Amazon just killed Tidal

Don, how are you making the streaming connection? What's your hardware setup? Would you please comment on the catalogue when you get a chance?

I suspect there may be a lot of firmware updates coming on our streamers to accommodate the new service if it proves to be embraced by the market.

I just set up a few minutes ago.

I downloaded the iOS and Mac computer apps.

The high Rez is 24 96.

More in a few days after I explore the service.

The source music in ultra HD is 24bit 96khz, but what you get depends on the playback device.
There is tons of music in ultra HD, at first glance.
The rest is CD quality or what Amazon calls HD.
You can download the songs to your device.
90 day free trial.

This apparently has Neil Young’s blessing and he says this is big for the future of music, so there you go. A big player like Amazon streaming hi-rez audio? I’ve been waiting for that to happen. He’s probably right.

This will be like a baby boom for audiophiles!!!!  Let's all rejoice!

Is it Roon ready/compatible? I just signed up for Qobuz and am comparing it to Tidal. Qobuz sounds better. Amazon must be Roon ready or no go for me.  Doubt it will sound as good as the $24 top Qobuz offering.

On my iPad with Audioquest Cobalt and headphones I get 24bit 96khz playback on the ultra HD songs!

This is a game changer!

How is it a game changer vs Tidal and Qobuz?

10 million ultra HD 24 196 songs. That beats Tidal and Qobuz.

Seems like it matters which 10 million tracks those are?

Also, I don't know where you are getting 10 million. Every article I read just says "millions" which is the same language Qobuz uses. And Qobuz has 40 million in CD quality. Are you sure you don't work for Amazon? Seem like a fanboy without being objective.

@mayoradamwest

Betting against Amazon has proved to be rather pointless. I think its awesome that a well capitalized company who also happens to be the largest seller of physical media music is a game changer. I subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz presently and Tidal is likely to be the odd man out. I am already an Amazon Prime so this will be great. I also bet the Amazon music app will be much better than the others.

I just signed up and only see 12 'ultra hd' albums available. Am I missing something?

Sorry I am raining on your parade where you declared Tidal dead. I guess the only people allowed to comment are those who agree with you initial assertion. 

I don’t love the interface. (Apple is so much more user friendly)  Is there an app to control your computer from an iPad?

I just upgraded to Amazon Music HD and I got it for free for 90 days. I am planning to get the family plan so that my cousins and brother will be able to enjoy music streaming using my account. 

Tidal will get my money for the time being considering they give a generous and material military/veteran discount, like half off the cost. But I’m happy if Amazon HD streaming works for some consumers...

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/news/

This is where the 10 million High Rez songs on Amazon Music comes from.

How Many High Rez songs does Qobuz have????

I just signed up and started streaming one of their jazz playlists.
Of the first 10 songs shown, 5 were redbook and 5 were hi res.

I’m already a Prime member and I’m looking forward to trying their service.

JD

It seems to be just $14.95 per month without Prime which is a good price.

If you include the cost for Prime the total seems to become between $21 and $26 per month. Seems like higher price than Tidal or Qobuz but it is of course good if you already have or want Prime.

This is awesome! Thanks for posting.

I’ll ask again. Is it Roon ready? For the many many Roon users that is a must. Also, the numbers don’t tell you if it will sound better. You need to listen to know that. I find Qobuz to sound better than Tidal, in Roon, playing files at the exact same 16/44.1. Qobuz is warmer and less forward. It is more at ease. I like that more while others will like the more aggressive Tidal sound. Like all things audio, this is subjective. We Aphiles will buy the service that sounds the best to us. How the service sounds is more than the numbers!

So really cant say one will kill the other. For us, it all about subjective sound quality and I am sure these services sound different. More competition is great and will force prices down and/or increase the product quality.  Very good for all of us! 

Does it work with music streamers like the Aurender?

I cannot get HD yet!  I called Amazon and they said that it hasn't been rolled out to my account yet. 

Anyone else only seeing Amazon Unlimited not Amazon Unlimited HD? 

I don't see any stream quality indicators and nothing that screams "HD" on the app or in chrome browser.

