Amazon announced it will start an Amazon Music HD service.
I hope it works out because I found our systems to be much better than the music we get streaming. You can download HQ playlists as well.

I can’t drive for another month due to my being in recovery from heart surgery, but I am really looking forward to seeing if this is a significant improvement in the real world.

If anyone tries it, please chime in.

 

Feel better and speedy recovery to you!

 

Hope you have a good recovery Madd Dog. I just signed up for the 3 month trial on this. Currently downloading Led Zepplin II in Ultra HD. Will report back what my Advance's speakers sound like when I get the chance.

 

Just joined Amazon Music myself while being a Tidal listener. Will play with downloading, carplay, and interface for a week or so before cancelling Tidal, which I will do, if Amazon shows well. So far, its going well. Listened to Muse and Motels on the way home last night after downloading on my iphone. Sounds great.

 

can you really tell the difference?

 

Well, that is part of the test...if you can't tell, then why waste the money? It's free for 3 months, might as well give it a try, and see...no?

 

i guess your right, but between sat-radio that came wth the rdx and spotify, kinda feels a bit much ton jump from one service to another

 

Well, played the album (Led Zeppelin II - remaster) on both Apple Music (SD) and via the Amazon Music App (Ultra HD), to be honest they sounded much the same. One thing to note, I played both via the USB to lightning connection, and as I understand it (reading through the interwebs) the max sampling rate Apple passes via this route is 24bit/48kHz which is less than the advertised 24bit/192kHz sampling rate available from Amazon Music HD. Not sure if there is a way to get more out of the Amazon Music version, and if it would matter in the vehicle.

 

I keep reading the word "download" in this thread in the context of the new Amazon offering. Does this mean it is possible to download actual mp3 or aac files or it is all kept behind software and not directly accessible? Ideally I would like to have these songs on a USB stick.

 

‘offline’ use. It will download to your device, but will only be available from within the app. But when you do this via wifi at home or elsewhere, you use no data and deal with no connection problems on the road.

 

Very correct. You can't get access the physical files on the phone or the PC. You can rip to flac/aac/mp3 if you choose using other software.
Comparing Tidal and Amazon HD, no, your not gonna hear any difference. (all lossless) I wanted to see how cooperative Carplay was and how the interface was on the desktop/mobile. All works fine. The desktop/mobile Amazon Interface is the same, but different than Tidal and Spotify. (I prefer Tidal) It's all what you get used to. So the fact that you can get 24/96 (Ultra HD) from Amazon at a lower price overall (Tidal), even though hard to detect the difference, is still worth the price point. Tidal has a different audience and different offerings, which I don't use, so my vote is going towards Amazon for now. (also, if you like lyrics, amazon offers that on most songs also). As for Spotify, you got ads if you dont pay, right? another reason to pay for a service. A good 320 bitrate MP3 can sound pretty good, not debating that. I can tell the difference, even in the car. And diskspace is cheap.

 

Madd Dog --

I hope your recovery goes well and you get behind the wheel when ready.

I joined the Free upgrade yesterday afternoon. My initial testing was done using my Sennheiser wireless headphones. Very satisfied with the service using that platform. The only issue I see is the size of the files themselves. I have a 128G card in my android phone right now and can use up to a 2B card, so I will be looking soon.

I listened to a few samples in my RDX last evening when I got home from work and I was once again pleasantly surprised. Marked improvement sonically IMHO. Worth an additional $13 to Amazon? Depends on the listener's audiofile status I'm guessing.


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