Here's exchange I had with Denon Support about the HS2: Agent>I did Want to confirm the HEOS Link HS2 supports 24/192 on any digital output optical or coaxial output Agent> as long as the content is in that format, you would just need to verify since Amazon Music Ultra HD will not always be in 24/192 it typically is 24/96 or 24/48 Me>so the HEOS Link HS2 will just pass through whatever it gets? Agent> up to 24/192 Awaiting to hear back from Yamaha. Ideally I'd like to see an Echo Show 5 with an optical out passing through 24/192...but probably be a while.
Assume I don't know anything about a Denon Heos, because I don't, and I don't care to look because I don't plan to buy one or be familiar about every product on the market. How does the Heos receive the music stream, a network connection or USB?
While I think we have the same end goal in mind, we differ on what it takes to get there. I also have CDs and HiRes PCM and DSD saved on a NAS and stream it at home. It's nice to grab the wireless keyboard 0r a phone and pick out an album. My DAC uses a wired Cat6a connection to the network, not USB. JRiver steers it from the couch. Thinking about simplifying it more by switching to Roon. It is simple to use and doesn't require any extra hardware. Qobuz can play through it too without any extra hardware. I bet Tidal can too, as long as I skip the MQA hardware problems (even though my DAC can decode MQA). Spotify plays on my system but I think it has to go through the USB. I don't remember because I rarely use it. However, it doesn't need any extra hardware. Amazon doesn't stream through my system without extra hardware. Adding the hardware would complicate things. I don't want to complicate things or spend the money to make it work because it seems like stepping backwards. One of these things is not like the others. Backwards doesn't sound like easier but I get what you are saying, I like to kick back, unwind, have a drink, and listen, without much fuss. It just seems like we have a different definition of what is easier. I do not agree that CD is high definition. Sorry.
Using Alexa for music is addictively easy, super fast...and if this HD service delivers, probably will kill off my CD collection.
It's very easy to add WASAPI exclusive mode to a Windows application. It's the same API and model as shared mode. The developers don't have to learn anything new to implement exclusive mode. They don't have to do any low level coding. They just have to implement some APIs that are just like what they did for shared mode audio. Microsoft has already done all of the low level coding and difficult stuff to make WASAPI exclusive mode work. Adding exclusive mode to a Windows application already doing shared mode is *easy*. If Amazon wanted their Windows application to support exclusive mode they could have done it very easily. Amazon has experienced software developers. They know how to do it. The fact that they haven't means that the either don't plan to or don't want to. Android is different. There isn't an API on Android to do exclusive mode. If and app on Android wants to do exclusive mode audio they need to code it themselves and do some low level coding that is not trivial or easy. I give Amazon a pass on not implementing exclusive mode on the Android app. I give them no such pass for failing to do exclusive mode on the Windows application.
I just popped in to check on the app after a week and it's still routinely using anywhere between 8% and 25%(!!!) of my core i5 when playing UltraHD. Last night, I caught the app IDLING at 9%...That's absolute madness. They really need to make this thing more efficient.
I am playing using either a Fire tablet, an iPhone 6 ( both out their own headphone outs) and with the iPhone 6 connected via lightning-to-usb to my Marantz HD-DAC1, and I have to say (subjectively) that is the order from best to worst in sound quality with Senn 598 headphones. I would think you would expect the reverse. First, the app only recognizes the Marantz as "capable" to 44.1 KHZ. That is wrong. The Fire tablet and the iPhone recognize themselves as 24 bit/48 khz capable, but the mighty Marantz as only 24 bit/44.1 KHZ. What I can't stand, and will be a deal breaker for me if not corrected, is the resolution shifting. I will download an album in Ultra HD but when I play it back some tracks will be HD. Or while streaming in UltraHD a track dropped to HD and then to standard resolution. The OCD in me will keep looking at the resolution window all the time because I don't trust the resolution shifting. This should not be so hard. Played some UltraHD tracks from Chicago Transit Authority because I had just listened to the SACD (smooth and well balanced) for comparison and found lots of clipping in the Amazon stream. I know it is not a fair comparison (SACD vs streaming/download, it wasn't close) but that tells me we are not there yet as a substitute for Hi-rez.
It certainly wouldn't hurt for folks to send a message about this to Amazon via the app. It's easy to do and only takes a minute. If enough people let them know that they are not going to subscribe because of this issue - it could make a difference. I mentioned that Tidal and other services offer an exclusive mode, so why not Amazon? Worth a shot.
Same here. Yesterday, I used the "Tell us how we're doing" feature in the app and told them how frustrated I was about the streaming quality continually dropping to Standard. The other problem is that after I listen via the app on my laptop for a while, the app begins to use up to 20% of CPU and up to 80% of GPU. This causes the internal fan to run fast and make a lot of noise.
If you have a firewall you can see the Amazon Music software constantly calling back home all throughout the day. Neither Tidal nor Qobuz does this. Amazon likes to keep users under surveillance. I uninstalled it from my machine.
What quality does the Amazon Music app for Xbox One play at? I can play UltraHD playlist bit really have no idea what quality is streaming. Sounds good enough though.
What information do you think they are getting from you? I use a VPN and have no problem using their music service. Amazon won't let me stream movies using a VPN though, but I expect that has more to do with regional restrictions.
I have no idea what information Amazon is harvesting from users, but I don't like it at all. Like other technology giants they impudently violate users' privacy. Others have reported unwarranted CPU activity even while idle and my firewall used to log dozens of connection attempts throughout the day by the Amazon Music software even though the program wasn't open. Tidal and Qobuz never do this. I have no use for Amazon Music since I already subscribe to Tidal and Qobuz which are vastly superior and continue to buy plenty of CDs. I am curious however to see how Amazon impacts the market (negatively, it seems so far).
Here's my CPU usage once the song was buffered completely on an 192/24 track (Green Day’s American Idiot).
Just curious how you were able to post that screenshot here? I've been trying for about 30 minutes without success to post my CPU usage, which is much higher than yours.
Okay, here is the usage on my laptop pc. Sometimes the GPU usage goes up to 80%. Untitled by MDTshots, on Flickr
Huh, weird. It might be because Amazon (maybe) only uses a single core and your CPU might not be boosting up in frequency with turbo boost. While using Amazon Music, what is the clock speed under performance in the task manager?
