Is it still impossible to stream Amazon HD/UHD from a mac or IOS device to a USB DAC without altering the bitstream? I have read this entire thread and am experiencing the same problem mentioned throughout. Setup is: Amazon HD app on iPhone -> USB Camera Adapter -> USB DAC. Problem: DAC always shows 24/192 stream regardless of the resolution of the track on Amazon HD. This means the iPhone is upsampling (or resampling) all digital audio prior to output. This of course requires math and digital filters, which can alter the stream. Is there any way to send the bit exact audio stream from the Amazon HD app directly to a USB DAC without alteration at present? Thank you.
Situation is still the same - no true bit perfect streaming without a HEOS or BluOS device. Amazon might eventually fix this. I went ahead and bought a Node 2i cause it solved this problem and a few others in my system. I run it hard wired and controlled by PC desktop BluOS app. So that's my successful setup, and it works well and sounds very good. Though the BluOS app really stinks.
Thanks. I have the Node 2i now, and while it works well I really don't like the app so I think it is going back. I'd rather just plug in my iPhone and use the Amazon HD app.
My understanding so far is that the Amazon music app is currently not able to write its digital output directly to the iPhone (or Macbook) serial port, but instead writes to some sort of output device driver consisting of a buffer and resampling architecture. The device driver negotiates a transfer rate with the external DAC at the highest bitrate the DAC is capable of, and converts all buffered bitstreams to this rate. This may include up sampling or down sampling as necessary. Also, even if the input stream and the output stream are the same rate (and bit depth) there is very likely not a pass-through option as that would require special treatment for certain streams making the driver more complicated to design. I suspect that all the people setting their macbook midi rates to match the streaming rate are not getting an unadultrated bitstream, jut matching rates. Still researching...
I don't understand some of the details you point out, but I think everything you have said here is correct. Any further reserarch is appreciated - though I do think you have nailed the basic issue here.
New to the forum, had to join to post a thank you! - I suspected this, and stumbled across this thread, thank you! It is a deal breaker, I have unsubscribed from A-HD I tried this, but found that 16/11 tracks were unplayable when I set my shared output settings to 24/96! W10 wasn't upsampling anything, but when set to 16/44 it would play the Ultra tracks no problem. It's all moot, as I switched back to Tidal as soon as I read this thread and experimented a bit. When I had a bunch of separates, I used J River specifically to set it up as close to bit perfect as possible, so have experienced the unpleasantness of the W kernel mixer. I'm running two systems nowadays, PC and headphone DAC amp, and a Sonos 5 stereo + sub set up, so I'm not so worried about hi-res (I could never hear the difference if I was really honest unless the tracks had been properly remastered), but exclusive mode is rather important.
The Amazon app has a toggle for exclusive mode in the settings, but when selected it doesn't appear to work on my device anyway; as i can play a you tube video in chrome whilst A-HD is streaming. When I try the same with Tidal, also set up in exclusive mode, then I get the expected audio renderer failure when trying to play the youtube video, so Tidal is doing what is should do. Any idea why the Amazon app exclusive control feature simply doesn't??
Proof of 24bit/192kHz from Amazon Music HD. Maybe. I have no way of verifying the veracity of the reported bit & sampling rate. However, I can hear a difference, even though my Denon was next to the bottom of its line for that year & the amplifier section is where the most cost cutting was performed. While looking into the JRiver WASAPI driver, I found that my ASUS ZenBook would let me set it to to 24 bit/192Khz, so I did to see what would happen. I then used the HDMI out of the laptop & into the front panel HDMI AUX on my DENON S720W. It messed up the colors on my Sony XBR75X900F, but it worked! Below is the Eagles Life in the Fast Lane (2013 Remaster). Now my Win 10 laptop may be lying, but I can certainly hear a difference when playing this same track on my 2018 edition of a Firestick 4k. Also, it would appear that the bit-depth matters more (as far as sound quality goes) than sampling rate. Since I had the ASUS ZenBook connected to the HDMI AUX on the front of my Denon S720W it passed through the video to my Sony XBR75X900F. Below is what it did to the screen when I set the laptop to 24bit/192kHz. Needles to say, now when I connect the laptop (the WDF is strong with this one, as there is a 10- foot HDMI cable running across the floor ) I now run “headless”.
