Amazon HD streaming service ...

I'm using it. I use it on an ipad connecting to a Node 2i streamer. It has a very good selection of tracks and the price is much below others. Ultra HD tracks sound great and the HD tracks, too. Not sure if HD tracks are at Redbook quality or lower. Amazon says 856 bps in some places and I'd like clarification on that.

I switched from Spotify Premium to Amazon HD and find the audio quality clearly better in both my living room and office systems. The catalog suits my needs quite well. My impression is that the better your DAC the more difference you'll hear. My only complaint is that the user interface for Amazon has some serious flaws, nothing that will keep you from finding what you want but serious enough to be very annoying.

A service? I’m only familiar with Qobuz to which I moved from Spotify. They have a migration tool that automatically transfered the playlists. Easy peasy.
Only $20 more a year here. More streamers do Qobuz than Amazon.
BubbleUPnP on Qobuz is better than anything on BluOS.

I tried Amazon HD but dropped it. It would not let me get best-quality output on my PC, nor would it send output to a network renderer (streamer). If you look around, you will find those complaints repeated by many. That makes Amazon HD a great solution for listening on a smartphone, but not flexible enough for me to integrate with my hi-fi.


I kept my Qobuz subscription.

"user interface for Amazon has some serious flaws" This is a killer for me! No thank you Amazon.PLUS...
If I were you I would NOT transfer/copy anything from one thing to anywhere, because you can get BANNED for life for doing stuff like that with UTUBE or GMAIL or GOOGLE or any major online business they will label you a SPAM BOTTER and freeze your account. They do not like things being copied and pasted from one place to another in my experience.

Very interesting comments, thank-you all.    Think I will stick with Spotify for now.   

Spotify Premium runs AAC, which they claim has a 320 kbps rate.   Amazon claims true high def at a 12,738 kbps rate.  So, 856 kbps is far below the 12k but higher than 320 kbps.   

Regarding copying playlists - getting banned for moving your playlist over, now that is pretty amazing.

Robert

I suppose I'm a bit confused — because the deals keep changing.

My understanding was that Amazon was $13/month for Prime members and Qobuz (for high res) was $22/month. So…that's not true anymore? I see that Qobuz is available for much less — but is that at high res or mostly CD quality?

Also, does anyone know the depth of the high res catalog, Amazon vs. Qobuz?

Your answers may help me decide whether to quit my service, so thank you in advance for any current information.

P.S. Here are some facts about Amazon:

It's $13/ month for Prime members
"Amazon Music HD offers lossless audio in two quality ranges: HD and Ultra HD. HD tracks are 16-bit audio, with a minimum sample rate of 44.1 kHz (16/44.1 is also referred to as CD-quality), and an average bitrate of 850 kbps. Ultra HD tracks have a bit depth of 24 bits, with sample rates ranging from 44.1 kHz up to 192 kHz, and an average bitrate of 3730 kbps."

hilde45

... Qobuz (for high res) was $22/month. So…that's not true anymore? I see that Qobuz is available for much less — but is that at high res or mostly CD quality?

Qobuz is $15/month or $150/year in the US for unlimited access. It has a lot of hi-res content.

Also, does anyone know the depth of the high res catalog, Amazon vs. Qobuz?

Qobuz offers a free 30-day trial. Why not try it for yourself?

@cleeds 

Qobuz offers a free 30-day trial. Why not try it for yourself?

I have tried it. It's good. But my question is not one that can be answered in this way. It's about the depth of the high-res catalog, in numbers. Early on, Qobuz was criticized for not having that many high-res tracks. I am looking for some numerical comparisons.

I have been on Spotify for a couple of years, and found the interface is great. Being a Amazon prime member I also used the basic music setup occasionally, When they offered Amazon HD, I signed up to check it out. On my home system (Android Smartphone w/ up to 24/96 playback to Unison S6 to Opera Seconda) the quality is much improved with both HD level, and especially Ultra HD. Their interface is still not a smooth as Spotify, but I still use Spotify for the car, patio bluetooth, etc where ultimate resolution is not easily heard. Playlist transfers are actually easy when using a third party app such as Soundiiz, etc. If a particular track is not licensed by one or the other service, if simply does not load it. Hope this helps.