I’m a prime subscriber and most of my work is with AWS these days, so I am going to have to give this a whirl sometime soon.

I would attempt to run it on my Amazon Fire box and definitely on various ios devices I already own. I already use those with Plex to stream from my music library to my main system via lightning connector to usb to portable Chord Mojo DAC out to pre-amp line in (or straight to headphones) and that is already CD quality and sounds very good, where I spend 90+% of my serious listening time these days, , so expecting similar or better here depending on quality of source material.

If I can figure a way to run on my older Squeeze devices that I still normally use, that would be a bonus.

This definitely looks like a game changer that provides an easy path for most people who listen to music on iphones and other portable devices to upgrade their sound quality and plug into good old fashioned amps and speakers even if desired.

Could be the best thing that has happened in the last 20 years or so for the audiophile world and its vendors (except for those selling proprietary source devices).   Similar in magnitude potentially to hifi stereo records in the 50s and CDs in teh 80s. Hey its another 30 years since that now......just in time!

Even better if the others competing for online music streaming market like Apple and Spotify follow suit. Look for Tidal and other small providers to get purchased and integrated into these larger vendor platforms.

Definitely a step in the right direction.

Now let's get the fr***ing (re)mastering sorted out!

At the least give us all the option of compressed or non compressed downloads. Then we might finally see what digital is really capable of.

“Amazon just killed Tidal”

Not so fast.....i’ve signed up with Amazon HD Music. The HD selection is pretty scant. 

Now the positive, the SQ is excellent in 44.1kHz and high resolution (upto 96kHz). I have yet to come across anything beyond 96kHz resolution. If HD catalog grows like Tidal/Qobuz then for me Amazon will be a bargain at $12.99/monthly or $130/yearly.  

If it’s not Roon compatible or amazon doesn’t stream MQA, it’s a non-starter for me

 I use Plex and Squeeze in my house currently.  Also Plex for remote access.

I'd like to see Plex integrate.  If Roon integrates I might consider that.

Thing is I read Roon does not provide remote access which I use a lot so Plex will not go away until some better option for that comes along.   Hi Res Amazon streaming integrated with my own music library would be a very big +.

Thanks Don _c55 . I contacted Joseph Parvey of Wolf Audio to see if his streamer/servers would support it . He not only said yes ,he remotely installed it and set it up for me. Talk about customer service!

I tried Amazon music a few months back as it came with Amazon Prime free.
Interface was sloppy imho and did not seem to be any way to bookmark complete albums.
I have zero interest in a collection of individual songs or playlists.
So unless that has changed it holds no interest for myself.

I purchased and downloaded a Led Zeppelin song at 24/96 and the spectrum shows a brick wall filter at 20K like it is an upsampled redbook CD, it may be a 24/96 file but it is only about 5 Mb compared to the same song at 24/96 from HDtracks that is over 90 mB... In preferences I chose to buy and download at Ultra HD resolution. The Amazon file is also MP3.... something fishy at Amazon I think

I got this on another forum

"Those settings are for the "offline listening" downloads that are tied to your Amazon Music / Music HD player and streaming subscription. Cancel your streaming subscription and they're gone.

Purchased downloads that you can keep permanently come from the regular Amazon store, in MP3 only. From Amazon's perspective it's natural to cross-sell, but I think a lot of customers are going to be confused and unhappy

.

so even though in Amazon you have the option to select HD downloads after you purchase a song, you only get an MP3 file when you do it

It is not Roon-compatible at present, nor does it work with most streamers. But that is just a matter of time. What is bad is that it is unlikely ever to work with Chromecast Audio, which is a real shame.

My prediction: I think this will kill off Tidal and MQA. I think Qobuz may survive but I am not by any means certain. I also suspect Apple will follow to hi-res but am not so sure about Spotify, at least not in the short to medium term.

Take this for what it is worth, as I am about as tech savvy as your run-of-the-mill orangutan. With that said, I have been a subscriber to TIDAL for a year or so, which I stream through my Aurender X100L server. In the past, I had Amazon, but moved to TIDAL for the better resolution.

