Amazon HD can sound decent, it’s somewhat gimpish for obscure stuff and limited in it’s search capabilities. I’m sticking with it though for the price it’s actually pretty good.
Yeah, seems fine so far. And it’s 95p / month for three months, so figured I’d give it a whirl. Using mainly in car / on phone, because broken hifi.
I have offered the equipment to give you a functioning hifi more times than I remember. You like having no hifi.
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End game, obsession wains.
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What’s bust Pete?
Understand anyone with reservations using Amazon…
The wife is embedded in Amazon convenience so when looking for a solution for the kids I took the free trial to check out Music HD.
I’m almost exclusively vinyl these days and use a Marantz CDP with access to the DAC via USB or an Apple direct input for streaming. I was interested to see whether there’d be much difference between Spotify and Amazon HD and also how cd/SACD would compare.
Amazon definitely sounds better than Spotify, most post 70s tracks are available in either cd (circa 900 kbps?) or 24/96 in my system the latter does sound marginally better. As compared to optical it’s six of one.
The streaming sounds pretty good however it doesn’t come close to the richness of tone, texture and natural warmth from the TT albeit the TT is a far more expensive set. Having heard a few decent digital streaming setups next to similar value analogue I’ve yet to hear digital that doesn’t have a hardness of tone that robs the music of a little life. Not to say that the digital hasn’t sounded very good just the analogue done well has been better.
All of which is only relevant when taking the whole system into account.
If you can get by the idea of dealing with Amazon the service is good and a step up from Spotify. I understand that Spotify has a greater library but if it’s more modern, contemporary and new release stuff you’re after it’s appears to cover most bases.
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It’s overrated!
Crossover.
Roon will happily host the DSP, IIR or FIR, so just use a cheap sound card for a while.
Or don’t 
As far as I can see, you can choose either great sound quality or a decent UI.
I suppose I should use open baffle, too.
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Just been through this myself. I have used Google Play for about 4 years and recently went through an exercise to try out hi-res options as I now listen almost exclusively through the computer and phone.
All the ones I checked all have similar problems so you need to try and see for yourself and how you wish to use them. All have gaps in the catalogue which annoyed me, except Google Play, which I still pay for and also it means I get no adverts using Youtube music vids, which is well worth a tenner to me.
All have imperfect UI, none really have the perfect setup and all have search engine quirks and gaps in their catalogue
TIDAL was a non-starter, too many gaps and I didn’t like the UI nor the R’n’B push iI had so it only lasted a couple of days for me.
Qobuz was much better. I would say the sound quality was the best it was also the most expensive to have hi-res and a lot of music I enjoy isn’t in hi-res. I also HATED the recommendations, I know it can get complicated with genres but I found myself getting quite annoyed. Also, and this is a real bugbear, people, they maybe supposed experts, write reviews on some albums, some of which miss the point of the album to such an extent you feel like hunting them down and shouting at them. Complex, technical thrash metal is, apparently, just for show offs and people wanting to play music so complex nobody else can understand it. It seems a little up it’s own arse at times.
Amazon HD, sounded as good as Qobuz in my day to day use and and it’s far cheaper to have a family plan. Still gaps but I’ve found them less annoying. It still has it’s annoying little UI, play an album and leave halfway, do something else, come back and it wants to resume from that point and doesn’t always want to let you start the album again. The hi-res is easy to find.
TIDAL and QOBUZ and Google Play can all be used with the excellent USB Audio Player Pro app - a great tool if listening on your android phone, Amazon HD can’t.
Amazon easily lets me cast to my CCA and the Google Nest and Echo dot. Qobuz also does but I found it had a few too many drop outs when playing through the CCA.
In the end I kept Google Play and ended up adding Amazon HD family plan, adding the wife and the Grandkids on for their echo dot.
Since they all offer a month’s free trial I would try all of them out and find the one that best suits your needs. I really thought Qobuz was the one for me but the gaps, drop outs and annoying reviews turned me off it.
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It seems that if you use Tidal direct from a PC there are annoyances with advertising / hyping etc, but using it through the Auralic app, and I’m guessing the same applies to Lumin, you get none of these issues - You only see what you want to.
tl:dr chromecast blah blah blah…
I find the sound of Spotify (on max quality settings) through my Chromecast Audio noticeably worse than playing a CD through my CDP.
I’m only really going to use Spotify until Tidal/Amazon HD can match their depth of catalogue and so haven’t been persuaded to ditch my CDP yet. Although I haven’t yet tried a higher end streamer/DAC to stream through.
I personally won’t bother with a higher end streamer again. A raspberry Pi or a NUC is more than sufficient in 99% of cases (especially mine where I am invested in Roon). I have a Lumin D1 here, but it will go as soon as I get around to setting up a NUC running Roon Rock.
The DAC is a different matter and can make a a bit of a difference depending on the architecture, output stage and range of inputs and their setup. Here you pays your money and takes your choice.
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Stupid question but in my case, would I stream Spotify from my phone/tablet to the Pi/NUC that’s wired to the DAC (i.e. they’d act as the receiver)?
Yeah. I’m looking at spending a little bit on a DAC but just linking to it any way possible.
This should give me some time to deal with SUT and the other bits I need for vinyl. I’m not seeing one as replacing the other. Just more than one way of experiencing music.
I use my pi with volumio as a spotify connect endpoint. Far more solid than a Chromecast audio was. Sounds superb too.
Easiest way to do this is via something like an Audioquest Dragonfly DAC using your phone and a lightning to USB adapter. I use the Apple camera Adams I can charge the phone while it is playing music.