Is Amazon Music Unlimited really high resolution or not?

[KeithL]

There has been a lot of discussion lately about which streaming services are actually "high-resolution" or not....
And how many of them provide "real bit-perfect music" or not....
And finding actual detailed information about Amazon's streaming seems to be oddly difficult...

I've made a minor foray into the dangerous and terrible waters of uncertainty...
And I'm going to pass on what I've discovered...
(This is all current, as far as I know, as of May 2020... and may - hopefully - change later.)

Let's start by defining my personal goals here...

I personally find the idea of high-resolution music, and actual bit-perfect copies of the original content, to be quite compelling...

I want to hear an accurate copy of the original recording...

I DO NOT want someone messing with it; or down-sampling it, or - perish the thought - applying lossy compression to it...

However, I also DO NOT want someone "fixing" or "improving" it for me (I don't trust them to do that; that means you MQA)...

If I play an album that was released on a CD - just play the CD for me...

And, if I play an album that was released in HD, just play THAT for me...

Don't compress it; don't down-res it; and don't "fix" it for me.

Now, after saying all that, let's also agree that quality doesn't matter much if they don't have the album you actually want to listen to.

I would rather listen to a lousy rendition of an album I like than a great quality rendition of music I don't like...

(Some high-res sites sell great quality music that just plain doesn't interest me.)

Now let's progress to a few personal impressions of mine about streaming.... (from my personal experience)....

I think that Spotify probably has the best selection... but they have two quality levels... not very good... and slightly better.

Spotify music is lossy compressed, even the premium tier, although it's better than the free tier.

The quality is pretty good, especially for background music, but it isn;t quite as good as a CD.

There was some talk of a "CD quality" Spotify tier a few years ago... but it hasn't been mentioned in a while... so seems to be dead.

I think that QoBuz has excellent quality, but not a very good selection, especially if you like American music...

(But they do have a lot of interesting European music, so, if you like what they have, they seem to be a good deal.)

I totally fail to be impressed by Tidal... mainly because, to me, their selection is "just OK - but not great".

And, to me, MQA is "just another round of remasters that are sometimes a bit different than the originals".

MQA remastering takes the original and alters it... in a way that they very much wish to convince me "makes it closer to the analog original".

I personally find that some MQA versions sound a little bit better, some sound a little bit worse, and some sound just about the same.

To me it's not nearly compelling enough to convince me to invest in special hardware... or a streaming service that doesn't have all my favorite albums.

(Does anyone here remember HDCD?)

Which all leads me to the conclusion that, as of this moment, I personally use Amazon Music Unlimited as my streaming service.

They have a good selection of the music I listen to...

I find all of their "CD quality music" to seem to really be CD quality...

And their streaming seems quite solid and stable...

They don't seem to screw up too often...

And I find their interface to be at least tolerable...

Sadly, however, there are a few things you should know about Amazon Music...

First of all, they seem to be somewhat confused about terminology....

For example, what the rest of us call "CD quality", Amazon refers to as "HD".... (whcih can be confusing).

And, what the rest of us call "HD", Amazon calls "UltraHD"....

And, if you click on that button to "buy album", you're going to end up with MP3 download (unless something has changed there).

Second, their service is not well covered by many streaming devices, other than their own family of "Alexa" boxes and some Marantz and Denon AVRs.

Lots of little streamers support Spotify and Pandora... not many do Amazon Music...

However, they do have both Apple and Windows computer apps that actually work quite well.

(So, instead of buying an expensive streaming box, with a tiny little screen, just buy a cheap laptop, with a nice big color screen instead.)

Third, at least so far, the Amazon Music Windows App DOES NOT SUPPORT WASAPI MODE.

(There seems to be an awful lot of confusion about this detail... and Amazon doesn't say much about it... so I'm going to clarify it.)

They have recently introduced an option called Exclusive Mode.

This option seems to give them exclusive control of the audio stream and prevent other audio sources from being mixed with it.

