Retired Sonos Staff

Amazon Music HD Available on Sonos

Related content:Partner

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
September 17, 2019
111 replies
51799 views

Amazon Music HD, Amazon’s new high-quality music tier for streaming in CD-quality is available today on Sonos in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. You can now stream over 50 million tracks in CD-quality (16-bit HD) audio through the Sonos app.

Amazon Music HD is available as an add-on to Amazon Music Unlimited subscriptions for an additional $4.99 per month (on top of the noraml Amazon Music Unlimited subscription) or $50 per year. Check out the Amazon Music HD page here on Amazon for more details.

After subscribing, to use Amazon Music HD on Sonos, just update your Sonos app then add Amazon Music as a music service. That’s all it takes to be streaming Amazon Music’s catalog of CD-quality audio on Sonos.

Find out more about Amazon Music HD on Sonos here.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

chicks

Unrelated and not relevant to Sonos, but I wonder where Amazon is getting the Ultra HD (24 bit) tracks.There's lots about. You only have to look on, for example, 7digital or Qobuz.I really meant, in general, where do these hi-res files come from?

I assume the record labels have them as master transfers from the original recordings, and provide them to the streaming services and download sites like HDtracks.

Great article about the motivations of "hi rez" from the Financial Times:

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/05/13/1557720021000/High-resolution-music-is-a-solution-looking-for-a-problem/

J

John B

Another thing - I talked to Amazon Customer Service today. They told me that tracks the are natively Ultra HD 24/96 FLAC are played in SD AAC in Sonos, not HD 16/44.1 FLAC.

So, we need some clarity and verification on this.

If one could see the streaming format in Sonos, this could be verified immediately.

For example, in Denon/Marantz Heos, I can find all of the format info and have already verified that I'm getting 24/96 and 16/44.1 FLAC (depending on the source track) from Amazon Music HD.

The problem with Heos is that Amazon Music's "My Music" is absent, so you have to manually search for each track/album, and you don't have access to personal playlists (a big miss for Heos in terms of Amazon Music implementation).

But if you have to see the format in order to know, and cannot tell just by listening, surely it just isn't worth the extra money? Who needs the proof?

J

Joshua Kientsch

Contributor I

Can’t really tell the difference between this and my Spotify tbh, but i’m going to wait until Spotify releases a high-quality version anyway the integration between Spotify and Sonos and Alexa is far better

J

jdwdmi

Contributor I

I'd also like to know how we can confirm if HD tracks are playing through Sonos Connect when using the latest iOS controller app. I had to re-install both the Amazon music iOS app & Windows desktop app to see HD tracks (as advised by Amazon support) so I'm skeptical it will just start working through Sonos. Should there be a HD or UltraHD badge in the Sonos app when playing Amazon HD tracks?

J

jdwdmi

Contributor I

This is exactly what I’m trying to figure out. If you search HD under playlists in the Sonos app, you will find a handful of playlists. I’m not able to tell if you search an artist what is HD, Ultra HD etc.

A

adam2434

Avid Contributor I

But if you have to see the format in order to know, and cannot tell just by listening, surely it just isn't worth the extra money? Who needs the proof?

So, if Amazon Music plays Ultra HD at 256 kbps AAC on Sonos and I compare the same track on Spotify at 320 kbps OV, and I can't hear a difference, what have I proved? That 2 lossy codecs sound the same? I never had the 16/44.1 FLAC stream, so I never had a lossless version for comparison.

And, if I pay for something (the Amazon Music HD tier), I want to know that I am getting it (at least 16/44.1 FLAC) on my playback devices.

A lot of streaming playback devices will show you the file type and bitrate. Sonos should too, IMO.

R

robnoon

Contributor I

Hi all,
Reading through the thread here I see the most annoying thing is you are unable to see if songs are playing in HD or Ultra HD on the sonos app.
Did you know you can use the Amazon Music app to play through your sonos speakers?
Simply press the cast icon and you can choose whuch speaker to play from it also shows the quality of the track. Just listening to Liam Gallaghers new album which apparently is in ultra HD

S

sjw

Local Superstar

While I do think you should be able to 'see' such info and know what's playing, for your extra money it's quite funny you can't just tell by listening instead.... 🙂

A

adam2434

Avid Contributor I

Hi all,
Reading through the thread here I see the most annoying thing is you are unable to see if songs are playing in HD or Ultra HD on the sonos app.
Did you know you can use the Amazon Music app to play through your sonos speakers?
Simply press the cast icon and you can choose whuch speaker to play from it also shows the quality of the track. Just listening to Liam Gallaghers new album which apparently is in ultra HD

Hmmm, only my Chromecast Audio devices show up as casting options in the Amazon Music app.

Your Sonos devices show up?

My Sonos Connect and Gen 1 Play 5 do not.

melvimbe

Hi all,
Reading through the thread here I see the most annoying thing is you are unable to see if songs are playing in HD or Ultra HD on the sonos app.
Did you know you can use the Amazon Music app to play through your sonos speakers?
Simply press the cast icon and you can choose whuch speaker to play from it also shows the quality of the track. Just listening to Liam Gallaghers new album which apparently is in ultra HDHmmm, only my Chromecast Audio devices show up as casting options in the Amazon Music app.

Your Sonos devices show up?

My Sonos Connect and Gen 1 Play 5 do not.

I believe Sonos will show up if you've setup Alexa, as the Alexa cast feature to Sonos will use the same authentication. If all you've done is setup an Amazon music account on Sonos, you won't see Sonos speakers as targets.

Danny

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community