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best audio streamer for amazon music HD

Dingo

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That seems like the kind of thing I'd need to try out to see if it works for us. Very interesting.

Have you used an Echo Link?
The Song Bird is simply great for the money and all the reviews were glowing. I had considered the Link but the total package just looked second hand. Sure, the voice control would have been nice but only if I knew exactly what I was looking for. The bird's controller app holds all of my searches, favorites etc so voice wasn't a big feature in the end. Andover has committed to offering UHD for the bird quite soon if they have not already implemented it as I got an update the moment I installed the hardware but hard to confirm as they do not show the resolution of the music being played. They do that for Tidal if I'm not mistaken as they use the native app, not the Link Play software but could easily implement that in an update. They may also unleash the digital outputs to go a full 24/96 given they can alter firmware with updates. I would not count on Amazon to make changes to the Link that would improve the experience and that was another strike against them. The other is crappy source switching and it's almost impossible use with network attached storage. If the bird has one fault it would be lack of USB input which is of no concern to me. PS- the bluetooth isn't bad at all.
 
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Helicopter

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Yeh. If you want UHD you need something like a PC or a TV. If I were doing it over, and I may, I would just get a Fire TV with the smallest display possible and work it into the hifi somehow. You can set that up for voice control too. The Amazon Music app for Fire TV is a better interface for music than a Show anyway. I have a couple systems like this, but unfortunately not the listening room. What I want to avoid is the listening room becoming a place where people watch video programs. We already have spaces for that.
 

Bamyasi

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Also note, AMHD app on the FireStick now supports gapless playback (finally!). FireStick's 4K regular price is only $25 on Amazon at the moment, if you happen to have Prime subscription. Regular price is $50 but good deals are frequent.
 

sofrep811

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I’m in the market right now as well. The Songbird is my choice as well. They’re just having typical supply train issues.
 

MrDogg

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I have a Chromecast audio from ebay and an echo link in route. I don't know if I will be able to hear a diff but we will see! Hoping not because then I can use the link with my echo show and have a display.
 

thefsb

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It's arriving today. Vendor is in state. I might send it to Amir for testing if we can figure out the features to test and how.

Is there a user community for it out there somewhere? Or should we try to organize such a thing here?
 

thefsb

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The Andover Audio Songbird will be returned. The software is catastrophically buggy.

That's a pity because the hardware is great and the control app ought to meet our needs perfectly. But

1. It's not just incapable of gap-less playback. The gaps are so long that I end up saying out loud, "What the fudge, it's quit, why?" Then I go to pick up my phone and then it starts the next track. It's intolerable. The gap between we were listening to this version of JCS and the hap between Trial and Superstar was 5 to 10 seconds. I can accept non-gap-less playback if the gap is a fraction of a second but this, no.

Now imagine we were listing to this version of Stimmung. An hour long meditative piece divided into about 50 tracks.

The gaps are so long that you couldn't use the device to keep even a low-key party going.

2. It changes playlist chaoticly. As we were listing to that JCS, after Superstar it switched to playing from the Grace Jones Compass Point album, which we had listened to an hour or so before. WTF? I didn't touch my phone.

3. Wrong metadata on the now playing display. While it plays from Amazon Music, it displays cover art and metadata (artist, album, song title) from something else.

4. I can't find any way to play from my MinimServer except by using a different app. That works but then I can't compose a playlist or search across services. And the Songbird Control app gets confused when I do.
 
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Dingo

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The Andover Audio Songbird will be returned. The software is catastrophically buggy.

That's a pity because the hardware is great and the control app ought to meet our needs perfectly. But

1. It's not just incapable of gap-less playback. The gaps are so long that I end up saying out loud, "What the fudge, it's quit, why?" Then I go to pick up my phone and then it starts the next track. It's intolerable. The gap between we were listening to this version of JCS and the hap between Trial and Superstar was 5 to 10 seconds. I can accept non-gap-less playback if the gap is a fraction of a second but this, no.

Now imagine we were listing to this version of Stimmung. An hour long meditative piece divided into about 50 tracks.

The gaps are so long that you couldn't use the device to keep even a low-key party going.

2. It changes playlist chaoticly. As we were listing to that JCS, after Superstar it switched to playing from the Grace Jones Compass Point album, which we had listened to an hour or so before. WTF? I didn't touch my phone.

3. Wrong metadata on the now playing display. While it plays from Amazon Music, it displays cover art and metadata (artist, album, song title) from something else.

4. I can't find any way to play from my MinimServer except by using a different app. That works but then I can't compose a playlist or search across services. And the Songbird Control app gets confused when I do.
Well, that's not the impression I expected but all cases are different. You may have a point on gapless playback but many people aren't too bothered with that fact. If you time the gaps between songs in normal album playback, you will find it's no longer than four seconds in my case. Maybe it takes a tiny bit of extra time to search through billions of ones and zeroes on the internet to bring the music to your speakers. As for your number 2 and 3 points, I have never, in many hours of use, encountered your issues. As for number 4, I don't use a server myself but the cheap audio man had nothing but praise for its performance with Synology. If I remember, you also had issues with the Bluesound software known to be some of the smartest programming out there. I won't argue with your input but others should be aware that given the experiences of others, and all reviewers, those problems probably should not be expected. Hopefully with continuing software updates, those issues should be minimized over time. I'm curious to know what your impression was of the sound quality.
 

thefsb

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Well, that's not the impression I expected but all cases are different. You may have a point on gapless playback but many people aren't too bothered with that fact. If you time the gaps between songs in normal album playback, you will find it's no longer than four seconds in my case. Maybe it takes a tiny bit of extra time to search through billions of ones and zeroes on the internet to bring the music to your speakers. As for your number 2 and 3 points, I have never, in many hours of use, encountered your issues. As for number 4, I don't use a server myself but the cheap audio man had nothing but praise for its performance with Synology. If I remember, you also had issues with the Bluesound software known to be some of the smartest programming out there. I won't argue with your input but others should be aware that given the experiences of others, and all reviewers, those problems probably should not be expected. Hopefully with continuing software updates, those issues should be minimized over time. I'm curious to know what your impression was of the sound quality.

