Good way to stream Amazon Music HD to DAC

[Bamyasi]

So I just got a reply from Amazon. They stated:

While the Amazon Music app does support UHD quality music streams, the Fire TV Cube itself only supports up to 48khz.

You're welcome to look over the Developer page here for supported audio formats.

So the Fire TV is still the limiting factor. It seems hoping to get 24/192 on a Fire TV Cube because the Amazon Music App can do it was a false expectation. Checking the specs Amazon provided, this seems to be true for all Amazon Fire TVs (Stick, Cube etc.) at this point in time.

So I am really wondering how e.g. arglebargle above got 24/192 out of a Fire Stick (even with the audio stripper involved), when the FLAC and OPUS formats used by Amazon Music HD are limited on the Fire TV sticks to 48khz as per the spec page. Actually no format listed there is supported with 192khz.

The answer is simple, Amazon documentation you have linked is outdated and plain incorrect (which is also true for 90% of the documentation found on their website, BTW). For the Fire Cube specifically, it depends on generation: Gen 2 seems to support HD/UHD but Gen 1 does not. You can find (a slightly outdated) list of tested Fire TV devices here. There was also a thread posted on AFTVNews forum some time ago with more useful details. Note, you will need to adjust the settings both for your Fire Cube and inside Amazon HD app on the device to enable Amazon Ultra HD support.

Edit: Amazon has just started rolling out next Fire OS updates for all its Fire TV devices. It looks like Fire TV Ciube 1st Gen should receive Fire OS version 6.2.8.0 update as part of this rollout (details here). This is the same OS version Fire Sticks are using, so TV Cube Gen 1 may actually receive HD/UHD capabilities with it. I do not have one, so cannot test it myself.

 

[Shawk]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to link those two sources. Unfortunately, as I have been down this rabbit hole for quite some time now, I know both of them.
Both, to me, do not confirm any 24/192 capabilities of the cube, or any Fire TV stick.

I have a 2nd Gen Cube, set to stereo (as mentioned in the thread you linked). My current DAC says 48khz, and the HDFury says 48khz.
One of the comments in your mentioned thread states that their LINN receiver (quite a pricey bit of HW as well) always shows 192, even when the song itself is 96 only.
My takeaway is: For any combination of hardware out there, the actual result is hard to verify. Might be that my DAC is simply crazy.

But also: I have yet to read any official confirmation from Amazon that their Fire TV implementation is capable of 24/192.
Will wait for the new UI Update which might bring new settings to the cube, and will then test again. But I am not getting my hopes up just yet.

Who knows: At the end I think we might all be chasing almost indistinguishable sound differences, and we simply chose to believe that it sounds better when our displays show the magic number ;-)

 

[Bamyasi]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to link those two sources. Unfortunately, as I have been down this rabbit hole for quite some time now, I know both of them.
Both, to me, do not confirm any 24/192 capabilities of the cube, or any Fire TV stick.

I have a 2nd Gen Cube, set to stereo (as mentioned in the thread you linked). My current DAC says 48khz, and the HDFury says 48khz.
One of the comments in your mentioned thread states that their LINN receiver (quite a pricey bit of HW as well) always shows 192, even when the song itself is 96 only.
My takeaway is: For any combination of hardware out there, the actual result is hard to verify. Might be that my DAC is simply crazy.

But also: I have yet to read any official confirmation from Amazon that their Fire TV implementation is capable of 24/192.
Will wait for the new UI Update which might bring new settings to the cube, and will then test again. But I am not getting my hopes up just yet.

Who knows: At the end I think we might all be chasing almost indistinguishable sound differences, and we simply chose to believe that it sounds better when our displays show the magic number ;-)

There was a promotional email from Amazon sent to AMHD subscribers some time ago announcing official 24/192 support in latest Fire OS versions coming to the Cube and Sticks. I have posted a copy of this email on the forum but cannot find that post now. There were others here confirming it does work with the Firestick in their systems, so it is definitely supported. But the support can be a bit flaky it seems.

 

[RDoc]

There's been a lot of discussion about this. Apparently, for most systems 192/16 is the best it will do. Even when enabled in the settings, 24 bit output is not supported.

 

[rickler]

I read through this thread, and am feeling pretty thick! I use a windows box hooked up to a DAC. Is it possible to use the Amazon Music Ultra HD app to stream via USB to my DAC, and control the app remotely for lossless high res streaming? Basically, using it like I'd use roon? If not; is there a way to accomplish this without using something like RDP?

