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AdamCT
Avid Contributor I
December 9, 2021

Amazon Ultra HD not showing badge on Play:5 (gen 2)

  • December 9, 2021
  • 65 replies
  • 3443 views

I’m not seeing the “Ultra HD” badge when I stream Amazon HD on my Play:5 (gen 2) pair + Sub. It’s working fine on my Arc + Sub + Surrounds. Any thoughts?

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65 replies

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Ken_Griffiths
Ken_Griffiths
December 10, 2021

I did note that it takes a short time for the ‘badge’ to sometimes appear on the ‘now playing’ screen. I’m now wondering if the local network conditions ‘perhaps’ might play a role in the audio format delivered to the player by Amazon?

    Mr. T
    Mr. T
    December 10, 2021

    I did note that it takes a short time for the ‘badge’ to sometimes appear on the ‘now playing’ screen. I’m now wondering if the local network conditions ‘perhaps’ might play a role in the audio format delivered to the player by Amazon?


    Agreed, the local network conditions may be a factor, but all my sonos speakers are showing Green on the matrix and one of my Ones is wired.

    Ken, are you able to bond a Sub to your Ones to see what badge then appears for you?

      bockersjv
      bockersjv
      Local Superstar
      December 10, 2021

      Tried removing the sub.  Result was i could not even get HD.  Which doesn't make any sense!

      Re added an get the HD symbol.


      From my testing, it can take a moment before the applicable audio resolution badge appears after removing the Sub. But if I play a track for 5 seconds or so then rewind to start it again a couple of times, the Ultra HD badge then appears after either no badge showing, or the HD showing initially.

      Tried again and waited and played a few tracks.  Then eventually Ultra HD appeared. This is on 2 Play 5 Gen 2s WITHOUT Sub

      Adding the Sub back and it is restricted to HD.

      In this I have realised just how much better the Sub makes the Play 5s and that without Trueplay this rooms sounds terrible.

      Of course I have to prance around the room retuning after each change :(

       

        Ken_Griffiths
        Ken_Griffiths
        December 10, 2021

        I did note that it takes a short time for the ‘badge’ to sometimes appear on the ‘now playing’ screen. I’m now wondering if the local network conditions ‘perhaps’ might play a role in the audio format delivered to the player by Amazon?


        Agreed, the local network conditions may be a factor, but all my sonos speakers are showing Green on the matrix and one of my Ones is wired.

        Ken, are you able to bond a Sub to your Ones to see what badge then appears for you?

        I only have the newer gen3 Sub, but happy to try that - give me a moment to try.

          Mr. T
          Mr. T
          December 10, 2021

          Tried removing the sub.  Result was i could not even get HD.  Which doesn't make any sense!

          Re added an get the HD symbol.


          From my testing, it can take a moment before the applicable audio resolution badge appears after removing the Sub. But if I play a track for 5 seconds or so then rewind to start it again a couple of times, the Ultra HD badge then appears after either no badge showing, or the HD showing initially.

          Tried again and waited and played a few tracks.  Then eventually Ultra HD appeared. This is on 2 Play 5 Gen 2s WITHOUT Sub

          Adding the Sub back and it is restricted to HD.

          In this I have realised just how much better the Sub makes the Play 5s and that without Trueplay this rooms sounds terrible.

          Of course I have to prance around the room retuning after each change :(

           


          Yes exactly, the Sub/Trueplay makes the music sound so much better!

          But it proves the Sub is causing the issue here…

            bockersjv
            bockersjv
            Local Superstar
            December 10, 2021

            Anyone have a Sub Gen1 to try?

            Mr. T
            Mr. T
            December 10, 2021

            I did note that it takes a short time for the ‘badge’ to sometimes appear on the ‘now playing’ screen. I’m now wondering if the local network conditions ‘perhaps’ might play a role in the audio format delivered to the player by Amazon?


            Agreed, the local network conditions may be a factor, but all my sonos speakers are showing Green on the matrix and one of my Ones is wired.

            Ken, are you able to bond a Sub to your Ones to see what badge then appears for you?

            I only have the newer gen3 Sub, but happy to try that - give me a moment to try.


            That would be a good experiment as if your gen3 Sub works then it shows the limitations of the gen2 Sub.

            Or if your gen3 also restricts the stream to HD it is by design, or a bug in the software.
             

            Cheers!

            Ken_Griffiths
            Ken_Griffiths
            December 10, 2021

            @Mr. T 

            Added Sub to ‘Utility’ (One gen 2 stereo pair) and still getting ‘UltraHD’ here.

              Mr. T
              Mr. T
              December 10, 2021

              @Mr. T

              Added Sub to ‘Utility’ (One gen 2 stereo pair) and still getting ‘UltraHD’ here.


              Thanks Ken, so it looks like an issue with the gen2 Subs…

               

              ratty
              ratty
              December 10, 2021

              A few observations:

              • Atmos plays on my Beam/gen2 + Play:1s + Sub/gen2
              • UHD plays on the above, on a One/gen1, and on a One/gen2 pair
              • It can take a minute or more for the faster stream(s) to kick in. In the case of the UHD examples above it went from SD, then to HD, then eventually to UHD. Independent bandwidth measurements confirmed that the stream was indeed starting in SD, and that the badging is correct.
              • I don’t care for this behaviour at all. When you ask Deezer for FLAC that’s what you have from the get-go.
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