Amazon launches lossless high-res music service!

[March Audio]

I love this quote:

“Earth will be changed forever when Amazon introduces high quality streaming to the masses,” said rock icon Neil Young. “This will be the biggest thing to happen in music since the introduction of digital audio 40 years ago.”

You'd think Neil Young would pull his head in after that PONO fiasco...

So, Amazon has defined HD (high definition) as "Amazon Music HD offers customers more than 50 million lossless HD songs, with a bit depth of 16 bits and a sample rate of 44.1kHz (CD quality)." Glad we cleared that up. CD was always high definition it seems.

Pono had me lost for words. Pointless and wrong in every possible way.

The only possible application was portable, so they made it Toblerone shaped and impossible and probably painful to put in your pocket. Moronic.

 

[GrimSurfer]

Pono had me lost for words. Pointless and wrong in every possible way.

The only possible application was portable, so they made it Toblerone shaped and impossible and probably painful to put in your pocket. Moronic.

It was probably painful to "keister" too. So no enjoying the Pono experience in the slammer either.

 

[day7a1]

The "My Music" button lists the tracks users select/save from the Amazon Music Library. No purchase necessary.

To be clear, I'm not saying that it's just a front for sales, I don't believe that at all. (Though they do have a store where it looks awfully easy to accidentally purchase). I DO believe that the system is half-toe into the streaming concept and that it's trying to have streaming and HDD based libraries on the same system but that they're not doing it well.

It needs a lot of streamlining.


I added deadmau5 to a playlist and then added the artist to my library. It added every song and album to "My Music". Now, if I want to remove it, I have to go through at least 100 albums and delete each one manually. It's a mess. I'm 15 minutes into it and I want to clear it all already.


Screw this, I deleted the albums and now my playlist is empty. WTF!

 

[Daverz]

Hello Daverz,

I noticed your reference to the BMOP [Boston Modern Orchestra Project] label. Is contemporary "classical" music (or "the music formerly known as classical") one of your special interests? I have played as a violinist in some of BMOP's concerts and recordings. Wonder if small labels like these will also strike a deal with Amazon Music.

Is there a list of participating labels somewhere?

Yes, I'm a somewhat timid explorer of contemporary music, but I love BMOP. Just played this Steven Stucky CD from the Amazon app:

https://music.amazon.com/albums/B01M361N2K?ref=dm_sh_a117-291e-f063-f3de-a6bb4

I particular like the Stucky song cycle American Muse, though it certainly doesn't hurt to have Sanford Sylvan singing them. I've loved his voice since I first heard Nixon in China.

 

[GrimSurfer]

LOL @day7a1

 

[day7a1]

LOL @day7a1

I'm glad my frustration amuses you....



Imma go back to Tidal and wait until they clear this mess up. It's about as bad as Prime video. At least there's a genre listing here.

 

[Daverz]

Does the player support selecting an output device?

Not on Mac. I have to select the airplay device from the main audio output. I made a point of disallowing sound playback by default from Chrome since I'm often surfing on this laptop while listening to music, and I don't want to risk some site blasting sound thru my speakers.

 

[GrimSurfer]

I'm glad my frustration amuses you....



Imma go back to Tidal and wait until they clear this mess up. It's about as bad as Prime video. At least there's a genre listing here.

I have the same frustrations myself, @day7a1, so I can totally relate.

 

[Sal1950]

The TOSLINK limit is 24/96.

That's gear dependant, I can do 24/192 over Toslink if I keep the optical cable at or under 3 feet.

 

[Sal1950]

I'm not sure I trust Amazon to install a app on a Windoz box.

 

[day7a1]

I have the same frustrations myself, @day7a1, so I can totally relate.

I don't know if you noticed, but you can block select albums to remove, but if you have even a song in one playlist the full metadata shows up across "My Music" and if you delete the album that song was on you delete the song in your playlist.

What a load of steaming bullcrap. This is not ready for prime time...excuse the pun.[/QUOTE]

 

[day7a1]

I'm not sure I trust Amazon to install a app on a Windoz box.

Fixed that for you...

 

[GrimSurfer]

That's gear dependant, I can do 24/192 over Toslink if I keep the optical cable at or under 3 feet.

Excellent! I've heard that a good Toslink cable over a short distance can operate over the advertised TOSLINK speed limit. Don't use Toslink myself though...

 

[restorer-john]

It was probably painful to "keister" too. So no enjoying the Pono experience in the slammer either.

You just had to go there didn't you?

 

[suttondesign]

That's gear dependant, I can do 24/192 over Toslink if I keep the optical cable at or under 3 feet.

seriously? i had no idea this was true!

 

[restorer-john]

That's gear dependant, I can do 24/192 over Toslink if I keep the optical cable at or under 3 feet.

Where do you get the third foot?

Attached to your third leg? Tripod they called you.

 

[Sal1950]

seriously? i had no idea this was true!

Yea, it can and does work with the right hardware. The optical transmitter on my Gigabyte motherboard and receiver on the Emotiva DC-1 have no problems with a short cable.

Where do you get the third foot?

I could tell you but then your girlfriend would be leaving for the States. ROTF-----

 

[Sal1950]

So, Amazon has defined HD (high definition) as "Amazon Music HD offers customers more than 50 million lossless HD songs, with a bit depth of 16 bits and a sample rate of 44.1kHz (CD quality)." Glad we cleared that up. CD was always high definition it seems.

The announcement got Mark Waldrep all stirred up over definitions again. LOL
Makes me laugh but I do agree with him. Just about everyone that's gotten involved over the last decade or so with better than Redbook data rates has been prostituting the idea and definitions to advance themselves. Honest ones like Mark got ground up in the mix-master.
https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6645

 

[majingotan]

For those who tried, is there WASAPI or ASIO output?

 

[audimus]

I get a feeling that this launch was rushed before it was ready for business reasons. Probably got wind of something being launched by a competitor in the next month or two.

The end to end usage has not been through at all. I suspect the catalog of UHD is still fairly empty and all the HD content is not online yet (hence not making obvious by tagging while browsing). It is still probably in the pipeline to get filled hence the free 90 days, so people won’t complain too much.

Not sure the DRM protection has been thought through yet for UHD as the big labels would want so early availability might be limited to less finicky labels or indies.

“We will figure out what your device can play” is a way to not serve HD content they don’t have. Limited integration with some common end point software or lack of their own specialized clients implies that this was not planned much ahead of time.

For other streaming services, the good news is that this is not going to affect their subscription numbers and growth as it stands. The bad news is Amazon will spend huge amounts of money to market this before they give up like so many other ill-executed ideas.