New Amazon streaming music-free for Prime members

Yes, very interesting. They're giving you access to songs
in their library as part of Amazon PRime. I guess my music
library just did get bigger. Now I just need to stream from
Amazon cloud to my DAC. I'll have to try to add the url to
Squeezebox internet radio and see if that works.

I use Amazon Prime and Amazon cloud player already. With
CLoud
player you can upload several hundred music files for free,
unlimited for a yearly fee.

I use it to listen while on the road or at work mainly via
headphones. Works great and sounds quite good.

The caveat is that you can only upload songs that is in
Amazon's library. I find a good number of things I cannot
upload as a result, some quite surprising. That's the
biggest limitation I see currently.

Also note that when you "upload" a file to your
cloud account, I don't think you are actually uploading
anything though, rather you are gaining access to the copy
of the file in their library that already exists. Not sure
what format that might be in or what resolution, or even if
the same mastering in all cases. But I do find everything
sounds quite good, whatever is actually going on out there
on "the cloud". Volume levels seem uniformly well
matched as well which is an extra bonus.

I also just acquired an Amazon Fire TV box, looking to
retire cable. I am interested in using the Plex app on
that to output my music files to the DAC on my system, an
alternative to Squeezebox system I currently use.

Cool stuff.

My price point is $7.99 per month, no more. With the intense competition I don't think I will be waiting long.

Amazon CLoud Player is now updated and called "Amazon Music" apparently.

Amazon Prime now includes access to some but not near all of Amazon's music library.

If you have AMazon Prime, you can add music files labeled "PRime" in the Amazon music library to your own cloud based library, but can only download these to some mobile devices, not home computer music libraries.

THe Amazon music app can be installed to various devices, including PCs, tablets, and phones, but ironically not yet on Amazon's own Android-based Fire TV media streamer device. I am waiting for that to happen now. Music can also be streamed using the Amazon music web site without installing the app, similar to AMazon CLoud Player prior.

I have read the streaming rate is pretty high quality for internet streaming these days, 256-kpbs. I think it sends compressed data similar to mp3 lossy compression, so actual sound quality may come close to CD quality, or close enough to not matter much in many cases.

I find 256-kpbs to deliver very good quality sound from other internet sources available via SQueezebox TOuch on my main system currently, but have not tried Amazon PRime Music streaming other than to portable devices with good headphones so far. Sounds very good there!

WIth the better quality streaming music sources out there today, either higher bandwidth home network based, or lower bandwidth internet based, the sound quality can be quite good on the overall scale of things, when done well. If one were just listening, and not aware of the source, I suspect it would be hard to tell the difference from a good quality CD resolution source in most cases. At least that is what I am finding these days.

Its the best time ever to be a lover of both music and good sound, no doubt. Will surely only get better moving forward as well in that the limits possible have clearly not been breached in practice for the most part, yet.