 

[Ulrich]

I resume this thread just for a silly question: does Fire stick work ONLY if linked to a tv? Isn't it possible to cast to it directly from Amazon app on a cell?

 

[Bamyasi]

I resume this thread just for a silly question: does Fire stick work ONLY if linked to a tv?

You can connect it to HDMI extractor only and it will work. But then you won't be able to control it, see below.

Isn't it possible to cast to it directly from Amazon app on a cell?

I don't think so. I have never seen any of my FireSticks listed under the casting devices tab in my AMHD app (on Android phone or on FireOS tablet), although others reported that they did. Anyways, Alexa casting protocol (used for casting on all Amazon devices) does not support HD/UltraHD streaming at all, so you will be casting in SD (lossy) quality.

 

[Ulrich]

I understand Amazon wants to push away customers. Thank you very much for your answer

 

[Gaboz]

The Amazon Echo Studio has a mini toslink output. It should be the better option to listen to Amazon music with a DAC.

 

[Ulrich]

The Amazon Echo Studio has a mini toslink output. It should be the better option to listen to Amazon music with a DAC.[/QUO Will look for it, thanks

 

[jlm70]

As soon as I receive (hopefully, ordered 9 weeks ago… and just today I understood I could wait END OF JULY!) my new Anthem AVM70 sound processor, I’ll try to verify if my FireTv 4k stick can output via hdmi the hi-res formats from AMHD app (direct and casting) and via Synology android Music app (that sources my hd music files from my NAS)… if I can play any hi-res file I’ve on my NAS, such as the 5.1 DSF (SACD) formats…

 

[DanaGer]

I bought an inexpensive I5 fanless PC with USB into my DAC to use as a dedicated music server. For about the same price as a Amazon link I can run Amazon HD and Foobar using Windows Remote PC software. I think it sounds better than both the Raspberry PI digi one hat (which doesn't support Amazon) or the Chromecast Audio using Toslink. I can't just tell it to play music but I do yell at it occasionally.

 

[Rick Sykora]

To help others on this topic, linking to this thread…

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...“-feed”-a-dac-for-amazon-hd.23622/post-790758

 

[Alcophone]

Nice thread. I got curious because I have an HDMI Switch with TOSLINK out that preserves the ingoing sample rate, though it is still limited to the audio rates supported by the target device. I'll share my experience.

Setup: Fire TV Stick 4K > Avedio Links HDMI Switch > Vizio OLED55-H1 ("TV") or Elecro SF101* ("monitor")
Versions: Fire OS 6.2.8.1, Amazon Music 3.4.22.0

I connected the TV (via the HDMI switch, but that shouldn't matter) or the monitor (directly) to my laptop, Windows reports as supported:
TV: 16 and 24 bit, 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz.
Monitor: 16 and 24 bit, 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 kHz.

On the Fire TV Stick 4K everything is set to auto update (system and apps), so I didn't have to install any updates. I did have to enable 24 bit support in the Amazon Music app, though.

First off, I cannot set the Fire TV Stick 4K to "Stereo". In the Settings under "Surround Sound", my options are Best Available / PCM / Dolby Digital Plus / Dolby Digital. I already had it set to PCM ("uncompressed stereo or multichannel audio").

With the TV as the final device in the chain, the device capabilities in the Amazon Music app were shown as 24/48. Setting the Fire TV Stick 4K to "Best Available" changed the device capabilities to 24/192, but the HDMI Switch (with setting "Source Copy") passed on a signal my DAC could not decode (likely some kind of Dolby container that the TV can understand). Setting the switch to "2.0" produced at 24/48 signal to my DAC even though Amazon Music was playing a 24/192 file.

With the little monitor as the final device in the chain (thanks for the suggestion), the Fire TV Stick 4K in PCM setting and the HDMI switch in Source Copy setting, Amazon music showed the device capability as 24/192. And my DAC received a signal!
However, as others reported, everything is sent as 24/192, regardless of the source material. So this is probably about as good as using the desktop app with a DAC, setting it to 24/192 and letting it rip.
The Bluesound Node 2i instead sends each song at the native sample rate, which is really what I want. But I would also like to see what song is playing, the cover art, lyrics, etc, which the Node 2i does not support. Guess I can't have everything!

