18-Sep-2019, 12:34
(18-Sep-2019, 03:30)The Sofa Has Ears Wrote: Amazon has launched a high res streaming service which could well set the cat among the rats with wings ( as Woody Allen might have said ). Amazon should provide heavy duty competition for existing providers such as Deezer, Tidal and Qobuz, given that the there is a free three month trial period followed by a monthly subscription of £14.99, or £12.99 for those with Amazon Prime membership. US rates are the same but in $. These rates undercut those the existing services charge.I signed up for a trial. Played it last evening on my 220 via AirPlay. Interestingly, when a song plays, you have the option to click "HD" or "Ultra HD" and find out: Track Quality, Device Capability and Currently streaming at. For example, on one song, which was listed as Ultra HD track, all the indicators were 24/96. On another occasion, I played an Ultra HD track and the first two indicators were 24/96 but the Currently streaming at indicator was "Standard." The last indicator seems to output randomly, which Amazon attributes to "varying network conditions." I would hate to pay for a service and not have it deliver consistent HD or Ultra HD. This will bear watching.
The launch has been quiet. No emails, but there seem to have been press releases.
The service is available in the UK, US and according to some of the audiophile websites also Germany and Japan.
MQA and Roon do not get a a mention, so presumably are not supported.
They say they have 50 million HD tracks, (CD quality) and millions at up to 24-bit/192kHz resolution in FLAC format that it’s calling “Ultra HD”.
No doubt many of you will have technical questions which I won't be able to answer. If so, you might care to try the Computer Audiophile site, which has the answers to some of your questions.
It is now 3.00 am in the UK, well past my bedtime, so I will give it a try tomorrow.
The Sofa Has Ears.
Devialet Expert 220 Pro Kinki EX-M7 power amp tethered to a fiber-fed Lumin X1 streamer via Grimm XLRs, Vivid B1 Decade speakers in Rosso Barchetta red (only 200 produced in a limited edition), Roon Nucleus with a Samsung 860 EVO 2TB SSD, etherREGEN switch fed by a Sonore opticalModule (and Sonore-supplied transceivers and 1M optical cable) with a SOtM dCBL-Cat7 cable to my Nucleus and a DH Labs Reunion Cat8 to my Lumin T2 streamer, Keces P8 linear power supply feeding a (to come) NUC and EtherREGEN switch with an external AfterDark OCXO clock., and opticalModule (5V/1A), AudioQuest Niagara 1000 power conditioner, ASI LiveLine loom (purchased directly from Franck Tchang when I lived in France), Less Loss Firewall for Speakers and Roon lifetime license with Tidal streaming.
