Amazon HR files
Answered
I have a 3 month trial with Amazon Music. I used to use Tidal which worked perfectly with 24 bit music. On Amazon music, I don't seem to get an HR (or HD) songs listed when i search for music. Is this because they are not included in the free trial or is there a setting I need to enable on Blue node.
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Official comment
BluOS certainly supports Amazon HD and Ultra HD files. I play them all the time.
Please confirm that you have the Amazon Music Unlimited tier subscription. As you need that subscription level to access their HD/Ultra HD material. You can also see if you have access to that quality level on the desktop or mobile Amazon apps.
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Just to add - the compressed files played through my high end hifi sound dreadful.
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I have an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. In my AM profile settings, I have audio quality set to HD/Ultra HD. I can see the track resolution when streaming AM through my Node and all tracks play at the highest available resolution. I'm not aware of any additional setting required on the Node. I assume that the tracks play at highest resolution according to my AM profile settings.
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I don't think it is even dependent on the Amazon's profile settings. I think BluOS pulls the highest quality file available automatically via it's API. You can have different audio settings in Amazon's apps (desktop, android, web interface) and they are independent of each other so it's not a centralized setting.
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I'm on Amazon HD, free 3 month trial. I'm getting HR as well. I think the issue is the search function. The interface on Amazon BluOs is very poor. I complained about it recently.
You can only see if it is HR on the track playing display, but that does not tell you the resolution.
I'm finding some albums jump around from HR to.CD on different tracks, these are not compilations.I won't be continuing with Amazon after the trial, the interface is pants. On Amazon music not on BluOs the interface is much better, similar to Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer.
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I think you have to click on the little "HR" icon and then it will display the actual specific file info.
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OK, I will try that later.
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So why are Amazon mixing HR and CD on the same album, usually it is the same all the way through, on other streaming services.
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What format is available is determined by the publishers I believe.
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Seems strange. I have noticed the first track is HR and sometimes the second, then the rest is only CD. On Qobuz the whole album is HR. Tidal also stays the same.
Seems Amazon are being a bit sneaky, labelling albums as UHD when only 1 or 2 tracks are UHD. Good for their numbers.
Another reason I won't be subscribing.
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In all fairness to Amazon, they advertise their UHD content via track number (7 million) not album number.
Do you have any true numbers to compare UHD content across different platforms to show that Amazon is deficient compared to other providers? And we need to exclude Tidal MQA as that is just garbage lossy audio.
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I don't have numbers. Qobuz say they had the most HR albums, not sure if that is still the case. At least they don't mix up albums. The problem is Amazon say it is UHD on the album but most of it may not be. Very misleading.
Amazon say "OVER 7 MILLION SONGS IN ULTRA HD" out of 100m, so about 7%, not very high.
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"7% not very high". I don't have any context for that statement. Again, show me the comparison numbers.
That's like me saying my car is "very fast." Compared to what, me running or an airplane?
I don't know if Quboz has more HR tracks. I know it's a lot more expensive than Amazon Music,... about twice the cost. So I suppose they better have more and better content to justify the additional cost.
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It is not a lot more expensive, it is £10.83 pm, Amazon is £10.99 pm now.
7% as a proportion.
Amazon UI is the worst I've tried.
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When I go to Quboz, it says it's $129.99 per year. Amazon is $90 per year (presuming you are a prime member, which if you are looking at Amazon you probably are). You can make Amazon even cheaper if you have their free credit card which is 5% back for any amazon purchases. These are US prices which represent their number one market and also no "special one time offers" like the very common "your first 3 months are free" that Amazon seems to be constantly running for first time users, just their standard price. It may be different in other places so I can't comment on that.
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I'm not a Prime member. I got Amazon HD free for 3 months. You can get Qobuz free for 60 days. Don't think Amazon are doing their card here anymore, had one once but it was cancelled. They contracted it out to New Day "Our partnership with NewDay has now ended and NewDay has contacted all cardholders."
New Day were awful.
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Sounds like if you are in the UK it is a significantly worse deal than for us in the USA.
As for direct comparison of HR music availability, I really can't comment without comparing actual numbers. It's 7+ million tracks on Amazon, that's all I know. Not sure why other services are keeping this a secret?
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So what is it without Prime? $10.99 pm apparently, so hardly any difference.
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I think my point is that if you are already in the Amazon ecosystem, buy the yearly plan, have prime, and use their credit card (which is available here for free), it really does make a significant difference.
Also, we still are not sure whether HR selection is better/worse as Quboz doesn't seem to want to publish their numbers.
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Prime is a waste of money for me. I hardly buy anything from Amazon. When I do I get free postage. They don't have a credit card in the UK, and if it is with New Day, I don't want it anyway.
Prime is £8.99 pm or £95 per annum.
Out of Qobuz, Deezer, Tidal and Amazon, Amazon would be last, the interface on BluOs is awful, the others have fairly similar interfaces, much better than Amazon. Amazon and Bluesound don't seem interested in improving it. I have not tried Tidal Connect yet, which has HR flac files, maybe after my Amazon trial I will try it. Not interested in MQA.
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