An interesting question. I often hear a difference when 44.1 is force upsampled, whether to 96 kHz or 192 kHz. The music starts to sounds blurry. When I flip back to 44.1 kHz, suddenly there is more clarity. Not all combinations of automatic uprezzing create this issue. I've had some luck setting an E30 to 192 kHz and taking whatever is offered. Sometimes with Amazon Music though even 192 kHz lacks clarity (I believe it's when it's 44.1 kHz being upsampled as it doesn't round well to 192 kHz).
vs Spotify
Like
@raindance, I'm a very satisfied Spotify user (did spend three miserable months trying to like Apple Music, my partner who shares whatever music service we are using basically stopped listening to music for two months, she hated Apple Music that much). But like
@valerianf pointed out, when Amazon HD has the right track at the right sampling rate, matched in the DAC, the quality is better than anything else I've ever heard streamed. Far better than Tidal/WIMP (my first service), far better than Spotify. Not all of the masters of course are good. Neil Young's very high resolution masters (192 kHz 24-bit on Amazon HD) for some reason are completely awful, worse than Spotify. Fleetwood Mac sounds great. So does Rush (these artists are not my normal daily listen but are showcased in one place on the Ultra HD Rock playlist, less prominent artists only usually show up in CD quality, which also sounds good, say Silence by Jourdane).
I'm struggling with
@Bamyasi's point – that Amazon doesn't care about audiophiles and won't bother fixing their apps to maintain sampling rate in the DAC. If Amazon doesn't care about audiophiles why would they launch an HD music service? Second, even if audiophiles make up a tiny minority among the subscribers to Amazon Music HD, audiophiles are usually the reviewers for music products. Hence by failing to keep up with Qobuz (Swinsian, Audirvana are players not streaming services, although Audirvana has some kind of compatibility with Qobuz and perhaps Tidal), Amazon is setting itself up for many very negative reviews of Amazon Music HD for many years.
I.e. Amazon fixes the sampling rate issue or Amazon Music HD will struggle against a stream of negative publicity. Hopefully there's someone at Amazon Music HD who actually cares about music and quality sound reproduction. It can't all be MBA's jockeying for corporate position. And even in that case, one of those ought be intelligent enough to try to understand their market and take the steps necessary effectively compete.
HD Music Streaming Market
Qobuz is a bit pricey. Primephonic gives me some joy as it's both high-resolution and a great environment in which to enjoy classical music (well-catalogued, attractive white minimalist layout – loathe the all black all the time grungy spotify look however well it works) and can be enjoyed for a first year at least very inexpensively. Primephonic does switch sampling rates on iOS (just tested, switched from 96 kHz to 44.1 kHz when moving from an HD Rites of Spring to a CD quality Four Seasons). With the automated sampling rate change test passed successfully at least on iOS, I've just jumped in with both feet actually as the first year cost ended up at just €50 in my case. Here's the
link to the discounted first year for those classical music lovers here.
When I feel like investing €100 in Audirvana and another €150 to €250 in Qobuz (that's €350 to travel first class almost every year, Audirvana requires regular paid upgrades as well, it's on v3.5) maybe I'll leap. My price point for HD is not really more than another €8/$10/month on top of the €9 month I spend with Spotify already. Amazon Music HD has a chance if the sampling rate is fixed and a public API is added. My price would work out to €10 for me and €13 for a family plan. Qobuz family plan is €500/year! That's three times more than the €156 Amazon Music HD would cost. Even the individual plan (with the right to discounted purchases) is 5 x more expensive than the Primephonic offer for which I've just signed up.
Speaking of which, I don't understand why Qobuz charges a higher yearly subscription to allow listeners to buy HQ album downloads at a discount. I would probably have signed up for Qobuz already if the basic membership included discounted purchases of albums. That would make Qobuz more money and the artists more money, as I do like to buy music but not at inflated rates. Basically purchasers of music are being shut out now, in favour of streaming. CD's are too much trouble. Downloads are generally overpriced or not CD quality, although I do still buy sometimes on Bandcamp where there are some very fair offers on independent artists.
Streaming revenue AND sales is what would revitalise the income of mid-tier musicians. The top tier are doing fine and the lower tiers will always struggle (but would at least have occasional windfalls if more music was sold rather than streamed).
