Amazon Launches Lossless "Hi-rez" HD Music Service

I have a TIDAL account with a Scott Nixon dac so no hi-rez necessary. Do you think switching over to Amazon is worthwhile? Yes I have a Prime account.

Today is the day High Resolution Audio went mainstream. This will do much, much more than "disrupt things a bit." The implications for our hobby are significant.

I’m excited for the wider catalog access, but truly excited for what this means for impact on hardware (major) choices and software support solutions.

Normally you get trickle down, but in this case we will get the opposite...a trickle up effect. Good news for everyone.

As a single example, can you imagine the impact on sales for Audioquest’s Dragonfly Cobalt....or OEM DAC chips...

I wonder where Amazon is going to go with 3rd party hardware integration. 

Got the email today. Over 50 million songs at CD quality. Maybe I'll get that Amazon Prime account after all and experiment. If it is good, it'll disrupt things a bit, and that would be a good thing.

All the best,
Nonoise

You are welcome.

Spotify is still the leader in our markets (Western) with 100 million plus paid subscribers to Amazon's ~ 32 million plus paid.

@david_ten 

Thanks for the info.  This indeed looks promising.  Certainly not the first time Amazon has undercut the market and killed competitors.

Will there be a discount for Prime members?

Yes.

And Spotify will need to follow suit (finally)!!!

Will there be a discount for Prime members?

Interesting development.

@tuberist  The catalog rivals Spotify's catalog. No MQA (that I know of). The key (for us) will be how the different services adopt and integrate it into their systems. In my case, Roon.

David, thanks for posting. I'm hoping Amazon has a deep catalogue and the GUI is easy to use. I have a Lumin T2 streamer dac and expect Lumin will update their software so I can access.

An early demo from CNBC:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/amazon-music-hd-promises-high-quality-music-difference-hard-to-hear.html

"Maybe I need better headphones, not a cheapo set that came in the box with a phone....The point is: Sound quality is not just about file size..."    : )