I'm bumping this to see if anybody has been able to use successfully the Amazon Fire Stick and an HDMI audio extractor running into a separate DAC or AVR to get 24/192 resolution? My Denon amp only allows 16/192 with the Firestick plugged directly into the AVR. Others have reported similar problems with Denon amps.
I thought I'd share my setup to help those wanting hi res digital out from Amazon music hd. My journey: Chromecast audio was not hi res, songbird was 16/44 but can only play through their own app which has Amazon music, but it's very poor. Playlists don't play the song you touch , buggy, terrible interface. Usable but pita. Enter firestick 4k with "cable matters 4k 60hz audio extractor". It played every data rate available with a couple of caveats. With the hdmi extractor switch set to 5.1, everything is output at 192khz regardless of what resolution the firestick says it's playing in. (cant see bit depth do don't know if 16 or 24). With switch in the other two positions (2ch or tv) everything is output 48khz. Only one of my toslink cables would make sound at 192. But it was stuttering constantly with clicks. I ordered a glass one from Amazon. Wouldn't play at all. Finally tried blue jeans cable toslink 3ft and it plays perfectly! This is to minidsp 2x4hd. (I use different dac to check khz). So I can now play 192 from firestick app (need tv to navigate app, or can just voice control it, which works pretty well. (Don't forget to enable uhd within the Amazon music app on the firestick). When I cast from Amazon music app on my phone however,, everything played at 48khz. Then I unchecked "hands free with alexa" in the Amazon music phone app and everything switched to 192 kHz BUT nothing will play out of the speakers. Very weird. So I keep that enabled, cast at 48, but mostly use the voice control to play playlists or stations. Then I can add songs to Playlist on my phone. One caveat there, if you add a song to a Playlist that's already playing on the firestick, you need to exit the Playlist in order for the new song to show up. So I make an empty Playlist called que and then can add songs someone requests. Not perfect, but doable. BTW, I was surprised how much longer I enjoyed listening when stepping up from low res on chromecast audio to the higher res. Hard to notice immediately, but over time the music is so much more at ease and non fatiguing. No idea yet if going from 16/44 to 192 will make any difference, but I doubt it.
Update, I switched tvs. Now when I cast to the firestick from my phone it outputs 192, which the TV plays fine, but none of my 3 dacs can play. 2 give static, 1 gives silence. The amazon music app on the firestick itself plays perfectly at 192. I had assumed it would read the hdmi audio extractor to get max rate, but apparently it reads max input ability of TV. My guess is that the old TV was max 16/192 which the dacs could read via toslink, and the new TV is 24/192 which the dacs are apparently struggling to receive via toslink. That's just a guess though. I can see sample rate on dac, but not bit rate. Why it wouldn't reclock amazon music app on the firestick itself is beyond me. Be aware that your mileage may vary and the firestick is not a straightforward streaming solution. I also noticed that while amazon music app plays, no other apps do, they give the static poor link sound too, while playing perfectly on the TV itself.
I wanted to share my solution for hi-res Amazon Music HD (& Ultra HD) I purchased the latest Amazon Fire Tablet 8 Plus along with the wireless charger/stand made for this device (that frees up the USB C port and keeps the tablet constantly charged). I also purchased the Douk Audio XMOS XU208 USB Converter ($50 on Amazon). This amazing little device converts the USB audio out to high-quality toslink or SPDIF that can be plugged into any DAC with those inputs or your AV receiver. It also makes a discernable improvement in the sound quality. Best of all, the Douk Audio USB Converter is recognized by the Amazon Music app on my Fire Tablet 8 Plus as a 24/192 DAC and plays Hi-Res Amazon Music files at their native resolution. Oddly, the Amazon Music app my pure Android tablet does not recognize external DACS and downsamples Ultra HD files. It seems that Amazon has made their latest Fire tablets able stream straight to external DACs for HD and Ultra HD streaming. This has been a seamless solution for me that sounds great and operates without any glitches.
