High resolution audio from Amazon

I actually do have a couple of hi-res albums by Stevie Ray Vaughan on my NAS, although I can’t remember where I bought them. They are both 24bit/96KHz though, not 24/192.

Are they available as 24/192 on HD Tracks? I haven’t used HD Tracks for many years since they stopped allowing purchases from the UK or Europe.

in Canada, we have tidal only and Qobuz wrote me recently that they have no plan for Canada

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use a VPN to sign up. You can then choose which one you wish to subscribe too. You will be billed in the local currency

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A post was split to a new topic: Roon should have a lower tier sub that just plays from music services but without integration

Paypal is a good option to use when signing up.

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Five of SRV’s albums are available from Qobuz in Hi Res.

@pierre_jubinville - pick a publicly available VPN service, connect to a country that has an exchange rate that you find favorable, signup using PayPal as your payment method, establish your account. You won’t need to keep the VPN account afterwards so you don’t need a year subscription.

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If you have the 24/176 SACDs, ripping them to FLAC/DSD is much cheaper than buying them from a hi-res source. And you know the provenance of the files,

FWIW -

Amazon’s mobile and desktop apps are so bad and counterintuitive that the only way I would subscribe is if it had Roon integration.

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I hear ya. The Android App is pants and as for the desktop App, don’t even go there!

Have they fixed exclusive mode yet?

No, still broken.

Terrible …………

You can now cast bit perfectly from their iOS/Android app, to a WiiM Mini streamer (TOSlink output, up to 24/192)

WiiM are working on making it gapless next.

I’m sure Darko will make a follow-up video to his previous WiiM Mini vids/articles, when somebody tells him about this recent firmware update

Not even Bluesounds can do this

WiiM are the LinkPlay team who make streaming modules for JBL, Harman Kardon, Yamaha

So a competitor to Bluesound

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Somebody made a video of casting bit perfect from Amazon Music UHD app to the WiiM Mini. Right now it’s the first and only on the planet allowing this.

Watch the sample rate change on the DAC itself.

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Great product ,performs and measures well.

I’m not sure what’s terribly new about that device.

Linkplay is apparently an excellent piece of software and has been adopted by quite a few manufacturers of portable speakers, it’s in perhaps 40 or 50 products by now. It’s been around quite few years and saves those companies the cost of designing their own software, just as the likes of Devialet (which I use) and others decided it was easier to go Roon Ready than build their own world class app. No surprises there.

I started using Amazon HD up to 24/192 wirelessly throughout much of my house about a year ago and it drove me mad, especially with Alexa, although for everything else I like Alexa a lot. Even without Alexa, the app was just horrible, especially for classical. It does work very well for popular music and, I found, nursery songs. So it knows its market. Thankfully after a few months my system went Roon Ready and I cancelled my Amazon HD subscription and breathed a sigh of relief.

I doubt these Chi-fi companies making budget stuff will ever implement Roon because of the software effort and their business models, to contract out manufacture and do everything at minimal cost. I doubt many of their customers would pay for a Roon subscription anyway.

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The bit perfect part and casting direct from Amazon app part, that I wrote…

ie no need for any Alexa voice commands… but you can if you like.

Not possible with any other device…

That’s what I I was doing. I can still do it, just not at high res with Amazon as I cancelled my Amazon Unlimited subscription. I can send to the same devices using Roon at 24/192 and I much prefer Roon anyway. Bought this system in May last year.