They were in trouble long before Amazon got in the hi res market and their markets were already miniscule. Amazon did this to try to get Spotify/Apple clients that wanted hi res/lossless but didn't want to spend twice as much for it. Their price point makes a lot more sense for most people when you consider the fact that most people can't tell a difference on their systems/earbuds. I don't think Amazon will get the audiophiles to sign on until they fix, at least, the upsampling issues.
As a Windows user, this isn't a high quality service either. I'd prefer Spotify in exclusive mode for the correct albums and better sound.
IMO the majority of audiophiles won't sign on until they offer Wasapi Exclusive mode in Windows and hog and integer in macOS for bit perfect playback at the native sample rate and bit depth. A lazy alternative would be not to fix the app but instead open their API to Roon and Audirvana for licensing fees. Their players would take care of the sample rate problem.
I agree. I would be happy with either approach. As it is, I will just go back to using Apple Music exclusively in December if they don't fix it. Not really a big deal.
Clearly. However he did engage with his silly rhetorical question. In doing so he should expect a response. Besides, @Ham Sandwich 's answer was perfect.
Lossy be damned - Between the exclusive mode issues of Amazon or the billing issues with Tidal, Spotify is starting to look like the best of the bunch. Interface, support, stability, you name it. I'm starting to think my musical world will be local FLAC files on my device + 320kbps streaming with Spotify.
I saw news blurb that Amazon deployed Amazon music to the Apple TV 4 and ATVHD. Anyone test it out to see if it delivery hi Rez? Or is ATV till doing that stupid 16/48 thing?
No, it's appropriate here. Before people commit too much effort to, say, building playlists in Amazon Music or go further and abandon other vendors or solutions - like Tidal, or Spotify (if they can live with the lower resolution compressed music), or streaming their own library using something like Subsonic - in favor of Amazon Music, they should be made aware of the service's many limitations and also how Amazon has behaved in the past whenever one of their janky products hasn't exactly lit the world on fire. No pun intended. Their past behavior in terms of supporting, fixing, enhancing and abandoning their products is probably the most relevant thing we can discuss about Amazon Music Unlimited. For me, it's driving how I see this service - as something to skip thru looking for full-res or high-res copies of random albums that I'm interested in previewing for the first time. It's useful for that. But I'm not investing ten seconds in building playlists or anything more involved beyond randomly sampling albums, because I fully expect them to dump this service within a couple of years based on past behavior. No, my point was that Amazon has a history of launching flop products that aren't too well thought out and then abandoning them and their users extremely quickly. You somehow tried to equate their crummy phone with Google+, which was a ridiculous comparison - Google+ certainly didn't light the world on fire, but Google didn't dump it like a steaming diaper either. They kept it going for the better part of a decade. This. Precisely this. Exactly. Worst case scenario is they kill off the other high res services, their own product flops due to its obvious limitations, they pull the plug on it and none of the existing players steps into the space and no new rivals can get the funding to start a new high res streaming service because Amazon cocked it all up.
From an article I read over at Digital Trends using the new Apple TV app does not get you CD or Hi-Res quality streaming. You only get standard Amazon Unlimited streaming at 256 Kbps.
Here is what I was responding to: "Hopefully their music app will ultimately get some attention to detail before they pull a Fire phone and exit the market" As I said, Google has abandoned more products than I can remember. Now your assertion is abandoning a failed product early rather than later is their main problem? In any event, the music service is completely unrelated to their phone, so making the comparison is more ridiculous than comparing Google's failures with Amazon's.
Amazon has many successful products and services. That is undeniable unless you are totally blind to the success of the Echo products, their store, their cloud service, etc. You short-sited assessment is like people constantly going back to Apple Music's matching debacle or their Ping service to describe Apple's performance as a company. "Exactly. Worst case scenario is they kill off the other high res services, their own product flops due to its obvious limitations, they pull the plug on it and none of the existing players steps into the space and no new rivals can get the funding to start a new high res streaming service because Amazon cocked it all up." Tidal and the other companies in this sector are always on the brink of going belly up. If it wasn't for Sprint's infusion of money, we probably wouldn't have Tidal today.
Abandoning it without even trying to fix it is a problem, and why I'd advise early adopters of Amazon Music Unlimited's HD offerings not to invest any time in the service. Yes, and they also have a long list of duds. With the litany of issues already noted in their Unlimited HD service, this sure smells like another of those duds. But we'll see how it shakes out. Yes, and Amazon's half-arsed product likely isn't helping matters. Then again, maybe they'll pull the plug on it before too much damage is done.
There is a reason that some of the largest companies have so many failures (I had a list of 50 of Google's failures earlier in this thread). In the case of Amazon, here is a quote from Bezos: "What really matters is, companies that don't continue to experiment, companies that don't embrace failure, they eventually get in a desperate position where the only thing they can do is a Hail Mary bet at the very end of their corporate existence," "If the size of your failures isn't growing, you're not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle," he wrote. "Amazon will be experimenting at the right scale for a company of our size if we occasionally have multibillion-dollar failures." All of the most successful tech companies have failures we can point at because they have to experiment and see what is worth following through on. Obviously it works because companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon have made failures that guys like you like to dwell on while the companies themselves are among the most successful companies on earth. I think the old adage is "nothing ventured, nothing gained" As for whether they improve this specific service...we will have to wait and see. However, the failure of the Fire Phone has zero to do with it. It will have more to do with how it fits into their other products and services and whether there is really a decent sized market for lossless to begin with. We don't really know because the price point right now (prior to Amazon HD) is twice as much as Spotify/Apple Music and for the vast majority of people it doesn't make any sense at that price. Whether it makes sense at any increase over the standard pricing remains to be seen. However, what we do know is that Tidal and Qobuz aren't exactly competing with Spotify, Apple Music, or even Amazon's basic music service at this point.
To hell w the "new" technology...im sticking to physical discs...CDs DVDA SACD Bluray audio...players No streaming No computer n NO freaking every month never ending forever internet bill!
Yeah, it's not like Jeff Bezos shows up and confiscates your CDs the minute you sign up for Amazon Unlimited. Get a grip, people.
Jeff is already making it more difficult for private sellers to sell used CDs on Amazon. He may not be physically confiscating any of my CDs. But he is making it more difficult for me to buy used CDs that sound better than his sub-par streaming service.
Many of the smaller sellers have left Amazon because of fees and tax issues and other issues. Eventually you'll discover you have problems buying used CDs on Amazon because fewer sellers are selling them and fewer used CDs are available.
I just compared the new Anne-Sophie Mutter John Williams on Amazon (Windows) versus Spotify (Spotify Connect direct to my Sonica DAC). At least on the Sonica DAC, Amazon wins hands down. I was hoping that would not be the case, as it is much more convenient to use the ipad to control my DAC. It is very difficult to keep Spotify, especially after hearing the new Tone Poet remasters on Amazon (e.g., Gil Evans New bottle, Old Wine).
