NEWS: Amazon Music HD drops subscription charge for lossless audio


Thanks for flagging. I genuinely wouldn't have known had you not run the story!

As a general principle I like to try and subscribe to European-based music services but this is an almost irresistible price.

I cancelled Qobuz at twice the price. If they'd made the HD purchase downloads available at a discount as part of the subscription, I'd have stuck with them, as I want to build my own HD library. But they make you buy that 12 month sublime subscription.

Is anybody else anxious about subscription models meaning you no longer own anything?
 
Just waiting for Spotify to follow the suit and offer us lossless (Not bothered about HiRes, it's not required for reproduction anyway, I have a very decent high end system before the placebo amongst you shoot me down :cool: and I am an audiophile). Spotify's integration is bullet proof, Amazon isn't that well integrated into other gear as such. As a start it doesn't support lossless through Chromecast which is widely accepted by all others. I still buy CDs but I need a streaming one to explore new music :)

And I have tried Music HD for 3 months, was a Qobuz subscriber for 6 months.
 
Just waiting for Spotify to follow the suit and offer us lossless (Not bothered about HiRes, it's not required for reproduction anyway, I have a very decent high end system before the placebo amongst you shoot me down :cool: and I am an audiophile). Spotify's integration is bullet proof, Amazon isn't that well integrated into other gear as such. As a start it doesn't support lossless through Chromecast which is widely accepted by all others. I still buy CDs but I need a streaming one to explore new music :)

And I have tried Music HD for 3 months, was a Qobuz subscriber for 6 months.

Just signed up for Amazon Music HD and have cancelled it instantly as they still haven't designed the software properly and there is no way to get bit-perfect music from my laptop to my DAC.

When will they learn!?
 
This doesn't apply to bog-standard Prime subscribers, does it? I'm currently paying annually for Prime membership which of course gives me Prime Video. But since I don't pay extra for Amazon Music HD I can't access the free HD content? Or can I? I'm confused....
 
Yes, if you have an Amazon Music sub (£7.99 on top of Prime), you now have Amazon Music HD for no extra charge.

Prime Music stays as is, limited choice, MP3 quality
 
It would be nice if I could have a refund on my remaining sub as I pay 12 months up front.
No mention of that I see 🤔
 
Just signed up for Amazon Music HD and have cancelled it instantly as they still haven't designed the software properly and there is no way to get bit-perfect music from my laptop to my DAC.

When will they learn!?
What do you actually mean by this bud, just curious. I'm streaming from laptop to my av receivers DAC and can stream up to 24bit 192khz.
 
I trialled Amazon HD last year but could never find a way to set HD (lossless) as the highest quality for streaming & download ... it forced me to download 'Ultra HD' when those files were available and my ears couldn't justify the excessive file sizes!

I just want CD quality, not hi-res ... is this possible now?
 
It would be nice if I could have a refund on my remaining sub as I pay 12 months up front.
No mention of that I see 🤔
I was paying monthly for Music Unlimited + Music HD and changed this to annual at the end of April. Not happy at paying out £50 for something that is now free so contacted customer services and they have refunded the £50 annual charge for Music HD.
 
I was paying monthly for Music Unlimited + Music HD and changed this to annual at the end of April. Not happy at paying out £50 for something that is now free so contacted customer services and they have refunded the £50 annual charge for Music HD.
Thanks, i'll do that in the morning. TBH, it's a poor show having to chase your own money back.

Thanks again.
 
Thanks, i'll do that in the morning. TBH, it's a poor show having to chase your own money back.

Thanks again.
I did have a bit of an issue getting in touch with customer services, found the best option was to initiate an online chat - ended up quite straight forward.
 
I’ve been using this for a few days now.
There phone app is fine, but to get HR audio on my Nad, I have to used the bluos app, adding Prime to it, well, it’s not a very nice interface, really hard to find anything. I’ll wait for Spotify to go HD/HR over the coming months and stick with them.
 
I’ve been using this for a few days now.
There phone app is fine, but to get HR audio on my Nas, I have to used the blu sound app, adding Prime to it, well, it’s not a very nice interface, really hard to find anything. I’ll wait for Spotify to go HD/HR over the coming months and stick with them.
One very real problem for me when using Prime on the BluOS app is that it can take 10 seconds or more to change song titles if you press the title itself. If you are prepared to do two clicks using options and play now it works properly.

Amazon’s own app is improving and works properly but limited to CD quality via Airplay at best, if that is an issue.
 
Amazon’s own app is improving and works properly but limited to CD quality via Airplay at best, if that is an issue.
I’m not getting any delay on the BluOs - Prime app, but agree that it would be nice if the actual Prime app would allow for HR quality on the Nad instead of having to go through BluOs. I guess it needs a Prime connect type integration (and speaking of connect, I hope within Spotify do release HD/HR, Spotify connect supports it (assuming it will).
I’m saying all of the above, it’s early days for Prime, so it may all happen soon enough but those on trial ... well, they will lose potential customers (like me).
 
What do you actually mean by this bud, just curious. I'm streaming from laptop to my av receivers DAC and can stream up to 24bit 192khz.

I am not sure whether it is the same on Windows, but on Mac if you stream from Amazon HD to a DAC, the sample rate is fixed - it does not change to match the source material.

I have just set the output of my MAC to 192KHz, but it plays at this sample rate even if the source material is 44.1kHz. This means somewhere within the MAC the source material is being resampled, which is inevitably lossy.

This is not the case with the (excellent) Qobuz player, which is bit perfect, although I also cancelled that (for different reasons).
 
I am not sure whether it is the same on Windows, but on Mac if you stream from Amazon HD to a DAC, the sample rate is fixed - it does not change to match the source material.

I have just set the output of my MAC to 192KHz, but it plays at this sample rate even if the source material is 44.1kHz. This means somewhere within the MAC the source material is being resampled, which is inevitably lossy.

This is not the case with the (excellent) Qobuz player, which is bit perfect, although I also cancelled that (for different reasons).
No it's variable via windows bud, up to whatever your Dac can handle. I'm yet to find anything higher than 192khz but I do believe there are a few higher than that.
 
No it's variable via windows bud, up to whatever your Dac can handle. I'm yet to find anything higher than 192khz but I do believe there are a few higher than that.

Interesting - have you verified this on your AV receiver? On my DAC there is an LED which changes colour to match the sample rate.
 

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