

[SIY]

I’ve been delighted with Amazon HD. They have most of the obscure stuff I love, but I have run into some odd gaps. Nonetheless, 99% of the things I look for, I can find.

 

[NoMoFoNo]

AMHD was the impetus for me moving into digital and I'm absolutely delighted so far with the quality and value. I haven't fired up a record player in more than a month, after years of listening to multiple albums every day. Still working out the best device to stream from into an external DAC.

 

[BDWoody]

AMHD was the impetus for me moving into digital and I'm absolutely delighted so far with the quality and value. I haven't fired up a record player in more than a month, after years of listening to multiple albums every day. Still working out the best device to stream from into an external DAC.

The Nvidia Shield isn't mentioned very often, but it's a pretty capable streamer... You can also connect NAS to it, cast to it with Chromecast, and it is designed to be a capable plex server, so it really can handle a lot of chores around the audio house.

Also has a good AMHD app...

 

[Bamyasi]

The Nvidia Shield isn't mentioned very often, but it's a pretty capable streamer... You can also connect NAS to it, cast to it with Chromecast, and it is designed to be a capable plex server, so it really can handle a lot of chores around the audio house.

Also has a good AMHD app...View attachment 52955

AFAIK, Nvidia Shield does not support Amazon Music HD, unless Nvidia has updated it recently which is unlikely. So just plain old Amazon Music with standard quality streaming @ 256 AAC+ or 320 kbps MP3 (for some of the tracks). Not that you would be able to tell the difference. Personally, I find AM AAC streams to have exceptionally good SQ.

 

[BDWoody]

AFAIK, Nvidia Shield does not support Amazon Music HD, unless Nvidia has updated it recently which is unlikely. So just plain old Amazon Music with standard quality streaming @ 256 AAC+ or 320 kbps MP3 (for some of the tracks). Not that you would be able to tell the difference. Personally, I find AM AAC streams to have exceptionally good SQ.

My mistake...you are correct, unless I am missing something.
I also don't believe I'd have much chance of picking out whatever codec they are using over 'Hi-res,' but it is a bit silly that they haven't sorted out a more capable solution.
Maybe they can get folded into Roon soon...

 

[Bamyasi]

I was finally able to setup my Fire 7 Tablet (2019) as a network player for the Amazon Music HD service and it works great.

Pros:

• Excellent sound quality (but HD only, see below)
• 16/44.1 unaltered streaming direct to USB DAC (with OTG adapter)
• Gapless playback supported
• Full remote control from Amazon Music app run on your phone or another tablet

Cons:

• No Amazon Ultra HD (Hi-Res) support
• Occasional network connectivity issues, causing slow response/disconnects from remote app
• No Alexa support for music playback

In general, I would say for $30 it does its job wonderfully. Note, when I connect the tablet to the DAC and try playing back tracks in Ultra HD quality they will be indicated as "HD" at the now playing screen in the app and shown as 16/44.1 by the DAC. If I play back same tracks directly on the tablet it shows "Ultra HD" icon but tapping on it reveals the track being resampled to 24/48 kHz. But it does not try to stream in Hi-Res and then resample it in the Android audio stack on the tablet when connected to the USB DAC. Smart enough behavior, I would say. Since I am not that interested in Hi-Res, I find it a useful interim solution. I have software volume set to maximum in Amazon Music app on my phone and on the tablet and using DAC remote to control volume. I assume this gets one as close as it gets to bitperfect streaming, CD quality. At least it sounds great and pretty much indistiguishable from my Allo USBridge, which is 5 times more expensive (but still dirt cheap compared to the likes of Aurender, Naim, etc).

FYI: It looks like Alexa Cast was broken on my Fire 7 tablet for some time, perhaps by a recent update from Amazon. I have only noticed it a couple weeks ago and a quick check with my Wi-Fi router traffic meter confirmed that all tracks were now streamed in SD only (mostly using AAC codec), regardless of the settings on the Cast controller (that is, my phone) or Cast renderer (F7 tablet). I have reported this bug to Amazon via standard support channel using chat on their website but did not expect much to come out of it. Well, looks like I was wrong. Got an email from Amazon support today suggesting to install the just released OS update for F7 tablet, which should contain a fix. Did as instructed and after restart the tablet indeed was capable of HD quality playback again when casting. Confirmed by traffic meter on my router as usual. Good job AMHD developers!

Also noticed that AMHD actually in fact streams at highest resolution available (UHD) to my F7, if configured to do so, even though the tablet itself is recognized by the app as only capable of 16/44.1 (HD) playback. This is clearly seen from the numbers on my router's traffic monitor when casting UHD tracks. Apparently, UHD streams are downsapled by the device itself, as confirmed by my DAC's display. So no smart adaptive streaming bitrate selection based on actual renderer's capabilities, it's all or nothing instead. Should try limiting playback by HD quality in the app's configuration and see if that would help.

 

[StevenEleven]

The my discovery mix (much like Spotify’s weekly discovery mix) and station mixes (choose a seed track and it makes a station) on Amazon HD seem to be improving extremely rapidly also, approaching Spotify in terms of apparent predictiveness of what I might like and going a little bit out there maybe. My whole family of 5 has used Spotify for years so I am stuck with that too.