This should at least minimize the occurrence of artifacts or other side effects of the Windows mixer...

However, unlike WASAPI exclusive mode, IT DOES NOT DISABLE WINDOWS RESAMPLING YOUR AUDIO TO THE DEFAULT SAMPLE RATE.

So whatever you play WILL be re-sampled and output at the default Windows sample rate you have set - it is NOT BIT-PERFECT.

(You do NOT have the option of telling the app to play high-res files at their native sample rate without resampling them.)

This means that, if you set your Windows sample rate to 24/192k, which would be the best option, then everything will play as 24/192k.

So, if you're playing a 24/192k file, it will play at its native bit rate, and quite possibly bit-perfectly...

And, if you play a 16/44k file, it will be UPSAMPLED to 192k...

Contrary to what many people seem to think, UP-sampling doesn't usually significantly degrade audio quality, once you stop worrying about it.

However, you WILL want to set your Windows sample rate to 24/192k or 24/96k, and NOT 44k, to avoid DOWN-sampling hi-res files.

(The only real catch is that some very wimpy laptops may experience dropouts because of the significant processing involved in upsampling.)

[novisnick]

Jun 3, 2020 22:47:12 GMT -5 KeithL said:

There has been a lot of discussion lately about which streaming services are actually "high-resolution" or not....
And how many of them provide "real bit-perfect music" or not....
And finding actual detailed information about Amazon's streaming seems to be oddly difficult...

I've made a minor foray into the dangerous and terrible waters of uncertainty...
And I'm going to pass on what I've discovered...
(This is all current, as far as I know, as of May 2020... and may - hopefully - change later.)

Let's start by defining my personal goals here...

I personally find the idea of high-resolution music, and actual bit-perfect copies of the original content, to be quite compelling...

I want to hear an accurate copy of the original recording...

I DO NOT want someone messing with it; or down-sampling it, or - perish the thought - applying lossy compression to it...

However, I also DO NOT want someone "fixing" or "improving" it for me (I don't trust them to do that; that means you MQA)...

If I play an album that was released on a CD - just play the CD for me...

And, if I play an album that was released in HD, just play THAT for me...

Don't compress it; don't down-res it; and don't "fix" it for me.

Now, after saying all that, let's also agree that quality doesn't matter much if they don't have the album you actually want to listen to.

I would rather listen to a lousy rendition of an album I like than a great quality rendition of music I don't like...

(Some high-res sites sell great quality music that just plain doesn't interest me.)

Now let's progress to a few personal impressions of mine about streaming.... (from my personal experience)....

I think that Spotify probably has the best selection... but they have two quality levels... not very good... and slightly better.

Spotify music is lossy compressed, even the premium tier, although it's better than the free tier.

The quality is pretty good, especially for background music, but it isn;t quite as good as a CD.

There was some talk of a "CD quality" Spotify tier a few years ago... but it hasn't been mentioned in a while... so seems to be dead.

I think that QoBuz has excellent quality, but not a very good selection, especially if you like American music...

(But they do have a lot of interesting European music, so, if you like what they have, they seem to be a good deal.)

I totally fail to be impressed by Tidal... mainly because, to me, their selection is "just OK - but not great".

And, to me, MQA is "just another round of remasters that are sometimes a bit different than the originals".

MQA remastering takes the original and alters it... in a way that they very much wish to convince me "makes it closer to the analog original".

I personally find that some MQA versions sound a little bit better, some sound a little bit worse, and some sound just about the same.

To me it's not nearly compelling enough to convince me to invest in special hardware... or a streaming service that doesn't have all my favorite albums.

(Does anyone here remember HDCD?)

Which all leads me to the conclusion that, as of this moment, I personally use Amazon Music Unlimited as my streaming service.

They have a good selection of the music I listen to...

I find all of their "CD quality music" to seem to really be CD quality...

And their streaming seems quite solid and stable...

They don't seem to screw up too often...

