As noted above Heos under went an update this week and Amazon Music is ready for primetime (no pun). I copied this from part of the change log as it's the most critical change (1) Amazon Music playback now supports track search, library search, track access in My Music, and adding prime tracks to the queue. Of course when I saw this I scrambled for my tablet and via my Marantz Sacd 30n went to one of my playlist in my Libraries and there it was in all it's glory waiting to push play ! This takes care of my streaming needs 100% as this one two combo puts Heos (with Amazon HD) on top for me !
I don't know much about HEOS. Is it "gapless" via Amazon Music Unlimited? Does it support hi-res (i.e. > 16/44)? Thanks.
I wish Spotify would get their act together and make sure that Spotify Connect (which is what HEOS uses) supports gapless playback.
I don't think there's anything inherently special about it. Slightly larger library on Qobuz. I, personally, use Tidal because it was the first to be supported by Roon. It has the edge over both for content catalog also, but all three sites seem adequately stocked. A lot of it probably comes down to what services people have tried, liked, and just stuck with. Nobody wants to be re-adding music, rebuilding playlists, etc., so they probably just stick with what they have.
This is great news. My question is whether Amazon is still Frankensteining albums by mixing hi-res and cd quality tracks into a single album?
Sound Quality! I tried Tidal (with and without MQA), Deezer, Amazon HD and Qobuz won out by a distance. (Oh yes, also tried Spotify, ... best library but poorest sound.)
Unfortunately, I have encountered this, along with 16-44 tracks which have been mis-classified as "ultra hd" which means high-res in Amazon's nomenclature. That said, I really think that the HEOS software gets a worse wrap than it deserves. It actually works pretty well as a streaming solution on the whole in my experience. Plus, it's really cool being able to pipe almost any audio content (be it digital or analog) that I desire through the entire house digitally.
What is it that QoBuz is doing differently which might explain why their service is supposedly superior to other lossless streaming services?
This (1) alone is a significant improvement!! Before it was just a new search for anything and was horrible.
I’ve had occasion to use HEOS, Bluesound, and Sonos. Of the three, Sonos is the most user friendly, followed by Bluesound, with HEOS bringing up the rear. It’s built into my Marantz 2 channel receiver, which can handle 24/192, but only practical way of getting the full capability out of it was to stream Qobuz to it via MConnect (as an Apple user). The Amazon interface was a disaster until now and Tidal is limited to 16/44.1. The HEOS program was effectively forcing a very capable receiver to function with one hand tied behind its back. Hopefully this will be the start of better things.
Apart from hires, who knows exactly. It could even be part of the way in which they stream. There are a couple on threads on Qobuz here and those that have tried it seem too find out the best of the bunch. Well worth a read if you are genuinely interested in getting better quality streaming. Apart from the lower sound quality,v the massive gaps in catalogues and associated aberrations made Amazon HD a complete non-starterv for me, even though it was much cheaper.
Streaming at this point and for the foreseeable future still takes second place to hard disc , I'm an sacd fan from yester year and consider it and hi res well recorded music my reference point. I think Amazon HD sounds fantastic and has a great library and it will now get more use simply due to ease of use via Heos , the major benifit to me and another reason when doing my recent upgrades , I choose the Marantz 30n sacd due to it upsampling everything to dsd and with heos on board and no outboard dac necessary (though my original streaming plan was to use my Gustard A18 dac via usb from an Blue sound Node but that feature took far to long to come about if it even has! ) it seemed to be a solid choice and that bet has now paid off in spades as all Amazon music needed for me was an better interface to really showcase its HD platform which Heos now brings to the table.
If I didn't already own one of the finest DACs I've ever heard, as well as own a great streamer, I would have been tempted to purchase a Marantz 30n. Although I might have opted for a Ruby in combination with a Marantz NA6006 instead.
I have the Marantz Model 30n also. Yet to explore it's potential with SACD but CDs sound amazing. I updated Heos yesterday and the Amazon HD is way ahead of my Tidal. Happy days.
Quboz is a small outfit in France run by actual audiophiles. Their high res is genuinely high res. But they lack a Connect app which makes integrating into non-computer based systems a bit wonky. And things like airplay cannot stream high res. Tidal has sold its soul to the darkness that is MQA, a lossy format that they claim as high resolution. But their app is solid and the Connect feature makes integrating into non-computer based devices a snap. Amazon’s service seems rather half hearted, but inexpensive. And in the past they’ve mixed up CD and high res music. But they have put forth the effort in integrate seamlessly into non-computer based systems. Apple Music has not put forth that effort, and once again, AirPlay cannot stream high res. When you add all that up, Quboz are sort of the good guys in that particular stew, especially from an Audiophile perspective. They only reason I don’t use them is the lack of a Connect app, something that has been rumored to be in the works for a very long time, and will hopefully arrive soon.
To be fair to the HEOS developers, it was Amazon that was restricting access to the APIs. I’m guessing the HEOS folks finally gave in and paid what Amazon was asking. As an early adopter of the SACD 30n, I am thrilled it has finally happened.
Not got much by way of SACD (going for the one, straight shooter dual layer). A few 5.1 but guessing they won't play stereo on 30n
Perhaps Sound United’s new owners had the flexibility or, more likely, this upgrade is a smaller part of a larger deal involving their medical device technology.