Amazon HD Music goes live

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by BubbaMc, Sep 17, 2019.

  1. uncle

    uncle Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass
    Ok, I see what you say. It does have a USB but I thought it was only used it for firmware updates. I have never seen a USB to USB cable so I guess my ignorance is shining through. I had no idea that was even possible, every cable i have is to plug something into the PC, not from the PC to another device. I usually play HD audio directly from downloads on a media player plugged in via line in or on my or my LG G7. This was my first attempt to stream HD.

    Thanks for the patience.
     
  2. mtrot

    mtrot Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tyler, TX
    Ah, okay. So, here's what you can do. Once you your laptop is synced over HDMI to your AVR, you have to "tell" your laptop that the AVR can do 24/192. So, in Windows 10 go to Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Sound. When you click on Sound, a box should pop up that should show an option for your receiver. Click on the entry for your receiver to highlight it, then click on Properties at the bottom of the box. You should then get a window, "Speakers properties". Then click on the "Advanced" tab. You should then see a drop down menu from which you can select a max resolution. If your AVR can do 24/192, then scroll down the list to 24/192 and select that option. Then click "apply". You will then get another dialog box asking, "Do you want to continue?" Click Yes. Then click on OK to exit all the remaining boxes. After this, Amazon Music should be able to play at up to 24/192 into your AVR.
     
  3. OpethPA

    OpethPA Embracing my inner geek

    Location:
    NJ

    That is the great thing about the site..People help!

    If you post the model number AVR you are using it will be easier for people to help give advice on how to connect the two.
     
    uncle likes this.
  4. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    I connect my Android phone directly into the RCA's of my vintage Sansui receiver, and am quite frankly shocked at how good it sounds. I can only get 24/48 from my phone, but hold out hope that Amazon will hook up with someone like UAPP to enable bit perfect streaming.

    I have abandoned Qobuz and will stay with Amazon HD due to the constant buffering I get with Qobuz that I don't get with Amazon, nugs.net, or the Dead Archives on my phone. It's a shame, because sonically Qobuz with UAPP is a home run.
     
  5. mtrot

    mtrot Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tyler, TX
    Actually, I don't think USB is going to work for you. I found out that with my Denon AVR and actually most AVRs, they will not accept streaming music over USB cable from a computer . The only way to play the Amazon HD Music to the AVR will be via HDMI.
     
  6. mtrot

    mtrot Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tyler, TX
    Yes, I tried that as well when I first got Amazon HD Music, but it was using a cheap 15 foot analog RCA cable from my laptop's 3.5 mm headphone output jack to my Denon AVR. It did sound pretty decent.

    But it does not compare to either the HDMI connection to the Denon, or to the USB connection to my DAC.
     
  7. Billy Infinity

    Billy Infinity Beloved aunt

    Location:
    US
    I did the 90-day trial and didn't keep it. In the end, it wasn't enough of a value for me nor "fully cooked" yet.

    Maybe some other time.
     
    Dan DRC likes this.
  8. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    For whatever reason, when I connect the phone to my external DAC and then the receiver, I get distortion with Amazon. I didn't get that with Qobuz / UAPP, and it sounded glorious. I've tried different cables to no avail.
     
  9. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    They're gonna start billing me in 7 days... I need to decide whether to pull the plug. For mobile this is a no-brainer - it doesn't sound any better than Spotify, which I already pay for (free Hulu!). At home it's kinda sorta useful, but it also kills my laptop and many of their masters sound like absolute crap - hearing them in HD doesn't make them sound any better. I'm not sure it's worth $130 a year to stream the occasional good-sounding master and put up with all of their bugs and bungled metadata. I feel like maybe I'd be better off giving Tidal a spin instead, if I wanted to blow a lot of cash.
     
  10. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    With as much as you’ve complained about Amazon HD(and I agree with you for doing that!) I’m surprised you bothered to stay with it this long. Try Deezer, Tidal and Qobuz instead. If none of them work start begging Apple and Spotify to up their services. Shame none of these companies can do everything completely right yet.
     
  11. scottabs

    scottabs Senior Member

    They have a promo going on right now where you can get 5 months for $5 (for new members only).
     
    sami likes this.
  12. allegro

    allegro Well-Known Member

    Location:
    USA
    Try both Tidal and Qobuz, keep the one with the catalog that matches your preferences. I have already cancelled Amazon Music HD, but would be willing to take another listen if they add exclusive mode and Audirvana and Roon support.
     
    ClassicalCD likes this.
  13. Robsonschoice

    Robsonschoice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ipswich UK
    £5 in the UK !! Worth having for 5 months
     
  14. SKBubba

    SKBubba Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tennessee
    I've had Tidal and Qobuz off and on for a year or so, and both along with Amazon since the Amazon HD free trial started. After giving all three a pretty good look over the past couple of months, today I canceled Qobuz and Tidal and extended the Amazon HD subscription. I'm actually surprised by the outcome.