And I find their interface to be at least tolerable...

Sadly, however, there are a few things you should know about Amazon Music...

First of all, they seem to be somewhat confused about terminology....

For example, what the rest of us call "CD quality", Amazon refers to as "HD".... (whcih can be confusing).

And, what the rest of us call "HD", Amazon calls "UltraHD"....

And, if you click on that button to "buy album", you're going to end up with MP3 download (unless something has changed there).

Second, their service is not well covered by many streaming devices, other than their own family of "Alexa" boxes and some Marantz and Denon AVRs.

Lots of little streamers support Spotify and Pandora... not many do Amazon Music...

However, they do have both Apple and Windows computer apps that actually work quite well.

(So, instead of buying an expensive streaming box, with a tiny little screen, just buy a cheap laptop, with a nice big color screen instead.)

Third, at least so far, the Amazon Music Windows App DOES NOT SUPPORT WASAPI MODE.

(There seems to be an awful lot of confusion about this detail... and Amazon doesn't say much about it... so I'm going to clarify it.)

They have recently introduced an option called Exclusive Mode.

This option seems to give them exclusive control of the audio stream and prevent other audio sources from being mixed with it.

This should at least minimize the occurrence of artifacts or other side effects of the Windows mixer...

However, unlike WASAPI exclusive mode, IT DOES NOT DISABLE WINDOWS RESAMPLING YOUR AUDIO TO THE DEFAULT SAMPLE RATE.

So whatever you play WILL be re-sampled and output at the default Windows sample rate you have set - it is NOT BIT-PERFECT.

(You do NOT have the option of telling the app to play high-res files at their native sample rate without resampling them.)

This means that, if you set your Windows sample rate to 24/192k, which would be the best option, then everything will play as 24/192k.

So, if you're playing a 24/192k file, it will play at its native bit rate, and quite possibly bit-perfectly...

And, if you play a 16/44k file, it will be UPSAMPLED to 192k...

Contrary to what many people seem to think, UP-sampling doesn't usually significantly degrade audio quality, once you stop worrying about it.

However, you WILL want to set your Windows sample rate to 24/192k or 24/96k, and NOT 44k, to avoid DOWN-sampling hi-res files.

(The only real catch is that some very wimpy laptops may experience dropouts because of the significant processing involved in upsampling.)

Thanks for your thorough review! 👍🎶

[AudioHTIT]

Jun 3, 2020 22:47:12 GMT -5 KeithL said:

...Third, at least so far, the Amazon Music Windows App DOES NOT SUPPORT WASAPI MODEThere seems to be an awful lot of confusion about this detail... and Amazon doesn't say much about it... so I'm going to clarify it.)
They have recently introduced an option called Exclusive Mode. This option seems to give them exclusive control of the audio stream and prevent other audio sources from being mixed with

I agree with all your points, and as of my last test a week or two ago, Exclusive Mode on the Mac version of the Music HD App, didn’t seem to work either (it played in whatever the system was set to). It also seemed the the Exclusive Mode checkbox wasn’t sticking, so if you shut down the App, you had to reselect Exclusive, and maybe your device, but that’s not too big a deal.

[Lsc]

I used Amazon but Tidal sounds better to me but I believe when I got Amazon they didn’t have exclusive mode. It’s the exclusive mode that had Tidal sounding better.

I may need to give Amazon a try after my trial period ends with Tidal.

[audiobill]

Amazon Music didn't sound as good as Tidal and Qobuz through Roon to me.....

[sgracing]

Jun 4, 2020 7:15:49 GMT -5 sgracing said:

Jun 3, 2020 22:47:12 GMT -5 KeithL said:

There has been a lot of discussion lately about which streaming services are actually "high-resolution" or not....
And how many of them provide "real bit-perfect music" or not....
And finding actual detailed information about Amazon's streaming seems to be oddly difficult...