My only knock on Amazon left right now for me is the gapless is far from perfect, as in perhaps nonexistent, which, with the wrong music, just really detracts from the experience of listening. Qobuz (lossless) and Spotify both implement gapless seemingly perfectly. I don’t know why Amazon can’t. The tech is obviously there.

 

[SIY]

My tastes are so scattered that none of the predictive services seem to work for me. I worry that I may have broken them.

I'm now up to four albums I wanted that Amazon HD didn't have. That's pretty good considering that I've pulled from at least a hundred times that many...

 

[DuxServit]

Everything I want on Amazon HD is already available on Apple Music. Plus, I‘m still waiting for integration to Roon.

Otherwise, it’s just another app I got add.

 

[Bamyasi]

The my discovery mix (much like Spotify’s weekly discovery mix) and station mixes (choose a seed track and it makes a station) on Amazon HD seem to be improving extremely rapidly also, approaching Spotify in terms of apparent predictiveness of what I might like and going a little bit out there maybe. My whole family of 5 has used Spotify for years so I am stuck with that too.

That was my observation as well. Discovery Mix worked amazingly good in my case too and was filled with relevant (and completely new to me) tracks & performers in just two weeks of use. It maybe a bit short with only 25 new tracks rotated every week, but if you go over each of the corresponding albums sampling at least two or three more tracks then it is definitely more than enough playback time to get you through the week.

My only concern is that all AI algorithms tend to converge pretty quickly and would soon end up playing exactly the same tracks again and again. That's what happened to me on Pandora and on Spotify after couple years. But with Pandora you can at least seed a new personal station from scratch and it will last in a usable state for few months. There is no such option with AMHD yet.

My only knock on Amazon left right now for me is the gapless is far from perfect, as in perhaps nonexistent, which, with the wrong music, just really detracts from the experience of listening. Qobuz (lossless) and Spotify both implement gapless seemingly perfectly. I don’t know why Amazon can’t. The tech is obviously there.

I believe this may be also related to the codec and whether resampling is being used. My experience is that when streaming in FLAC (lossless) and with no resampling involved (HD stream played on HD-capable device at HD quality) AM is capable of perfectly gapless playback. Downgrading the stream to SD temporarily or upsampling / downsampling on the device would break it. Unfortunately, a lot of devices would resample, hence true gapless is hard to get with AM at the moment.

 

[Jake's Dad]

6 months + into the deployment of Amazon Music HD and there is still no way, as far as I am aware, to stream Amzon Music "Ultra HD" from a Mac to an external DAC. Not via the Amzn web player, and not via the dedicated Mac app. So for me, it's just a bunch of marketing cr*p that means that Amzn HD is just another way to stream 44.1Mhz data, nice but no cigar. Yes, I know I could go out an buy an Amazon Fire tablet and work around some of this, or listen to music via my iPhone, but why do I have to work around Amzn's manifest shortcomings? Qobuz and Audirvana here I come.

 

[NoMoFoNo]

No, wait! You certainly can stream at 'full strength' from your MAC, from the AMHD app. I have streamed AMHD from my MacBook Air at 24/192 to an external DAC. Have you opened up the 'Midi' app from the utility folder and adjusted resolution from there?

 

[Jake's Dad]

@NoMoFoNo, yes I have. Resolution will not remain locked above 44.1kHz, even though dan (Topping DX-7s can go to 768 kHz). Using a late-2013 MacBook Air.

But to add to the above, I have no issue sending higher resolution streams via Roon or Audirvana, and with no need to change touch the Audio Devices settings.

 

[NoMoFoNo]

Well, that is not the fault of AMHD. I've had plenty of frustrations with finding an affordable device to stream AMHD from the app, but the two machines that have performed flawlessly in streaming the full bandwidth have been my 2016 MacBook Air and Lenovo Windows 10 laptop. Something is not right with your MIDI settings or I-dunno-what, but it is not accurate to say that AMHD won't do full stream via Mac machines.

 

[SIY]

Well, that is not the fault of AMHD. I've had plenty of frustrations with finding an affordable device to stream AMHD from the app, but the two machines that have performed flawlessly in streaming the full bandwidth have been my 2016 MacBook Air and Lenovo Windows 10 laptop. Something is not right with your MIDI settings or I-dunno-what, but it is not accurate to say that AMHD won't do full stream via Mac machines.

FWIW, I've had zero issues streaming HD with my Dell laptop and using BluOS through my iPhone. I'm still really loving AMHD.

 

[Jake's Dad]

BlueOS, bless them, are well known as having been early and effective adopters of Amazon Music. Everyone else, not so much.

 

[scott wurcer]

My tastes are so scattered that none of the predictive services seem to work for me. I worry that I may have broken them.

I'm now up to four albums I wanted that Amazon HD didn't have. That's pretty good considering that I've pulled from at least a hundred times that many...

I'll bet I can pick 4 in a row.

 

[SIY]

I'll bet I can pick 4 in a row.

Likely. But I picked obscure Americana artists (Southpaw Jones, Lee Barber, John Statz, Brett Newski...), obscure indy rock guys (Shawn Jones, Kelly Doyle, Roky Erickson, Jack Mazzenga...), obscure jazz guys (Mickey Roker, George Cables...), and obscure w-t-f guys (Suitcase Junket), and they were all there.

Oddly, one of my favorite Sun Ra albums wasn't.