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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.
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.
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(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.
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. 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.
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.
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The default streaming quality is Best Available which “automatically optimises for varying network conditions”
The Amazon music app has a setting to force streaming quality to HD/Ultra HD. However, the proviso is that you have “high quality network conditions strongly recommended”.
Off topic, but dare I say that this service could be a useful simple tool to determine a networks’ quality, robustness etc. 
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Isn’t airplay limited to 16 bit / 44.1 khz? So the Ultra HD tracks from amazon will be downsampled? I guess you have to make use of Air for being able to play the UHD files
Devialet 220 pro expert; Focal 1028 Be; Rega RP6; Ortofon Quintet Black
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(18-Sep-2019, 13:35)Out of Gum Wrote: Isn’t airplay limited to 16 bit / 44.1 khz? So the Ultra HD tracks from amazon will be downsampled? I guess you have to make use of Air for being able to play the UHD files
Amazon quote the following
- Apple Airplay: can support HD (AirPlay) or Ultra HD (AirPlay 2), depending on the device capability
- Chromecast: can only support Standard quality
- Alexa enabled: the streaming quality settings on that device are respected
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18-Sep-2019, 15:49
(This post was last modified: 18-Sep-2019, 16:05 by Gerronwithit.)
Well, it’s not very happy with competition. I am playing it through my current generation iPad with 128 gb of memory using Airplay. Do anything other than play music, like type a comment on the Devialet site, and it soon stops playing. The music, when working, sounds fine.
I changed over to my iPhone and it was hopeless. As soon as there is contention on WiFi it stops playing. I had only the music on the iPhone and was using my iPad. Traffic from the iPad killed the music.
Devialet 1000 Pro CI, Chord Signature Reference speaker cables, B&W 803 D3 speakers
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Annoying that the Amazon app has no means to play Hi Res on an iPad. Airplay on iPad works fine for me without interference. However, from my iMac, Devialet Air sounds wonderful playing Amazon Hi Res. Actually—hope this is not novelty excitement—l like the sound better than from my usual source, Aurender N10 into Devialet AES/EBU.
Aurender N10 > Devialet 250 Expert Pro > Audio Physic Avantera
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Well, it’s not very happy with competition. I am playing it through my current generation iPad with 128 gb of memory using Airplay. Do anything other than play music, like type a comment on the Devialet site, and it soon stops playing. The music, when working, sounds fine.
Devialet 1000 Pro CI, Chord Signature Reference speaker cables, B&W 803 D3 speakers
Roon lifetime licence, Tidal.
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I'm quite curious about it and it's certainly set at a nice pricepoint. But, I'm a very happy Roon user. Unless Amazon and Roon surprise us, I doubt we'll see it integrated in Roon. If the only way I can stream it to my Expert Pro is by reinstalling the Devialet AIR driver, then that is a clear never-gonna-happen. Still, I'm interested to see how this service evolves compared to Tidal & Qobuz. Certainly Amazon has the resources to make a big splash.
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I am trying Amzon HD. I can not use my normal source (Innuos ZenithIi) so I tried to use Air and Airplay with my laptop and I can see what tracks are Ultra HD but they only play 16/44.1 on my D250 pro. Thus compared to Qobuz not too exiting sound quality wise. I am worried that AmazonHD will kill Qobuz - so less joy in music!
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