I've made a minor foray into the dangerous and terrible waters of uncertainty...
And I'm going to pass on what I've discovered...
(This is all current, as far as I know, as of May 2020... and may - hopefully - change later.)

Let's start by defining my personal goals here...

I personally find the idea of high-resolution music, and actual bit-perfect copies of the original content, to be quite compelling...

I want to hear an accurate copy of the original recording...

I DO NOT want someone messing with it; or down-sampling it, or - perish the thought - applying lossy compression to it...

However, I also DO NOT want someone "fixing" or "improving" it for me (I don't trust them to do that; that means you MQA)...

If I play an album that was released on a CD - just play the CD for me...

And, if I play an album that was released in HD, just play THAT for me...

Don't compress it; don't down-res it; and don't "fix" it for me.

Now, after saying all that, let's also agree that quality doesn't matter much if they don't have the album you actually want to listen to.

I would rather listen to a lousy rendition of an album I like than a great quality rendition of music I don't like...

(Some high-res sites sell great quality music that just plain doesn't interest me.)

Now let's progress to a few personal impressions of mine about streaming.... (from my personal experience)....

I think that Spotify probably has the best selection... but they have two quality levels... not very good... and slightly better.

Spotify music is lossy compressed, even the premium tier, although it's better than the free tier.

The quality is pretty good, especially for background music, but it isn;t quite as good as a CD.

There was some talk of a "CD quality" Spotify tier a few years ago... but it hasn't been mentioned in a while... so seems to be dead.

I think that QoBuz has excellent quality, but not a very good selection, especially if you like American music...

(But they do have a lot of interesting European music, so, if you like what they have, they seem to be a good deal.)

I totally fail to be impressed by Tidal... mainly because, to me, their selection is "just OK - but not great".

And, to me, MQA is "just another round of remasters that are sometimes a bit different than the originals".

MQA remastering takes the original and alters it... in a way that they very much wish to convince me "makes it closer to the analog original".

I personally find that some MQA versions sound a little bit better, some sound a little bit worse, and some sound just about the same.

To me it's not nearly compelling enough to convince me to invest in special hardware... or a streaming service that doesn't have all my favorite albums.

(Does anyone here remember HDCD?)

Which all leads me to the conclusion that, as of this moment, I personally use Amazon Music Unlimited as my streaming service.

They have a good selection of the music I listen to...

I find all of their "CD quality music" to seem to really be CD quality...

And their streaming seems quite solid and stable...

They don't seem to screw up too often...

And I find their interface to be at least tolerable...

Sadly, however, there are a few things you should know about Amazon Music...

First of all, they seem to be somewhat confused about terminology....

For example, what the rest of us call "CD quality", Amazon refers to as "HD".... (whcih can be confusing).

And, what the rest of us call "HD", Amazon calls "UltraHD"....

And, if you click on that button to "buy album", you're going to end up with MP3 download (unless something has changed there).

Second, their service is not well covered by many streaming devices, other than their own family of "Alexa" boxes and some Marantz and Denon AVRs.

Lots of little streamers support Spotify and Pandora... not many do Amazon Music...

However, they do have both Apple and Windows computer apps that actually work quite well.

(So, instead of buying an expensive streaming box, with a tiny little screen, just buy a cheap laptop, with a nice big color screen instead.)

Third, at least so far, the Amazon Music Windows App DOES NOT SUPPORT WASAPI MODE.

(There seems to be an awful lot of confusion about this detail... and Amazon doesn't say much about it... so I'm going to clarify it.)

They have recently introduced an option called Exclusive Mode.

This option seems to give them exclusive control of the audio stream and prevent other audio sources from being mixed with it.

This should at least minimize the occurrence of artifacts or other side effects of the Windows mixer...

However, unlike WASAPI exclusive mode, IT DOES NOT DISABLE WINDOWS RESAMPLING YOUR AUDIO TO THE DEFAULT SAMPLE RATE.