When I read this thread a couple of nights ago and saw there was a free trial, I decided to give Amazon HD a whirl. I found I couldn’t use it with my iPad, which is too old for the download. However, I was able to download it on my Mac laptop, and then had no problems linking it with my Aurender wirelessly. Granted, it shows that I am getting "only" redbook resolution, which I assume will improve only when Aurender gets on board and integrates Amazon HD as it has with TIDAL? I look forward to learning more about this from more experienced, knowledgeable folks on this issue.

What I can say is that even with redbook resolution, it sounds very good to me. I’ve only had a short time to play with it, but I will get a better handle this weekend on comparisons between the new and improved Amazon and ripped files both in FLAC and WAV on my Aurender. So far, I am pleased with what I’ve heard and optimistic that better things are yet to come.

Can anybody answer if you can now get complete albums as opposed to just individual tracks?
For example on both Tidal and Qobuz you bookmark or favourite the albums you want to then revisit anytime from "your favourite" tab.
Can Amazon now do this?
It could not earlier in the year.

I received this notice from Bluesound........Bluesound users in select regions can subscribe to Amazon Music’s all-new lossless streaming tiers, Amazon Music HD and Ultra HD....Now available in the US, UK, Germany and Japan, you can learn how to add Amazon Music to your BluOS system. I'll give this a shot.

@lwin 

Solid shoutout for Joe Parvey! His shop is just down the street from my house. He’s the real deal...that Wolf audio interface is no joke, outstanding on all levels!

You can definitely get albums on Amazon I did listen to a playlist yesterday and a lot of the songs were in 24 96 I use a bluesound node 2 into a mytek brooklyn dac

Based on my understanding, Amazon needs to build an API for music servers, like the Aurender, Innuos, etc., to use to build their Server Apps (like the Aurender Conductor App) to interface to Amazon. This will take some time. We will see.

I am ready to use Amazon Streaming on my Aurender server. Any info on when Amazon will release their API (if ever)?

I will have to take another look at Amazon music. I checked it out about a year ago and the selection of albums was definitely lacking in the Progressive Rock genre. I use Tidal, full albums savable to favorites and downloadable. The bill goes to my monthly Sprint bill with a discount. Also, the Tidal app is preloaded on my Oppo BDP-105. Sounds great through my MCIntosh system.

Because I cancelled Amazon’s Music Unlimited two months ago I am not eligible for the 90 day free trial. I have Prime so it says I have to subscribe to a minimum of three months at $7.99 a month for HD then it would go up to $12.99. I canceled Unlimited because I did not like that it was mainly song and playlist oriented and not Album oriented like Tidal. I stuck with Unlimited for a few month and decided I liked the Tidal user interface and content much better. So unless there is a major change with how Amazon HD offers albums and ways to save them in favorite lists I will stick with Tidal.

The king is dead. Long live the king.

Exactly this above!

And unless they change their format to resemble Qobuz to be album based and not copying iTunes and being song and playlist based it will never get my attention.

Maybe I am the odd one out but I have NEVER created a playlist in my life as I prefer to listen to a full album even if it does contain a few clunkers.

I guess that habit follows on from analog background where you play a side of vinyl all the way through and not leaping up and down to cue up and skip a track ( at least I dont!).

A plugin for Logitech media server, please...

@uberwaltz, I agree that Amazon Streaming needs to change their format to be album based and not song based. 

I always listen to albums and not individual songs.  

I’ve used Spotify for 2 years, Tidal for 6 (?), and Qobuz for 1 month now.  I prefer Qobuz HiRes over MQA.  I just downloaded Amazon HD so we’ll see.  What i do like though is that all my Rodrigo y Gabriela albums are there and many are in HD.  Same with Metallica.  Tidal and Qobuz have no older Metallica...

Anyhow, my dragonfly dac is stuck thinking all these Amazon tracks are Hi-Res when they aren’t.  Is there a Wasapi Exclusive Mode, like on Qobuz?

So, everything I’ve compared between Qobuz vs Amazon, Qobuz is destroying Amazon.

Rush 2112 on Amazon sounds like an MP3 in comparison.  

Again, my dac is showing 96khz on everything in Amazon, even when its 44.1khz... am I missing a settings option on the Amazon desktop app?