Amazon HD Streaming

[richardfinegold]

Has Amazon announced a HD streaming service in the U.K.? Here they released this week with 50 million tracks. It’s priced about 2/3 the cost of Qobuz or Tidal with a 15% discount for Prime Members.
I suppose it’s inevitable that Amazon would go after this market, although it can’t be very lucrative compared to compressed services such as Apple or Spotify. Presumably with their endless cash reserves Amazon will drive Tidal and Qobuz into insolvency and then engage in monopolistic pricing.

[jayne lee wilson]

Here's their lowdown......

https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=9977826031

Trouble is, as e.g. JRiver displays it, lossless should be 1411 kbps, 24/96 - 4608, 24/192 - 9216......it may be (as Amazon says - "up to 850/3730" etc) that they are using variable bitrates, but the exact implementation may be harder to determine...

The "Concert Sound" FLAC lossless 2017 Proms topped out around 550kbps IIRC, very good but still audibly lower-res than CD itself...

I'd hope there will still be a viable market for the better-presented less misleading product, and one that plays on something like Audirvana etc....

[johnb]

From what I have read Amazon's new "HD" streaming is CD quality, i.e. 16/44.1, not HiRes. They seemingly call HiRes "Ultra HD".

One annoying thing is that Amazon isn't providing a open, public API to enable third party devices to stream their "HD". Unlike Qobuz, Spotify, Tidal. They seem to be restricting the API to certain approved companies.

[richardfinegold]

From what I have read Amazon's new "HD" streaming is CD quality, i.e. 16/44.1, not HiRes. They seemingly call HiRes "Ultra HD".

One annoying thing is that Amazon isn't providing a open, public API to enable third party devices to stream their "HD". Unlike Qobuz, Spotify, Tidal. They seem to be restricting the API to certain approved companies.

Yes, I chose not to adopt Amazon’s confusing terminology. Apparently, 90% of their content will be 16/44.1, and up to 10% will be at higher resolution

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, I chose not to adopt Amazon’s confusing terminology. Apparently, 90% of their content will be 16/44.1, and up to 10% will be at higher resolution

...but it seems to be semi-skim.... I'll stick with Full-Cream thanks....

[richardfinegold]

...but it seems to be semi-skim.... I'll stick with Full-Cream thanks....

I don’t plan to switch from Qobuz either, if for no other reason that my experience with Amazon is that they have not mastered gapless play. My fear, however, is that they will undercut Qobuz and take enough subscribers away to drive them and others out of the market

[Bryn]

I don’t plan to switch from Qobuz either, if for no other reason that my experience with Amazon is that they have not mastered hapless play. My fear, however, is that they will undercut Qobuz and take enough subscribers away to drive them and others out of the market

I disagree. Hapless play well desribes my Amazon experience.

[richardfinegold]

I disagree. Hapless play well desribes my Amazon experience.

Duly edited, although I agree the autocorrect did make some sense there....