So whatever you play WILL be re-sampled and output at the default Windows sample rate you have set - it is NOT BIT-PERFECT.

(You do NOT have the option of telling the app to play high-res files at their native sample rate without resampling them.)

This means that, if you set your Windows sample rate to 24/192k, which would be the best option, then everything will play as 24/192k.

So, if you're playing a 24/192k file, it will play at its native bit rate, and quite possibly bit-perfectly...

And, if you play a 16/44k file, it will be UPSAMPLED to 192k...

Contrary to what many people seem to think, UP-sampling doesn't usually significantly degrade audio quality, once you stop worrying about it.

However, you WILL want to set your Windows sample rate to 24/192k or 24/96k, and NOT 44k, to avoid DOWN-sampling hi-res files.

(The only real catch is that some very wimpy laptops may experience dropouts because of the significant processing involved in upsampling.)

KEITH Very good read. I have all current media formatS and my analysis is exactly the same. As of today i only have two Spodify for general listening and zone two the deck and Qobuz for Direct and Reference. Thanks for your referencing the details.

[AudioHTIT]

Thought I'd report on the latest version of the macOS Amazon Music HD App ... wait for it ... nah, still not fixed. By that I mean 'Exclusive Mode' still does not allow your DAC to see the native bit rate & depth of the files being played. I assume the Windows version is the same, not sure of the date, but mine updated today to 8.4.0.2249.

I don't know what it is that they're fixing, but I don't see any changes to the Exclusive Mode box, nor any changes to the output. On the Mac the output is still the same as whatever is set in Audio MIDI Setup, I'm sure Windows is similar (controlled by the Mixer?).

In any case part of the problem may be that Amazon doesn't really know the full definition of "Exclusive Mode", in their FAQ they define it as "When exclusive mode is enabled, the Amazon Music app will block sounds from other applications while music is playing". While this is true, the full definition of Exclusive Mode is that the App has exclusive control of the output device being used, typically by going directly to the device driver instead of through the OS. So I guess Amazon got Exclusive Mode to work by changing the definition! 😁

That said, I've been listening to some new music this afternoon (my typical use of Amazon music), and it sounds pretty good -- however, since it's new music I have no idea how good it could sound! 🤷‍♂️ So, even though I'm enjoying the music, I'm going to be pissed off because Amazon won't fix their damn App! (ok, time for a Cinco de Mayo margarita 🍸)

[ttocs]

I tried to like Amazon Music but went back to Tidal. I felt more restricted navigating the Amazon interface. I also happen to like how Tidal sounds vs Amazon.

[Lsc]

I switched to Amazon music for $12.99 and got Apple Music for the family for $14.99.

It was still cheaper than Tidal and so far so good.

[Soup]

(So, instead of buying an expensive streaming box, with a tiny little screen, just buy a cheap laptop, with a nice big color screen instead.)

Great info! Thanks for doing the research.

Two quick questions: what do you consider an expensive streaming box?; what do you consider a cheap laptop? Curious is all!

[creimes]

Jun 4, 2020 4:44:18 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Amazon Music didn't sound as good as Tidal and Qobuz through Roon to me.....

Yeah but you have have McIntosh gear, most of us here have lousy internet direct gear where we can't hear the difference between 8 track and hi-res.

[audiobill]

Creimes, not fair..I think you could hear the difference too.

Besides, Keith instructs us that all amps, dacs, etc sound the same anyway.

Bill

[tchaik]

May 6, 2021 3:57:46 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Creimes, not fair..I think you could hear the difference too.

Besides, Keith instructs us that all amps, dacs, etc sound the same anyway.

Bill

not so audiobill. Keith has commented many times on the differences in sq especially in dacs. make sure you read his posts more carefully.

[tchaik]

May 6, 2021 3:57:46 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Creimes, not fair..I think you could hear the difference too.

Besides, Keith instructs us that all amps, dacs, etc sound the same anyway.

Bill

not so audiobill. Keith has commented many times on the differences in sq especially in dacs. make sure you read his posts more carefully.

