Integration of Amazon Music High Resolution

Roon isn’t even a mote in Amazon’s eye.

Amazon Music exists to promote sales of Amazon audio equipment - that’s where the money is.

Amazon seems very happy to integrate with hardware vendors whose products they can sell e.g. Wiim Home devices. Perhaps Roon should look at selling their subscriptions through Amazon? Or maybe better not!

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+1 Here. Amazon’s HD Music has a collection that is vastly larger than Qobuz and Tidal combined. It would be nice to see more diversity in streaming platforms that Roon supports.

Any word on whether this is on the radar for inclusion into Roon?

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It entirely depends on Amazon’s willingness to cooperate, and as far as anyone can tell, they don’t seem to be very eager.

-1, Amazon’s music catalog has no integrity - play an album and you get a mix of different mastering of tracks, always the highest resolution version of any given track. Much better using Qobuz, or even Tidal if you don’t mind lossy.

@Patrick_Conroy - Would you please supply the documentation/reference to the statement that Amazon uses, as you put it, “…a mix of different mastering of tracks…” ? Especially in comparison to Qobuz? Are you saying that the same album on Qobuz is mastered differently? Please elaborate on that as it’s quite the statement against Amazon’s music quality. I assume you’re talking about their HD Music offering. Really like to see some evidence to what you’re talking about.

Two examples

  1. Dire Straits 1978 debut album - if you play this album on Amazon, tracks 1 (Down to the Waterline) and 6 (Sultans of Swing) are 192/24 while the rest of the album is Redbook (44/16). These two tracks to me sound like they are from the 2022 remastered version of the Money For Nothing compilation album. Personally, I prefer the sound of the original versions. On Qobuz you get original Redbook versions of these tracks. I no longer subscribe to Tidal, but I believe they had the correct versions as well.

  2. Steely Dan’s "A Decade of Steely Dan’ - tracks 3 (Babylon Sisters) and 6 (Hey Nineteen) are 96/24 while the rest of the album is 44/16. As these two tracks are from the Gaucho album, which was rereleased in 96/24 one must assume the files were pulled from that album. Again, Qobuz has the correct original Redbook versions.

I know some people may think I am picking nits here, which I may be, but when other streaming services such as Tidal and Qobuz can get it right I see no need for one that doesn’t appear to care about details.

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I’m not sure about that. Some albums I bought from Qobuz have tracks with different copyright in the metadata. I think the format is the same for all, but it’s still suspicious.

I’ve seen similar things where some songs are mastered or even remastered differently. One that comes to mind is Depeche Mode’s Construction Time Again (Open Qobuz) on Qobuz. The first 10 tracks are remasters and the rest are thrown in.

I’ve also had significant streaming quality issues on Amazon’s HD Music when in the car. I’ve set their quality to stream as the highest possible yet one album consistently sounds terrible in the car and great at home (Depeche Mode’s Live in Berlin). Can’t figure out the rhyme or reason their streaming service seems to sound like mp3 128 bit (yes, it’s that bad sometimes). I can listen to the same song in the car using Tidal and it sounds great.

So I agree with you but I can’t seem to quantify what’s going on with Amazon’s service. At home the service sounds comparable to Tidal, but in the car not so much. Perhaps their streaming algorithm is just substandard when compared to Tidal’s (and Qobuz’s as well).

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I do feel it’s germane.

I am a lifetime member of Roon so Roon team you don’t have to listen to me because you got my money already :slight_smile:

But kindly provide Amazon integration. My reasons are as the hundreds of posts in this thread asking for this same feature.

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I am in exactly the same situation as yourself RoonFan! I’m still unsure as to what the problem is. Until Roon is integrated with the major streaming services, it will always be a niche player providing an excellent technology to Qobuz and Tidal, but falling short of its true potential. Of course, it may be a commercial thing - perhaps the agreements with the current streaming services specifically exclude the use of Roon for Amazon, Spotify, Deezer etc. or it could just be too hard technically. But, like yourself, as a Lifetime member, it would be nice to know!

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Eyes on the ball please, gents – I removed a few posts discussing the players rather than the game.

As always – it you’d like a post looked at, just flag it. We’ll be along.

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interesting stat:

The company interviewed 4,001 Americans about which free or paid music services they had used at least once in the last month, and according to the findings for music listeners, Amazon’s services are level-pegging with Spotify on 35% penetration. This includes listeners to Amazon’s bundled Prime Music service as well as its paid Music Unlimited tier, and both the free and premium tiers of Spotify.

The findings suggest Amazon Music has pulled away from Apple Music (which the survey suggests is used by 19% of US music listeners). Pandora scores 23% in the survey; SiriusXM 21%, iHeartRadio 15% and SoundCloud 10%, although the top-ranked platform – not the headline since it’s not a surprise – is YouTube and YouTube Music with 61%.

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Amazon needs to fix their apps . Library management is horrific.

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Amazon would be a perfect fit for Roon because its the only way I would subscribe to their service. Their mobile apps are the worst of all the streaming services by a large margin.

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Hi Where has Roon posted about integration of Amazon HD please…

Would not hurt to have three?

yes there are so many possibilities and a lot of conversations to be had by the giants in music streaming with Roon

Danny Dulai (Roon Labs Founder) has posted 14 messages in this thread. To read them, go to the first post in this thread, click on his Avatar, and then on the “14 posts in topic” button…

Roon 2226

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