    I mostly listen to my own local library. I evaluated how I use streaming. I use it mainly for two things: 1) listening to new releases to see if they are something I want to purchase and add to my local library, and 2) starting up genre/artist/mood related "radio" autoplay background music.

    Tidal does both well, but I don't want to support MQA and they are trying to force it on us. Qobuz does not have a radio/autoplay feature except through Roon, and that doesn't work for mobile and I'm just about done with Roon anyway for other reasons. Qobuz also doesn't have any personalized playlists.

    Amazon works well for both my main purposes, and their "station" feature works better than Tidal or Roon Radio in terms of relevance and more variety. Amazon also has lots of good playlists and personalization features.

    Qobuz sounds best. For Amazon, I get the best results (close to Qobuz) using a Firestick and its Amazon Music app. It says it plays eveything at 16/44.1 CD quality, but my AVR reports 48k. Regardless, it sounds about the same as Tidal CD quality or local flac playback.

    All three services have pros and cons. Hopefully Amazon will clean up the frankenalbum problems and provide bit-perfect playback on their desktop app and all their devices. Until then, it's good enough for my purposes and the price is right.
     
    Tim S, sami, mtrot and 1 other person like this.
  15. OpethPA

    OpethPA Embracing my inner geek

    Location:
    NJ
    I think this is where I am going to go.
    I was previously paying for Tidal HD which was $19.99/month.
    At this point though Amazon HD seems to have the library for what I listen to + cost advantage + decent source for my gear.

    Do I wish they had Exclusive Mode, 100% yes but the nature of iterative development is new features and bug fixes so Im willing to give them a chance. Hell they have added the ability to see what codec is being used so that's an enhancement.
     
    SKBubba, Tim S and timind like this.
  16. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    This is only for the standard service, not the HD.
     
    Billy Infinity likes this.
  17. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    Agreed that Qobuz sounds fantastic. Did you experience any buffering issues with Qobuz?
     
  18. marcb

    marcb Senior Member

    Location:
    DC area
    Can’t say I agree with much of this. IMO, the difference between common consumer audio and audiophile set-ups is as big as ever - or at least since the mass market penetration of the CD (about 30 years ago) made decent, repeatable audio playback available to pretty much anyone.
     
  19. SKBubba

    SKBubba Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tennessee
    Slow to start playing a few times but once it started it mostly worked ok. It would occasionally skip a track. This was usually playing thru Roon.
     
    sami likes this.
  20. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    I just find it strange that I've never had a single buffering issue with Amazon while constantly having them with Qobuz. Go figure.
     
    SKBubba likes this.
  21. TonyCzar

    TonyCzar Forum Resident

    Location:
    PhIladelphia, PA
    Right at the moment, Amazon's software does not let you direct output to a DAC or sound device in "exclusive mode". To hear the music Amazon's software client is streaming, you have to accept everything in the system's output stream, which may include dings, rings, sound effects, browser output, and system alerts.

    Theoretically this shouldn't be a problem if everything else (alerts, etc.) is silenced, but the decision to "mix" everything, including your Amazon music, and pump it out the output, can still result in lesser-quality audio. On older desktop systems, audio out often brought with it the noise made by the physical moving hardware (hard drives) or interruptions because too much traffic is on the bus. I don't think I've seen anyone complain about this latter phenomenon on phones.
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2019
    sami likes this.
  22. TonyCzar

    TonyCzar Forum Resident

    Location:
    PhIladelphia, PA
    I was four days away from my deadline, and killed it today. The final straw was that the Amazon Music app decided that my SD card was damaged and mounted read-only. I could no longer offline music to the SDCard instead of the built-in storage. Now, SD Cards going rogue and being mounted read-only is a thing that started happening with Android 5, and is not necessarily related to Amazon's software, but no other app or file manager on my Samsung S4 (including Tidal) had a problem writing to the SD card. Only Amazon. Life is too short.
     
    sunspot42 and ClassicalCD like this.
  23. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I'm tempted to pull the plug this weekend, but it looks like they've finally - after what, 3 months - fixed their ridiculous CPU utilization at idle issues.

    On the other hand, actually playing audio still devours half my CPU between multiple processes. Which is completely insane, since both streaming services like Spotify or Subsonic as well as local players like MediaMonkey can handle even high-res multichannel audio while barely registering any CPU utilization.
     
  24. Robsonschoice

    Robsonschoice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ipswich UK
    Looks like here you can change it to the HD site when signing up...
     
    sami likes this.
  25. SKBubba

    SKBubba Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tennessee

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