[audiobill]

I’ve tried but usually fall asleep!

[creimes]

May 6, 2021 3:57:46 GMT -5 audiobill said:

Creimes, not fair..I think you could hear the difference too.

Besides, Keith instructs us that all amps, dacs, etc sound the same anyway.

Bill

I'm just poking fun haha, I'm never all that serious at my income level the gear in your sig is wayyy out of my budget haha, I really love my setup and think it sounds fantastic, given what it cost especially sounds good.

Chad

[audiobill]

Yeah, no prob.

When you’re an old dude you will have all the toys you want too !!

[dsonyay]

Jun 3, 2020 22:47:12 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I totally fail to be impressed by Tidal... mainly because, to me, their selection is "just OK - but not great". And, to me, MQA is "just another round of remasters that are sometimes a bit different than the originals". MQA remastering takes the original and alters it... in a way that they very much wish to convince me "makes it closer to the analog original".
I personally find that some MQA versions sound a little bit better, some sound a little bit worse, and some sound just about the same. To me it's not nearly compelling enough to convince me to invest in special hardware... or a streaming service that doesn't have all my favorite albums.(Does anyone here remember HDCD?)

I’ve been using Tidal for a couple of years.. the premium version has been a good deal for me because they offer military discounts so I pay 11 bucks a month.

For me I find the selections good.. I very rarely can’t find what I’m looking for. Unfortunately for me, they don’t carry the Chesky records.

I listen to Jazz and classic rock predominantly.. everything is there with occasional exceptions.

Isn’t the hifi level all flac? I guess technically it’s lossy, but dont most people consider flac as hifi level? To me, they sound fantastic as well as most of MQA files.. but like you, I’m still not 100% sold on MQA.

My biggest complaint with Tidal is it is very disorganized. Many times if you pull up an artist or group .. you’ll see all of their albums grouped as studio, live, compilation, etc. but sometimes some will be placed in Live that were studio of vice versa. Sometimes, a studio album isn’t listed. Yet if you actually search for the album it willl show up.

[AudioHTIT]

May 7, 2021 7:56:03 GMT -5 dsonyay said:

… Isn’t the hifi level all flac? I guess technically it’s lossy, but dont most people consider flac as hifi level? …

I don’t know what’s lossy about FLAC, the “L” stands for Lossless? But really FLAC is just a wrapper, it only insures that what’s been wrapped comes out the same when it’s unwrapped. It’s what’s inside the package that determines if it’s ‘hifi level’, for instance a FLAC file could contain either a 16/44 or 24/192 recording. Now I’m not saying that the 24/192 is necessarily going to sound better, but theoretically it should be a more accurate representation of the original signal. What I’m saying is that while FLAC is the industry standard package for compressed lossless audio (ALAC being an alternative), FLAC alone doesn’t guarantee a good recording is inside. I have no experience with MQA.

[dsonyay]

May 7, 2021 9:32:15 GMT -5 AudioHTIT said:

May 7, 2021 7:56:03 GMT -5 dsonyay said:

… Isn’t the hifi level all flac? I guess technically it’s lossy, but dont most people consider flac as hifi level? …

I don’t know what’s lossy about FLAC, the “L” stands for Lossless? But really FLAC is just a wrapper, it only insures that what’s been wrapped comes out the same when it’s unwrapped. It’s what’s inside the package that determines if it’s ‘hifi level’, for instance a FLAC file could contain either a 16/44 or 24/192 recording. Now I’m not saying that the 24/192 is necessarily going to sound better, but theoretically it should be a more accurate representation of the original signal. What I’m saying is that while FLAC is the industry standard package for compressed lossless audio (ALAC being an alternative), FLAC alone doesn’t guarantee a good recording is inside. I have no experience with MQA.

Thanks for correcting me.. I was thinking flac files were lossy but what was lost was not important to the music.. I’m not a tech type lol.