Integration of Amazon Music High Resolution

Maybe we should all contact:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveboom

Or maybe:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alok-verma-0b83ab

Get his office address (Steve Boom). Get some nice deckle-edged high-rag-content bond notepaper with matching envelopes (available at any office supply store). Get a fountain pen loaded with blue-black ink (ditto). Compose a nice letter expressing your amazement and dismay, as both an Amazon shareholder and a Prime member, that Roon compatibility was not part of the initial rollout during the announcement. Be polite. Urge him to remedy that in the near future; suggest a milestone to achieve it by if you can.

Now copy that in a neat cursive onto the notepaper. Neatly address an envelope (from the set of matching envelopes), add stamps, and mail it.

Now repeat that for Jeff Bezos, and any other execs that come to mind. Jeffrey Blackburn, senior VP of business development, for instance, or Jeffrey Wilke, CEO worldwide consumer business.

You might send a copy, typed, to

Amazon Investor Relations
Mail: P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226

stressing that you are a shareholder.

Now take that same composition and send it as email to the same executives. Don’t know if the email addresses are public, but I’ve had luck in the past by guessing FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME@COMPANY.COM – in other words, the default MS Exchange email address.

None of these will actually get to the execs, I’d think, but some human will read them and do something with them.

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Named Alexa?

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Oh, and let me recommend this book if you really want action from publicly held corporations:

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I ended my trial and in the comments said it was because: a) they use Windows Mixer, and don’t allow use of better sound choices; b) failure to integrate with services like Roon. I told them if they want to be in the “HD” business they need to do those two things.

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Interesting. I haven’t even started my trial because Amazon HD isn’t on my radar unless it has Roon integration and I wanted to hold off in case that integration was imminent so that I could use the 90 days to test it with Roon. After Danny’s (Roon CTO) update it sounds as if I’d be waiting a year or more though so maybe it would be more valuable right now if I do start a trial simply to use it as what I think might be quite a powerful way to give feedback to Amazon.

From what you’ve just posted I take it that you can cancel the trial at any time within the 90 days and do get the opportunity to comment on why you are cancelling. I think that might be a reasonably powerful communication conduit because I would think that Amazon marketing and MusicHD product management are monitoring capture/conversion rates after the free trial period quite closely, possibly even reporting them up to their more senior management, so conversion (to paying subscriber) failures will be things they notice and analysing reasons why potential customers are slipping out of their grasp important to them hence citing lack of Roon integration as a reason for not progressing to the paid service might be noticed more in that context than as an unsolicited piece of feedback to some general customer contact email address.

Took one of those listed above (@Geoff_Coupe) and added my own twist:

I see that you have introduced a new music streaming service: Amazon HD. I am a current subscriber to Tidal HiFi level. The reason that I have chosen this is twofold: 1) it provides me with high-resolution audio streaming at audiophile quality (up to 24bit/192 kHz), and 2) Tidal is seamlessly integrated into Roon, which streams to all my audio equipment and devices and provides me with a richer musical experience than just listening to the music.

For me to consider Amazon HD rather than Tidal, Amazon would need to make your Amazon HD service available through Roon. If Amazon wishes to engage with the audiophile market, it seems to me that you should be giving serious consideration to delivering it via a full integration with Roon. Unfortunately, I will not be signing up after the trial period unless there is Roon integration. I believe that you have a great service here but without Roon integration you fall short of engaging the audiophile market, which you are obviously interested in or you would not have gone to the effort of creating your HD level. Please consider Roon moving forward, this wonderful audiophile community would appreciate (and pay for) it.

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Reply I received:

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Wow good response. That’s the type of response that shows the blip on the radar getting bigger.

Remember, the blip needs to be big and not disappear for months

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It would be a real bonus for me, if Roon integrated with Amazon Music HD. I upgraded to a Roon Nucleus Plus server a few months ago, simplifying my setup, some streaming done on a Windows machine, some on an old music server, this one connect to this DAC, the other connected to that DAC. I now have the Roon Nucleus Plus attached to my best DAC with a USB cable, sounds great and I have had nothing but great sound and stability from this setup.

My nephew has worked for Amazon for years, is in their R&D group (not the music service area), next time I have a call with my sister, I’ll ask her if emailing him on his home email would be a good idea.

If we are to request on Twitter, ideally we need a common hashtag #RoonIntegration ??

I have posted a tweet with #RoonIntegration to set the ball rolling, but I am a Twitter new boy.

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I agree, I’d sign up to Roon immediately if they integrate Amazon music HD. Currently I’m stuck using Airplay which is limited to 48hz and not great quality on my Naim Uniti Nova. I find Tidal & Qobuz very overpriced for what they offer.

Streaming is just another platform that provides convenient content delivery, its a good business strategy for Roon to support as many of these streaming platforms as they can - and more competition means better pricing and options for consumers.

Unless you’re a major label or mainstream artist you make very little money from streaming anyway so I doubt it makes much difference to an artist which streaming platform you use. In reality the music industry died when Mp3s became a thing and streaming is now used as a tool for exposure for an artist. The real money for an artist is now in live shows, touring and merchandise.

If you really want to support artists buy their content directly, go to their shows, use services like Bandcamp. Streaming makes little to no difference to 99% of them.

I’d love to see BandCamp support for Roon! A platform that is designed to give artists as much control over their output as possible. You get a digital copy of their music which you can stream as much as you want along with a physical product like a CD/Vinyl.

*edited addition: A correction on my statement the music industry died. The music (and rights) industry is doing extremely well and is healthy as ever. What died was regular rockstar sized paychecks for small/niche artists that they could live off without constant touring.

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Amazon High Res is not available in Canada, @Signal2Noise, so you’ll need to continue with your subscription to Tidal. I tried to sign up for Amazon HR but they refused because of my Canadian address on the credit card.

That’s the same response we all get.

I disagree.

A response that mentions Roon by name is not a bad nor a canned response. If it is somehow canned, then their canned system knows about Roon. Wow, that would be great :slight_smile:

…or maybe it was a machine generated AI response… ALEXAAAA!!!

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Or maybe we should all just keep asking … “Alexa, play Roon!”. Surely, that’ll eventually get through.

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No need to be a Twitter expert…

For #’s and @‘s just copy what @miguelito posted above 3 days ago. You can change your own message slightly.

You should also “retweet” his tweet! And “like” it.

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Thanks, I will give it a go!

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