I'm getting a regular pop sound, but my power setup is currently wonky while I'm testing various things, so it's quite possibly that.

So in summary, the "device capabilities" seen by the Amazon Music app will typically depend on the last device in the chain. Whether that format gets passed on as is by the HDMI Audio extractor depends on the model used.
In my case, the TV supports 24/48 max, and so that's the highest that Amazon Music allowed. The little monitor supports 24/192 max, and so Amazon Music allowed that.
What we would need is a way to override supported audio sample rates (EDID change) so that the Fire TV Stick is fooled into thinking 24/192 is supported. The device doing the EDID trickery could either not pass on any audio at all or downsample it to something the target device supports. It would actually be cool if the Fire TV stick itself could be forced to send a certain sample rate, for people who know they have an HDMI audio extractor in the chain anyway and don't mind the TV not getting a signal that it understands, though I don't know how TVs typically respond when HDMI negotation seems to have failed in such a manner.

And a setting in the Amazon Music app to switch the output sample rate based on the content played. Pleeeease.

* The Elecro monitor is crap. Initially I was pleased because the built-in speakers are good enough for YouTube etc. when I don't feel like wearing proper headphones. However, less than a year in it already has severe burn in.

 

[David Harper]

I too cut my cable and got a firestick and so far I've been able to stream lossless quality sound from every source I've tried. I've got the firestick plugged into the TV but it occures to me I could plug it into an HDMI input on my Yammy AVR. That might offer more sound options. With the firestick I'm finally able to get the Radio Paradise Flac stream for the first time by going to the internet app on the firestick and typing in the URL for the flac stream. Until now I've only been able to listen to the MP3 stream. I've got the TV audio going into the AVR via the digital/optical connection which only carries 2 channel stereo but that's all I want. Never cared for surround.

 

[Alcophone]

I too cut my cable and got a firestick and so far I've been able to stream lossless quality sound from every source I've tried. I've got the firestick plugged into the TV but it occures to me I could plug it into an HDMI input on my Yammy AVR. That might offer more sound options. With the firestick I'm finally able to get the Radio Paradise Flac stream for the first time by going to the internet app on the firestick and typing in the URL for the flac stream. Until now I've only been able to listen to the MP3 stream. I've got the TV audio going into the AVR via the digital/optical connection which only carries 2 channel stereo but that's all I want. Never cared for surround.

My old Samsung TV and my current Vizio convert everything to 48 kHz before sending it to the TOSLINK out, so plugging the Fire TV Stick into the receiver is likely better indeed.
From memory, my Yamaha RX-V377 supports 44.1, 48, 96 and 192 kHz, but not 88.2 or 176.4 kHz, so Amazon's "just resample everything to 192 kHz" approach makes things easier in that regard.
I'm curious whether newer / higher tier Yamaha receivers have more complete support, though it wouldn't matter for Amazon Music.

 

[BN1]

Wow, is this ever complicated (esp so to an old timer) ?! I have a 5.1.2 HT with a Yamaha RX-A660 avr and distributed audio via Yam WXA-50 amps (using MusicCast). System works fine for us using MC/Spotify (free) for background music. I'd like to get away from the ads (on Spotify & Pandora) and am interested in CD quality audio (have done the testing on hi-res and can't detect any improvement over CD). For my needs, Amazon HD offers the best value with Spotify Hi-Fi at unknown price/date but, on my avr, MusicCast doesn't support AM HD and, I guess, questionable on SHF. Other devices as sources include Roku Ultra (2020) and Sony BD X700. I suppose that I could add a Amaz Echo Link but any other ideas ? Thanks

 

[JimmyBuckets]

I use an old Chromecast Audio via optical out to optical in on the DAC. Most don't realize the Chromecast Audio 1/8" Jack is a dual output analog and optical out. Streams to 24/96.

 

[RoyB]

Go easy on yourself and get the best quality sound for the money...Andover Songbird for $150 is amazing and so easy to use. Excellent sound quality. Found a few extra $$ and want a little bit better sound, Bluesound Node2i (discontinued and selling for under $400 in some places ) or the new version the Node for I believe $600.....You need to spend in the thousands to get 10% better sound quality. Not sure our old ears could hear the difference....,

 

[Taddpole]

Go easy on yourself and get the best quality sound for the money...Andover Songbird

That doesn't get a good review here.