Fire TV Stck

[Yorkshire Mouth]

If I have an Amazon Fire TV Stick, and use and Amazon Basics HDMI Audio Extractor, fed into a good DAC, is there any reason to believe the sound wouldn’t be as good as PC or WiiM Streamer into the same DAC?

Cheers.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Do you plug the stick straight into the audio extractor, or go via a TV? If you are going via a TV, the sound is almost certainly very suboptimal.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Do you plug the stick straight into the audio extractor, or go via a TV? If you are going via a TV, the sound is almost certainly very suboptimal.

I don’t do anything yet, I haven’t bought the extractor.

No, it’ll be used as intended. HDMI out from the stick into the extractor. HDMI out from the extractor into the TV. Digital out from the extractor into the DAC.

I’m not worried about the extractor side of things it clearly works well.

I’m more concerned/asking about the standard of bits from the Stick. Same as the bits from a PC or a streamer? Any reason it wouldn’t be?

 

[gwing]

Any reason why it might not be as good as a PC/Wiim streamer? Well, you are presumably running some unspecified streaming app on the fire stick which might or might not be restricting bitrate, then sending the signal into your TV which probably isn't optimised for audio and outputting it on HDMI to a cheap audio extractor which didn't when I had a quick look even publish its spdif output specifications.

Now all of those might be absolutely perfect of course, so quite possibly you might get just as good results, or not

 

[jcarys]

As long as you stick to Amazon Music, the Fire stick should be able to output any Ultra HD resolution. Amazon restricts that level to their own devices. I can't find any detail specs on the extractor, but I would expect it will support full bandwidth on both digital outputs. Coax will give you better performance up to 192/24, although limited to stereo. I would see if you can find someone on Reddit or elsewhere that has actually used this chain to confirm it. So moving to a PC or Wiim would give you theoretically higher specs, but nothing you could hear. It would also potentially open up more apps to higher levels. Considering the cost, I would try the stick/extractor combo and see how it goes.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Any reason why it might not be as good as a PC/Wiim streamer? Well, you are presumably running some unspecified streaming app on the fire stick which might or might not be restricting bitrate, then sending the signal into your TV which probably isn't optimised for audio and outputting it on HDMI to a cheap audio extractor which didn't when I had a quick look even publish its spdif output specifications.

Now all of those might be absolutely perfect of course, so quite possibly you might get just as good results, or not

You don’t appear to have read my post fully, as I’ve already said it won’t be going through my TV.

As for the standards of the extractor, I’m sorry I thought everyone was aware of this:

Amazon Basics 4K HDMI Extractor Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Amazon Basics 4K HDMI extractor. Member kindly purchased and drop shipped it to me. It normally costs $22.89 but was on sale for just $5!!! The case is the standard metal one for these kinds of adapters. Power is provided with a supplied USB-A...

audiosciencereview.com

The app will be Amazon Music Unlimited, which can be set to full HD (up to 192/24).

 

[Jimbob54]

You don’t appear to have read my post fully, as I’ve already said it won’t be going through my TV.

As for the standards of the extractor, I’m sorry I thought everyone was aware of this:

Amazon Basics 4K HDMI Extractor Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Amazon Basics 4K HDMI extractor. Member kindly purchased and drop shipped it to me. It normally costs $22.89 but was on sale for just $5!!! The case is the standard metal one for these kinds of adapters. Power is provided with a supplied USB-A...

audiosciencereview.com

The app will be Amazon Music Unlimited, which can be set to full HD (up to 192/24).

Suppose my only concern would be if the fire stick insists on resampling everything to some arbitrary rate before passing to the extractor. Then you're at the mercy of how good or bad that process is. How audible "bad" woukd have to be is a different discussion.

Does your dac display the current sample rate? If so, and if it seems the stick is resampling I would return the stick and extractor and go down the Wiim mini route

 

[gwing]

You don’t appear to have read my post fully, as I’ve already said it won’t be going through my TV.

As for the standards of the extractor, I’m sorry I thought everyone was aware of this:

Amazon Basics 4K HDMI Extractor Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Amazon Basics 4K HDMI extractor. Member kindly purchased and drop shipped it to me. It normally costs $22.89 but was on sale for just $5!!! The case is the standard metal one for these kinds of adapters. Power is provided with a supplied USB-A...

audiosciencereview.com

The app will be Amazon Music Unlimited, which can be set to full HD (up to 192/24).

Just a X in post rather than not reading your post. That further information from you came after I started writing my reply to your earlier post.

 

[Brian Hall]

As long as you stick to Amazon Music, the Fire stick should be able to output any Ultra HD resolution. Amazon restricts that level to their own devices.

Not quite true. Amazon plays their Ultra HD level music on the Wiim Pro Plus and the Eversolo DMP-A6.

Amazon devices are needed for their Atmos music so far.

 

[JSmith]

Hopefully no HDCP issues there...