This could be a game changer for many of us. The Firestick has proved itself to be incapable of working with most AVRs to transmit bit perfect audio. So the question with this setup is: does the Fire Tablet 8 + Douk Audio XMOS XU208 USB Converter do bit perfect audio as far as you can tell?
You can control the Fire Tablet from another Android device only if you are streaming Tidal and Qobuz. I have not found a way to do it with Amazon Music. For Tidal and Qobuz I have found that the MConnect app offers the most elegant solution. MConnect unfolds Tidal MQA (to 24/96 Flac) and streams both Hi-Res Qobuz and Tidal MQA to any Android (and Fire Tablet) that has BubbleUPnP running. Also, if you have the UPNP Renderer feature in the USB Audio Player Pro app running it will stream wirelessly to that (giving you the ability to use the superior USA Audio Player Pro external DAC driver to bypass the internal Android DAC) - but again only with Tidal and Qobuz.
It will stream the Amazon music FLAC files at their stated resolution (ie: a 24/96 file will not be upsampled to 24/192 when playing to to 24/192 DAC ). As you know, Amazon will downsample streams if you have a spotty network connection. However, with a good wireless connection I have found that the audio is bitperfect as far as I can tell. With my setup on the Fire Tablet 8 Plus it is without question the best audio quality I have heard when using Amazon Music. It appears that Amazon gave a lot of thought to the audio capabilities of their new Fire tablets and their ability to bypass the internal Android DAC limitations when connecting an external DAC. I'm using the (excellent) internal DAC on my Harmon Kardon AVR through a digital coax cable running from my Douk Audio USB converter (my Fire Tablet sees the Douk Audio converter as a 24/192 DAC), and it works flawlessly. Without the Douk Audio USB Converter, the ability of my Fire tablet to recognize external USB DAC's has been hit or miss (it will not stream directly to my SMSL Sanskrit 10th MKII DAC for example). Using the Douk Audio USB Converter makes it possible to stream to any DAC that has a SPDIF or Toslink input connection.
Node 2i> topping D70>tube pre> amp Control Amazon from Bluos app on kindle HD Bit perfect all the time according to my DAC screen, from CD quality on up. Never had any issues works and sounds great. Until they allow exclusive mode and wasapi compatible use a computer is futile, just not bit perfect with having some type of upsampling
Yes, this is the go-to route many will take to get bit-perfect audio with Amazon HD, but for under $100, @splurgefrugal has lit upon the next best thing. And who knows, if using the same external DAC maybe the Fire Tablet + Douk Audio USB = the Node 2i?
After a week of comparing Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Ultra HD, I keep getting the feeling that not all 24/192 streaming is equal. Amazon never seems to sound as open and detailed as Tidal and Qobuz no matter what setup I use. There is some upsampling or resampling taking place on Amazon that always puts it in third place when it comes to sound quality. I want to like Amazon . . . I like the selection of playlists Amazon offers more than Tidal or Qobuz and the price . . . but for critical listening it noticeably falls behind. Oh well . . .
I don't think this is working how you think it is. After reading your original post, I tried the same setup (Fire HD 8 Plus > Douk Audio XU208 > SMSL SU-9 DAC via SPDIF), and while inside the Amazon app it reports the output device as 24/192, my SMSL DAC always reports the input signal as 96kHz. (If I skip the Douk adapter and just connect the tablet directly to the SMSL DAC via USB, it gives the same result.) Inside the Amazon app it will say "Device capability": 24/192, and "Playing at" whatever the track is (i.e. 24/44, 24/96, or 24/192), but from there it looks like Android is still up/down sampling everything to a fixed sample rate (96kHz in this case). I also tried this with my Samsung Galaxy Tab S6, and it behaved exactly the same, except that the SMSL DAC always reports the sample rate as 192kHz. I mean, both setups still sound really good, but there is still some resampling being done.
Amazon Music HD Blusound Node 2i streamer McIntosh C50 preamp - I also use its DAC instead of the DAC in the Blusound McIntosh MC400 amp B&W N800 speakers works great for hi res, and i definitely get bit perfect 24bit resolution for downloads and streaming.
Denon AVR-X4500H using the HEOS app. Sounds great. In addition, as a Prime member I pay a flat $79 fee once a year. Definitely getting top hi-res sound.
