I usually agree with most of your posts on here my friend,but to complain about 20$ a month to feed your mega buck system with music suggests that perhaps someone peed in your cornflakes this morning??
I subscribed to Amazon HD for a while and liked the sound. But I couldn't stand the "Frankensteined" albums. Has that gotten better?
Nope, those are awful. I still keep it though, it is cheap and has many complete HDtracks albums that aren't Frankensteined. I switch to Tidal when I find a Frankensteined album. Between Tidal (MQA on many albums) and Amazon (many Frankensteined) you can achieve one proper streaming service.
They keep one copy of a given song. Every compilation or normal album it appears on plays the same version.
How can one determine it's the same version? Bit depth and sample rate? And does this just happen sometimes or for all albums? I gotta say that I have never noticed this before.
Just sometimes. It's obvious. Different depths and sample rates. It only affects some albums. For example, I think the Taste albums have this problem. The albums will be "HD" quality, except for the tracks that are on the greatest hits or something which then are "ULTRA HD" and have a different volume level and mastering. Totally brutal and embarrassing for Amazon. Tidal does NOT have this problem, but they do have MQA.
The Cream box set The Goodbye Tour has this problem in Amazon Music, the tracks that are repeated from Live Vol. 2 are used and not the newly remixed and remastered versions which would play if you were playing the CD. I think there are 2 songs on the first concert where it jumps to the muddier old versions from Live Vol 2. America's live album The Grand Cayman Concert (excellent) has 2 or 3 songs where Amazon subs in the studio versions. One of the versions of Frampton Comes Alive! has the all important last song replaced by a Warren Haynes live cover version. How can these things happen?
I cancelled my subscription. Finally had enough of the app crashing on my phone. Now I'm tasked with finding a streaming service with a family plan with support for devices that use Alexa. Is Tidal decent? I see I can get a hifi family plan for a year on Best Buy for $120. I'm not gonna bother with higher quality because I'd rather just buy the albums at that point.
You know, it's not audiophile, but I just realized I can use voice command on a new Fire TV and it instantly rolls into Amazon Music and starts playing. I can maximize the SQ by using a DAC with the TV. You know, it really sounds pretty decent, even if just running out the analog outputs into my preamp. And SO easy! I am actually pretty amazed how many things are so cool with the Fire TV OS built into the TV. No phones/tablets/PC/bluetooth needed. Nice big 55" display. Now I am wondering if I can plug my hard drive full of 1 TB of music into the USB and find a Fire TV app to navigate it?
Spotify unfortunately doesn't have a annual plan which ends up being cheaper. They only have per month. Tidal's website claims it works on devices with Alexa.
You can also look into Deezer as it is CD quality and doesn't use the garbage MQA that Tidal sadly offers.
No, it’s even available in the free tier. Anything with the M logo in Tidal is the lossy encoded MQA file version. The subscription tier just allows for decoding MQA in it’s higher rate (it’s still a lossy format though). Either way MQA is pointless these days.
I, hereby, submit to the power of the Bezos ....Goodbye (in advance) Tidal/Qobuz/etc. I am sorry that your days are numbered.
Well, crap. Deezer doesn't have an annual family plan either, just annual for individual account. I was hoping to save a little bit of money from doing annual. Sigh.
Doesn't have support for Alexa. Trust me, if I was looking for a solo subscription, I definitely would. I might just have to do Spotify. I just wish they'd do annual family plan. Most I use streaming for is listening to music while washing dishes, or if I'm away from home.
Heos devices are capable of integrating seamlessly with Alexa, if you choose to use that particular feature. And they support both Tidal, Amazon HD and spotify, among some other services.