JSmith

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Suppose my only concern would be if the fire stick insists on resampling everything to some arbitrary rate before passing to the extractor. Then you're at the mercy of how good or bad that process is. How audible "bad" woukd have to be is a different discussion.

Does your dac display the current sample rate? If so, and if it seems the stick is resampling I would return the stick and extractor and go down the Wiim mini route

I believe it resembles everything anyway, on the app on your phone, on PC, etc.

That was certainly the case when I last checked, though to be fair that’s at least a year or two ago.

However, as I recall, I believe it’s good at resampling.

Happy to be corrected on any or all of the above.

 

[Jimbob54]

I believe it resembles everything anyway, on the app on your phone, on PC, etc.

That was certainly the case when I last checked, though to be fair that’s at least a year or two ago.

It does indeed - but not on the Wiim. That said , you should be able to do everything you can do on the wiim with the Fire stick- having the ability to get Alexa to play a full shuffle of all your music is a great boon to me and the reason I have stuck with Amazon Music. Let us know how you find the set up when you get it going.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

 

[Jimbob54]

View attachment 359454

Confused now as you already have a Wiim- will the Fire stick replace it or for a different location?

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

That’s the current system, it’s a bit in between/in limbo at the moment.

The WiiM Mini is a great streamer, but interface-wise I prefer Amazon direct. I’m looking to get the Ultra when it arrives, but that’s more for 10-band PEQ, room correction, sub out, bass management.

I’ll be getting new PC, new monitor, replacing those speakers.

Fire TV Stick into the new monitor, having gone through the audio extractor - digital out from the extractor to the Ultra.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Confused now as you already have a Wiim- will the Fire stick replace it or for a different location?

Ah, the Mini will go to my son.

Just to complicate matters, I’ll also be getting a Pro, which will go into the Topping you can see there (EX5 DAC and headphone amp) purely for headphone duties.

I could use the Ultra for that too, but I suspect it’d be a massive faff turning room correction on for the speakers, off for the headphones, different PEQ for the speakers and each headphone. This way, it’s one setting in the Ultra, and just toggle between different PEQs for different ‘phones on the Pro.

All-in-all it’s only another £150, which isn’t a fortune when you look at total system cost.

 

[jcarys]

Not quite true. Amazon plays their Ultra HD level music on the Wiim Pro Plus and the Eversolo DMP-A6.

Amazon devices are needed for their Atmos music so far.

Thanks for the info - it's good that they're opening up more. The observation on Ultra was my result the last time I auditioned Amazon, but now we have newer devices. The switching back and forth from 2 channel to Atmos did bug me too. Finally Tidal allows me just to play whatever the source is through the Shield and I've given up looking at alternatives.

 

[Eleo]

I have thought of a different use of the Fire Stick, but I don 't know if it is feasible Currently, I use a mini PC to listen to Amazon music and apply eq. This is a bit unpractical as I have to control the pc from a tablet via Team Viewer. What if I connect a docking station with hdmi input to the pc? In this case, I could use the Fire Stick to stream Amazon Music to the PC and control the streaming from Amazon App on the phone The PC would do only eq. Could it work? Are there any issues I have not considered?

 

[Brantome]

That’s the current system, it’s a bit in between/in limbo at the moment.

The WiiM Mini is a great streamer, but interface-wise I prefer Amazon direct. I’m looking to get the Ultra when it arrives, but that’s more for 10-band PEQ, room correction, sub out, bass management.

I’ll be getting new PC, new monitor, replacing those speakers.

Fire TV Stick into the new monitor, having gone through the audio extractor - digital out from the extractor to the Ultra.

Hope that makes sense.

If you prefer “Amazon direct”, I’m sure you’re aware you can cast bit perfect from the Amazon Music app to any WiiM device?

The issue with the Amazon Music app playing natively on any platform (i.e. not casting to a WiiM) is that it upsamples all tracks to the max resolution of the device it’s connected to. Before I got my WiiM devices, I used a 2nd gen fire tv cube fed directly into my Linn MDSM/4 amp over HDMI, with the video then going to my tv, and everything on Amazon Music played at 24/192 (despite what the fire tv told me it was playing at). Compared to a Heos Link HS2 which I fed over coax into the same amp, I found the fire tv sound somewhat thin and lifeless, which I can only put down to the resampling.

If you have a few hours to use up, there’s a long thread on Reddit on achieving bit perfect Amazon Music - basically, avoid Amazon’s own apps unless you’re casting to a WiiM…

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonMusic/comments/xnr2h9

 

[Brantome]

Not quite true. Amazon plays their Ultra HD level music on the Wiim Pro Plus and the Eversolo DMP-A6.

Amazon devices are needed for their Atmos music so far.

Amazon Music Unlimited is playable at resolutions up to 24/192 on a wide range of devices, not just all WiiM models and Eversolo. Denon/Heos/Marantz, Bluesound and Yamaha I believe are amongst the better known.