Amazon may release a Hi-Res Music Streaming Service

[ITGITC]

 

Amazon Plans Hi-Res Music Streaming Service

 

If Amazon launches a music service with a better bit rate than CD quality, say 44.1kHz/16-bit FLAC files for $15/month, would you buy it?

 

For listening on my iPhone/iPad, and even in my studio, the current sound quality is fine by me. I'm an Amazon Prime member and pay for Amazon Music Unlimited. It's $79/year.

 

What do you guys think? Are you OK with the quality of whatever streaming service you subscribe to... or not?

 

Tom

 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

Its about time. People are streaming HD video on cellular data. Sirius XM sounds like poop. I dont pay for any service at the moment. Pandora, Spotify with ads is about as far as Ive gone with streaming audio. Sounds ok on my phones speakers or with a little Bluetooth speaker help. But it would be nice to get better quality at home and in the car.

[J. Dan]

I do free spotify, and Sirius until the free subscription runs out next month (car came with 1 year). Quality of those is fine for me.

 

Question though...don't know about FLAC, but how would it be better than CD quality if it's 16-bit, 44.1kHz? To my knowledge, CD's don't use any compression so if it's the same sample rate and bit depth, how is it better?

[Song80s]

If Amazon focuses on high quality recording artists, I am very interested.

 

If they are mostly covering commercial pop artists, high quality is not going to help IMO

[SeaGtGruff]

I imagine it would probably be the same selection as the paid version of Amazon Music. I just have the free (with an Amazon Prime account) version of Amazon Music, and it has a very wide variety of music, old and new.

[Steve Nathan]

If they continue to screw songwriters, I will not.

 

[Song80s]

If they continue to screw songwriters, I will not.

 

In addition to the various 'digital services ' that have marginalized creative musicians, Amazon is equal and possibly worse. They have re written the entire book business, marginalizing all the publishers. Writers typically work for a penny or 2. Some tiny amount.

 

Amazon Prime members love it of course, they are getting free digital books , books for 99 cents, etc.

 

This is nothing new, Amazon created the model + 15 years ago.

 

I was a Pro Seller on Amazon for 8 years. I retired that business 2 years ago. I had a good run for 6 yrs but the last 2 yrs hit the skids.

[Jonathan Hughes]

I don't think the vast majority of people will be able to tell the difference and/or care. When Tidal launched, they touted the fact that they were streaming at a much higher quality than any other service. They had a page where you could A/B test six different songs to compare their quality with typical quality. After listening on decent studio monitors and decent headphones, there was only one track where I could MAYBE tell the difference, and numerous people I know had the same results (as did people talking about it online). So as much as I appreciate people and companies pushing for higher quality in just about anything, I certainly wouldn't;t be paying extra for this service.

[elif]

If Amazon focuses on high quality recording artists, I am very interested.

 

If they are mostly covering commercial pop artists, high quality is not going to help IMO

Maybe. I think Amazon should give a choice, perhaps at an increase in cost for higher resolution. To me it depends on the source and the material. Recordings of acoustic instruments and certain vocals (think Mary Black) that are untrammeled by a well-intentioned producer's audio manipulation, then yes, I prefer an honest as-produced resolution. OTOH, there are those styles and genres for which I think a reduction in recorded reduction is lost behind the musicians' and producers' baked-in distortion and manipulation.