In Reply to: Amazon also offers high res now. How does it compare? nt posted by Mel on March 5, 2021 at 10:22:10:
The last time that I looked at it there was a major problem for audiophiles.
It was then only available via Amazon's own web or downloaded computer players or with Denon/Marantz equipment having HEOS capability.
For those needing to use the Amazon players they were regrettably not equipped with any way of selecting the DAC ( often called "speaker" or " Audio Device" in these circumstances). This means that the incoming stream is automatically routed to the Windows or Apple OS sound mixer so that for e.g. Windows one cannot open a WASAPI or ASIO session. In turn that means that a bit perfect bitstream occurs only by luck when it matches the resolution selected in the mixer. Otherwise it is up or down sampled to the selected rate in the mixer. So to get a perfect bitstream using Amazon HD the user needs to reconfigure the sound mixer every time the streamed file's resolution changes.
Further the selection was not well curated IMO making selection of anything outside of top 40 repertoire not particularly easy compared to e.g. Qobuz.
That was the situation but I do understand that other hardware manufacturers to Denon/Marantz may be coming up with solutions later in the year. For example I believe that dCS may be incorporating it in their Mosaic controller at some point in the future.
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
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- RE: Amazon also offers high res now. How does it compare? nt - PAR 03/5/2114:50:32 03/5/21 (0)