WYP
News Guru
Both "HD" and "Ultra HD" audio quality levels will be available to users.
Read more about Amazon's Music HD service.
Read more about Amazon's Music HD service.
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Amazon Launches Music HD Streaming for Higher Quality Audio
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
Nobody calls it "HD". It's Hi-Fi for audio. That drives me crazy.
Wouldn't use it it's expensive. I will stick to Tidal. They already offer the highest quality Master tracks
Wouldn't use it it's expensive. I will stick to Tidal. They already offer the highest quality Master tracks
I have both Tidal and Amazon...
Amazon is actually referring to high-res audio as "UHD" which...makes me cringe too. BUT, Tidal only has about 7,000 high-res (better than CD quality) tracks available, while Amazon is touting over 1 million. Bit more to offer! Now, I will say that the UI through my BluOS device is a bit of a trainwreck on Amazon...but the sound quality is there, it's cheaper, and it has a larger library. So I will most likely kill my Tidal subscription and stick with Amazon.
Amazon is actually referring to high-res audio as "UHD" which...makes me cringe too. BUT, Tidal only has about 7,000 high-res (better than CD quality) tracks available, while Amazon is touting over 1 million. Bit more to offer! Now, I will say that the UI through my BluOS device is a bit of a trainwreck on Amazon...but the sound quality is there, it's cheaper, and it has a larger library. So I will most likely kill my Tidal subscription and stick with Amazon.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
Amazon in my experience still offers lower bitrats even if the source is good. Just sounds awful. Plus looking at the store there is no current way yet to get "HD" audio and no way to tell if it is actually a Master quality track or a compressed file.
It's not more common. In audio, it's always referred to as Hi-Fi and has been for decades.
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Yes, there IS, when I play it back on my Bluesound Node 2i, there is an icon that specifies the quality. Most tracks are "CD" but if it's high res, it's noted. And you can playback in HD quality from any BluOS device or through the desktop app.
It's not more common. In audio, it's always referred to as Hi-Fi and has been for decades.
In audio, there is not any standard for naming. High-Resolution, Hi-Res, HiFi, HD...all are used, and all are acceptable. Hifi just means "high fidelity" and doesn't equate to any specific bitrate or resolution.
I would avoid stating your OPINIONS as fact. You are, in fact, wrong, and the way you worded your response makes you sound like an ass. Just a friendly tip.
AlienALX
Well-known member
Probably because your parents were still kids when Hi Fi came about.
There is such a thing as hi res audio. You can learn about it here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m31r1GHPPdA
It's limited to Japan only, IIRC, and you need a DAC that costs more than your PC to decode it properly.
As for this Amazon crap? I'm still not sold. They keep trying to get me to sub but I have enough subs for now.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
Not an opinion but thank you very much.
I went to the amazon page and found nothing of the sort on "HD" audio. No pricing plans, nothing.
Even went to songs that I know are master quality and did not get any indication of it being so. maybe... just MAYBE, it's not available yet in some locations and is a reason I am not seeing it. Must be hard to think about that when you are so busy trying to be a know it all.
So instead of saying I am an ass when in fact I am relaying information from what I am seeing, take your own advice and word responses to not make yourself look like an ass.
Hi-Fi equates to anything above CD Quality. As do the others. There is no standard except for being above 16bit/44.1khz. As since you can make whatever bit rate or hz you want, it's not standardized. The popular ones like 24bit/48khz,96khz, or 196khz could be technically standardized as they are often the only ones used. Though I have seen a 76khz album before.
Hi-Fi has been a term used forever. Suggesting I am being rude for pointing that out is laughable. Yeah there are others, but everyone I talk to always refers to it as Hi-Fi.
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AlienALX
Well-known member
https://youtu.be/D7tMy1eA9DQ
Was a big thing late 70s early 80s. Was the replacement for Mono. Well, stereo "hi fi" was.
Was a big thing late 70s early 80s. Was the replacement for Mono. Well, stereo "hi fi" was.
Dawelio
Active member
It was meant to say more of ”I guess it’s to be more of a ”common” term, as most things today are called HD in a way... TV channels, picture quality etc.
When did it come about then? Since I doubt you’re older than my parents...
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
All good. HD is just the universal word for basically better nowadays
Hi-Fi is a term that originates from the 1940's, massively predates CDs so while some may use it refer to better than CD quality now it's definitely not a strict definition and traditionally has always meant just "Better than mainstream quality". Back then it basically meant "post war tech", Germans created very advanced tech for the concepts of recording and reproducing audio and after WWII when American companies wanted to commercialise the concepts they called all the new tech they borrowed(Combined with other developments) "High-Fidelity"(Soon shortened to HiFi for marketing materials), as opposed to the traditional AM radios and 78 rpm vinyls.
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looz
Active member
What's so confusing? High definition makes sense with audio as well, it's all marketing wankery anyway.
What matters is lossy vs. lossless, sample rate and bit depth. And they provide those values as well on the source article:
What matters is lossy vs. lossless, sample rate and bit depth. And they provide those values as well on the source article:
- Amazon HD: FLAC, 16 bit, 44.1kHz
- Amazon Ultra HD: FLAC, 24 bit, 192kHz
Yeah this, for playback alone Nyquist's theorem dictates that 40kHz is adequate for the full range of human hearing, we only really need to go abit above that to account for foldback aliasing at the to end of the frequency range, so having crazy sample rates means nothing for playback quality to a human ear.
Of course bits per sample is one that's impossible to pin down but no blind testing has ever indicated a human can appreciate the difference in fidelity between having 65000+ different values per sample(16-bit) or millions(24-bit), in fact it's likely that almost all hardware is incapable of physically conveying this difference as we'd be talking differences in physical movements in the cone assembly in the speaker(Excursion) of nanometers. Even assuming a large max excursion of say 10cm in a very large speaker, the fidelity of 16-bit audio would mean one value for every 152 nanometers of movement in the cone(And realistically we can't actually mass produce things with this level of physical accuracy on any kind of scale, this is almost atom counting territory, in fact it absolutely would be on the scale of in-ear devices).
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