Amber Neely
Amazon has introduced a new lossless audio streaming service titled "Amazon Music Unlimited HD" for those who want to experience their music at a higher quality.
Amazon's Music Unlimited HD gives Amazon customers the chance to stream their favorite songs in higher definition than they would be able to on other services. Currently, Amazon Music HD offers lossless audio on two quality ranges, HD and Ultra HD.
HD tracks are 16-bit audio with a sample rate of 44.1kHz, or CD-quality, and an average bit rate of 850 kilobits per second. Ultra HD tracks 24-bit audio with a sample rate of up to 192kHz, and an average bit rate of 3730 kilobits per second. As Amazon points out, most streaming services only offer standard definition quality music, which reduces some of the detail in order to save on file size.
Because the files are lossless, it should be noted that they are significantly larger. A standard song comes in at just around 9 megabytes, where as an HD song comes in at 50 megabytes. An Ultra HD song comes in at 153 megabytes, meaning that devices will be able to hold less music at higher qualities.
This also means that streaming HD and Ultra HD songs will use up more of your data plan, so it's advised that people with lower data caps listen to music via Wi-Fi or download the music for offline listening later.
Additionally, the quality of the music is going to be heavily dependent on how you're listening to it as well. Playing the music through low-quality speakers is going to render a low-quality result.
Alexa-enabled Echo devices from the second generation and onward, Fire TVs, and Fire Tablets support HD quality audio.
Most iPhones and iPads released since 2014 support HD/Ultra HD playback. Apple AirPlay also supports HD quality playback. Any Mac from 2013 or later can support HD and Ultra HD, as well.
The service $5-$7 more expensive than the standard Amazon Music Unlimited, which costs $7.99, depending whether or not a customer also has Amazon Prime.
You can get a three month free trial when you sign up, and costs $12.99 a month for Amazon Prime members, and $14.99 for everyone else. Amazon Music Unlimited family plan subscribers can upgrade to Amazon Music HD for an additional $5/month.
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Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
Chip Loder
77 Comments
I subscribe to a service called Qobuz. I have to say that the prices from Amazon are really cheap compared to this, about half the price. This is what we keep hoping Apple will be doing.
the biggest question is how good the software is when searching. Never used Amazon’s service.
150+ MBs per song. Man, you really gotta love music to make this worth it. I am clearly not in this demographic.
I have commented here and elsewhere that Apple should offer iTunes tracks in ALAC, which is a lossless format, and an upgrade path for previous purchases like they did with iTunes + years ago. Add in iTunes Match.
That's stupid cheap pricing for hi-def music. Adding more nails to Tidal's service which I found noticeably fuller/cleaner than the standard streaming fare. With Amazon at half the price I don't think there's much opportunity for other streamers to tack on premium lossless services and still find it profitable. IMO Tidal's days just got shorter. Qobuz too and others like them.
I get why there's an increasing attention being paid to bit tech. They can do things for little to no profit, already wealthy beyond all need and cash to burn in the short term in order to corner all the profit in a market and reap benefits later. As a consumer I love it, who wouldn't get great stuff cheap.
..but competition by new entrants is going to be increasingly difficult and "breakthroughs" tougher to bring to market IMO. Almost feels like a cartel developing. Hate to believe that regulators would have to step in but they may.