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Amazon So Called HD Music
- Thread starter Obiden
- Start date
Vini darko
Major Contributor
Yeah it seems to be a limitation of android too. Its annoying from a I'm not getting what i paid for perspective. However I realised that it's kinda irrelevant as my hearing is done by around 17khz anyway on a good day. So extra bandwidth beyond 22khz is really a non-issue. It's a shame usb player pro hasnt got it covered yet. You can use it to force andriod to stream at full quality with qobuz and tidal. At least thats what it claims.
The limitations on the mobile side shouldn't detract from the excellent desktop experience I've had subjectively. Even if it's only CD quality on the mobile app, it's still way better than the 256/320kbps compressed files you typically get
TLDR-Amazon HD is useful upgrade over their free tier.
My experience with Amazon music was that some tracks on the free service (free if you’re an Amazon Prime member) were terrible quality. Not all, but a few were noticeably and unlistenably poor. I’ve conducted the blind tests comparing different streaming quality so I know that I should not be able to tell a difference—this tells me there was an actual problem. I found upgrading to Amazon HD solved this problem. I also did a one month comparison between Amazon HD and Qobuz and found no difference in quality.
If you’re only listening on your iPhone then you won’t be getting the most out of any streaming service’s top tier quality. You shouldn’t be able to hear a difference by upgrading to lossless or whatever anyway, but sometimes you can and that made it worthwhile to me.
My experience with Amazon music was that some tracks on the free service (free if you’re an Amazon Prime member) were terrible quality. Not all, but a few were noticeably and unlistenably poor. I’ve conducted the blind tests comparing different streaming quality so I know that I should not be able to tell a difference—this tells me there was an actual problem. I found upgrading to Amazon HD solved this problem. I also did a one month comparison between Amazon HD and Qobuz and found no difference in quality.
If you’re only listening on your iPhone then you won’t be getting the most out of any streaming service’s top tier quality. You shouldn’t be able to hear a difference by upgrading to lossless or whatever anyway, but sometimes you can and that made it worthwhile to me.
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USB audio player pro has indeed got you covered for Tidal (MQA up to 96khz) and Qobuz (might again be up to 96) and local files. DACs report those rates being sent. If your DAC has a Hi Res DAC chip it can also send those rates to that then out to 3.5mm socket.
The limits and forced conversion of IOS and Android native (as well as the volume limits) are a real PITA.
It's not exactly an Android limitation, it's an implementation issue. My LG phones will playback 24/96 using USB Audio Player Pro but unfortunately Amazon is not compatible at this juncture.No problem with Qobuz.
Well technically their so called HD is 16/44, so you are well above that.
But yeah their uhd music does seem to rather tricky to get at the highest levels.
Mind you if you think it's bad through phones try and work out how you'd stream it to home receiver or avr. Think they should admit this is pretty much beta stage.
Sirius XM is crap quality, less than FM.
- Thread Starter
- #13
The delayed reaction is caused by being under arrest at home.
48 is fine , don't worry about it.
My TAD DAC that I stream to via my phone says 96 when on the old Amazon HD . To my ears it's better than my CDs, mainly that's due to the EQ I can administer in the player .
- Thread Starter
- #16
You are an amazing person.
I'd been looking for a standalone streamer to do the job but yeah does look like a phone might be best option currently for reasonable price.
Tatteredmidnight
Active Member
I have no complaints about the quality of the stream, HD/UHD do seem slightly better than Spotify premium. Their app on the other hand is really poor. It’s bad enough that I may not continue my subscription after the free trial period is over. I did manage to get it working with my Klipsch PowerGate, but the setup was very convoluted, requiring Alexa, a third party Alexa add-in, and authorizing the steaming endpoint. Compared to Spotify connect, it is leagues behind, very disappointing.
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That's NOT what Paul says. If you buy a BS Audio power conditioner, let it burn in, then charge your phone using the outlet from the power conditioner your phone will stream 24/192 with ease.
For background music, I have been fine with Google music. I am unable to tell the difference with CD quality. I tried Amazon HD for a couple of months but got annoyed with the app's user interface so switched back to Google's paid service. Now Google is making me switch to youtube music and that app is total garbage. So frustrating dealing with these proprietary ecosystems. Maybe I should sell all my audio gear and listen to FM radio or just sing to myself 
LOL!
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