SQ was fine, afaict. But that doesn't mean much since I failed the listening test of the difference between 128 MP3, 320 and lossless. I'd use Spotify if its music selection were any good.

I could make a little video to demonstrate these weird behaviors.

There's no reason for the renderer to wait for the end of playout of one file before starting a search for the next one. My Raspberry Pi with upmpdcli can manage continuous play, or something close enough to not bother me, with DLNA, Tidal, Qobuz. Last year I wrote a JavaScript that can play back archived radio segmented into 5-minute chunks in the cloud with a gap you can hardly hear. It runs in web browsers, a dismal runtime environment, not custom hardware. 45 radio stations are using it. Perfectly gapless playback may be hard, depending, but I see no reasons for several seconds gap.

BlueOS worked as intended but changing between services or inputs involves too much forwards and backwards paging. There's no need for that kind of navigation, as other apps including Songbird's demonstrate. If switching to the optical input to play a DVD is so laborious that my wife refuses to do it, something's wrong. She's a very capable person. The star ratings and reviews for the app in both Play Store and Apple App Store corresponded with our impression. Pity, because otherwise the system worked. If you don't need to change between services or inputs, the app might be just fine.
 
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Jazz

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An HDMI audio extractor from HDMI on a Cube v2 will give you Hi-Res via Toslink or coax (if you get one with coax).
 

Bamyasi

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SQ was fine, afaict. But that doesn't mean much since I failed the listening test of the difference between 128 MP3, 320 and lossless. I'd use Spotify if its music selection were any good.

I could make a little video to demonstrate these weird behaviors.

There's no reason for the renderer to wait for the end of playout of one file before starting a search for the next one. My Raspberry Pi with upmpdcli can manage continuous play, or something close enough to not bother me, with DLNA, Tidal, Qobuz. Last year I wrote a JavaScript that can play back archived radio segmented into 5-minute chunks in the cloud with a gap you can hardly hear. It runs in web browsers, a dismal runtime environment, not custom hardware. 45 radio stations are using it. Perfectly gapless playback may be hard, depending, but I see no reasons for several seconds gap.

BlueOS worked as intended but changing between services or inputs involves too much forwards and backwards paging. There's no need for that kind of navigation, as other apps including Songbird's demonstrate. If switching to the optical input to play a DVD is so laborious that my wife refuses to do it, something's wrong. She's a very capable person. The star ratings and reviews for the app in both Play Store and Apple App Store corresponded with our impression. Pity, because otherwise the system worked. If you don't need to change between services or inputs, the app might be just fine.
Gapless playback has been introduced with the latest AMHD app update on my Fire TV Stick 4K. No more pauses between tracks, although I suspect it is not a true gapless but more like a clever crossfade, since it works even for random selection of tracks from different albums (e.g. in playlists). But it sounds much better than before.
 

Mgrey

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i posted this to another thread which may be defunct - my apologies for multiple postings.
I’m a new member/poster trying to figure out why Am/HD sounds bad on my setup. i’m using a Firestick 4k attached to the Amazon Basics audio extractor (which seems to be a rebadged Kanex - same exact size, layout, ports and functions) feeding a Topping D50s And from there to my preamp/amp. The DAC registers 192khz. Both the optical and the coax sound harsh and overly bright and sibilant. Might the problem be the exractor or the cables (optical sounded fine when used with an Airport, coax is new Kabledirekt). By way of comparison, Qobuz streamed via DLNA to a Mac mini - USB - Topping sounds great. Any thoughts/help appreciated.
 

Bamyasi

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i posted this to another thread which may be defunct - my apologies for multiple postings.
I’m a new member/poster trying to figure out why Am/HD sounds bad on my setup. i’m using a Firestick 4k attached to the Amazon Basics audio extractor (which seems to be a rebadged Kanex - same exact size, layout, ports and functions) feeding a Topping D50s And from there to my preamp/amp. The DAC registers 192khz. Both the optical and the coax sound harsh and overly bright and sibilant. Might the problem be the exractor or the cables (optical sounded fine when used with an Airport, coax is new Kabledirekt). By way of comparison, Qobuz streamed via DLNA to a Mac mini - USB - Topping sounds great. Any thoughts/help appreciated.
What it shows under "Display capabilities" in your AMHD app on the FireStick during playback? It should be 24-bit / 192 kHz, otherwise the audio will be downsampled. Also check it is not actually streaming in SD (Opus). I found it tend to randomly fall back to Opus and get stuck at it recently. Whether this is AWS servers capacity issue or another app bug is not clear but to fix just rewind track a few seconds back by holding rewind button on remote for 1-2 seconds.
 

Mgrey

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Thanks, Barnyasi, for the suggestion. i checked and playback is at 24/192 FLAC. Still harsh, overly bright and sibilant.
 

Bamyasi

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Gapless playback has been introduced with the latest AMHD app update on my Fire TV Stick 4K. No more pauses between tracks, although I suspect it is not a true gapless but more like a clever crossfade, since it works even for random selection of tracks from different albums (e.g. in playlists). But it sounds much better than before.
Another breakthrough from Amazon software team arrived today! Latest FireStick app update brought us release date and total playback time display on the album's main screen! Amazing, it only took them one year to figure this out. I wonder how long it will take until we are able to actually sort albums by their release date?
 
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