High resolution audio from Amazon

While a noble and true notion, the prevalence of music piracy en masse by the public has driven the need to create streaming services. I don’t think the music industry wanted to go this direction, but they were left with little choice. Something bought off of Bandcamp for $9 has been quickly spread to thousand and thousands of people for free. This has pushed the record labels to go streaming, and artists to make their money touring. Its the nature of the beast…

Bandcamp is always my first port of call, followed by musician’s website, followed by 7digital, followed by tidal / qobuz store.

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Interesting story about trackers on Fire TV and Roku. Be silly to think the situation is any different with Amazon Music.

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Ditto, though a lot of musician’s websites only offers mp3-files. Those I don’t buy

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I use a Chromecast Audio dongle over Toslink to my dCS Rossini (a pretty decent DAC). It doesn’t sound nearly - by a very long shot - as good as coax from a CD transport or other streaming playing on the Rossini.

I specifically compared Qobuz 24/96 streamed from the dongle powered by a very clean power source (UptoneAudio Ultracap, which I have for other reasons). Qobuz playing at 24/96 through the Chromecast Audio dongle is just not great. I still use it for SoundCloud, MixCloud, etc but that’s it.

Optical is immune to RF. Digital coax isn’t. So that’s one potential mechanism for them sounding different… I say different instead of good/better/best because it’s possible to enjoy something better that is technically worse…

Anyway that’s for another thread.

There is something utterly wrong with this setup regardless your reasons of doing this. Your Rossini should scream, unplug himself, scream again, jump back in the shipping box and leave that house at maximum speed the moment you came around with that Chromecast abomination !!! (JOKE)

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Yes, but jitter on an optical connection is also higher. Since the clock must be recovered from this connection, it will have inherently more jitter.

More importantly: Just listen to it on a high quality system! I have never heard toslink sound as good as pretty much any other connection type.

It tried to book a ticket back to England but then remembered Brexit and figured dealing with Toslink was not as bad…

My system: http://goo.gl/66fjxw

I hate optical.

In my first reply to you I already covered this with:

“It might depend on how the DAC deals with stuff, like jitter.”

And as hinted earlier, some people’s overall system can sound a little better (subjectively) with a little more RF coming into the DAC…

I always fail here! :grin:

Damn theres a lot more Hi Res on Amazon on stuff I listen to than Tidal. Lots of 24/44 stuff and bits matter more.

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This is a threat for Tidal and MQA … and for Roon in the case the Amazon integration will not happen. Currently I am using Qobuz and Tidal, but Tidal only if an album is not found in Qobuz. With Amazon available in Roon I most likely will go with Qobuz and Amazon. If Roon should lose all streaming services I will return to JRiver, which I still use to maintain my large music collection including personal 5 star track ratings.

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I’m guessing they will do so only if they see customers leaving for Amazon, or a big dip in new subscribers. Tidal and Qobuz haven’t managed to make any serious dent in their business, and so far they’ve concluded that the number of people willing to pay extra for CD and HD quality streaming is negligible.
That said, I could see a lot of Amazon Prime members signing up for the service.

Is this right ? From a Amazon blurb…
“It stresses that the service is high definition, not hifi or hi-resolution”

Unfortunately that looks a lot like meaningless blurb.

As far as I know the service has CD quality 44.1/16 all the way up to 192/24. Define them however you like :joy:

BlueSound and Nad quick to intergrate

https://www.avforums.com/news/bluos-to-integrate-amazon-music-hd.16598

This article from Forbes earlier this year about Amazon taking aim at Tidal is a good summary of where the two entities are heading.

Agreed, and with the sublime+ hi-res downloads of our favourite albums we get independency from uncertain developments of the future.

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I just signed up for Amazon Ultra. I will be cancelling Tidal, Qobuz, and Roon. This is a no-brainer. I discovered that my Bose Soundtouch app will stream Amazon from my iPhone, iPad, or Dell laptop to my Bose sound system. Maybe later when and if I purchase a more upscale music streaming and sound system, I will return to Tidal, Qobuz, and Roon.

I will use my Dragonfly Cobalt with Sony headphones with not at home. Apple Carplay also supports Amazon.