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wuzzzer

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18 hours ago, KlipschKen said:

Missing Quality Audio (MQA). It's a lossy format and injects spurious artifacts into the data stream. As always, however, if it sounds better to you, then go for it. Everyone's different.

Some more misinformation.

 

MQA is NOT a "FORMAT". It is NOT a "medium".

REPEAT.

 

MQA is a CODEC. It can be implemented on any (?) FORMAT. DVD, BluRay, streaming live performances, CD. SACD, DSD, whatever.

 

However, MQA can be LOSSY ---- IF, you do not have hardware/software that is fully compatible to decode the CODEC. In that case, you will still be able to play the MQA *ENCODED* file, but it will be lossy, not allowing the full resolution to be used (unfolded).

 

As for it sounding better (or worse)? How many of you have actually auditioned original hi-res master recording files (24/192) --- made and presented by the original recording engineer (a well known one) on a system that is somewhere between state of the art and insane? Or on a more normal system? Comparing the original non-MQA version to MQA. BLIND. I have. And when I say BLIND, I mean BLIND. As in at the time, I had never even heard the acronym "MQA". I had no I idea what it was or what does or is supposed to do. Neither version played was identified as MQA or not. Just listen and decide.

 

The fault, IMO, lies not so much with MQA. It lies with what the original artist (or producer, or whoever is responsible) for approval. I'm quite sure that just like everyone else, they have their own subjective preferences. We have no idea of what they listened on. Seriously. Do you really think most recording artists care about what we're looking for? Hell no. They want it to sound good where most people are going to hear it. In the car. On their ear buds. On Alexa or Echo. And believe it or not, that's often how the artist hears it, and approves it with a phone call from their car. Watch The Beatles documentary and see how they look and what they're doing in the studio while listening to playback of their work. They are not listening for they same things "audiophiles" are. Or how about Jimmy Page or Pete Townsend? Can we really trust their judgement as artists or producers to approve something that actually sounds good when their hearing is so corrupt? That's where the fault lies with MQA.

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I've had pretty good results with Tidal HiFi, but lately I'm finding that more and more of their tracks are "remastered". And the quality of the remastering can vary considerably. For example, the other day I was listening to Crime of the Century and the low bass was gone. It was like everything below 60 Hz simply didn't exist.

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1 hour ago, Edgar said:

I've had pretty good results with Tidal HiFi, but lately I'm finding that more and more of their tracks are "remastered". And the quality of the remastering can vary considerably. For example, the other day I was listening to Crime of the Century and the low bass was gone. It was like everything below 60 Hz simply didn't exist.

You are absolutely right!

 

The current state of "remastering" is definitely a problem. "Remastered" doesn't necessarily translate to "better".

 

The processor I use for my subs has a spectrum analyzer display. It's very easy to literally SEE what's missing down there. However, this is also true of some older recordings originally released on vinyl too (pre-CD era) that were transferred to digital. The deep bass was typically steeply rolled off so it wouldn't interfere with/excite tonearm/cartridge/compliance resonance. If there's nothing down there, you can't boost it. 

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Haven't received the Firestick yet but I have been listening to Amazon Music the last few days and I have to say it sounds significantly better than Pandora that I've used for years.  There's no comparison.  Really excited to get the Firestick now!

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Got the Firestick.  I know my receiver is capable of 24 bit / 192kHz hi-res audio but when I play Ultra HD music on Amazon Music the maximum I get is 16 bit / 192kHz.  The Firestick I got is supposed to play at 24/192 so I'm not sure why it isn't.  As far as I know I have all the settings correct on my receiver and the Firestick.

 

There were several updates that I'm installing on the Firestick so maybe the 24/192 will work when they're installed.  I know I read that sometimes a Firestick won't "see" that a device is 24/192 even though it actually is.

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Well after a ton of fiddling around with settings I finally got the Firestick to recognize my receiver as being capable of 24-bit/192kHz audio.  I'm pretty impressed by the amount of hi-res audio available on Amazon Music, too.  Everything sounds fantastic!

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8 minutes ago, wuzzzer said:

Well after a ton of fiddling around with settings I finally got the Firestick to recognize my receiver as being capable of 24-bit/192kHz audio.  I'm pretty impressed by the amount of hi-res audio available on Amazon Music, too.  Everything sounds fantastic!

Can you elaborate on your findings? I was told by the Amazon support folks that the streaming quality can be dependent on your network speed at the time of streaming. I primarily listen to Spotify and love the ability to seamlessly use Spotifys "connect" feature to pretty much connect to any device in the home to stream to. I prefer Amazon HD's algorithms when I let it play music or use the shuffle feature seems better than Spotify. The problem I have is, I have had Spotify the longest so I have some very large playlist that I would have to recreate if I went exclusively with Amazon HD. If it wasn't for that and JRE podcast I would probably cancel it. I use ROON when streaming local content from the NAS.

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4 hours ago, rockhound said:

Can you elaborate on your findings? I was told by the Amazon support folks that the streaming quality can be dependent on your network speed at the time of streaming. I primarily listen to Spotify and love the ability to seamlessly use Spotifys "connect" feature to pretty much connect to any device in the home to stream to. I prefer Amazon HD's algorithms when I let it play music or use the shuffle feature seems better than Spotify. The problem I have is, I have had Spotify the longest so I have some very large playlist that I would have to recreate if I went exclusively with Amazon HD. If it wasn't for that and JRE podcast I would probably cancel it. I use ROON when streaming local content from the NAS.

 

I have noticed that at times the actual streaming quality is slightly down from the native codec.  Example, a track may be encoded in 24-bit/192kHz but the actual streaming quality is 16-bit/44.1kHz.  That rarely happens to me though because we have a 100MB Internet speed.

 

I have no idea what the minimum Internet speed is for 24/192 but I've heard from others that Amazon does lower the streaming quality for certain Internet speeds so that the song doesn't have to buffer or stop while playing it.

 

Ultra HD songs are all 24-bit but they can have 48, 96 or 192kHz sampling rates.  I can't honestly say that I can notice a difference between 48 and 92 as far as kHz sampling but I can definitely tell a difference between 16 and 24-bit rate.

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Streaming stereo hi-res audio requires relatively little bandwidth.  CD quality is 1.4mbit/sec.  hi-res 192/24 is around 10mbit/sec.  Even if you double this for protocol and transport overheads, most internet plans can easily handle at least CD quality streaming audio.  Most properly configured home wifi networks can too.  Video is a different story - providers like Netflix, Amazon Prime etc all have home internet minimums for various levels of video quality.  Most require a home internet service of at least 25mbit/sec for top quality video 4K/8K - more if there are other devices in the home using internet bandwidth.

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On 1/29/2022 at 10:15 PM, wuzzzer said:

I've never paid for one, just used Pandora mainly.  Thinking of upgrading to a paid, high quality service.  I'd be using either my TV or my UHD player's apps.  I know Spotify is on my UHD player but I'm not sure of any others.

What do you use?

 

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On 2/9/2022 at 2:59 PM, wuzzzer said:

Well after a ton of fiddling around with settings I finally got the Firestick to recognize my receiver as being capable of 24-bit/192kHz audio.  I'm pretty impressed by the amount of hi-res audio available on Amazon Music, too.  Everything sounds fantastic!

How do you tell what bit rate you're getting? I haven't found anything in my system that tells me, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.

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44 minutes ago, CWelsh said:

How do you tell what bit rate you're getting? I haven't found anything in my system that tells me, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.

 

On Amazon Music there's a button you can select that's labeled audio quality or something like that and it gives that info.

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39 minutes ago, geezin' said:

is it worth it to use a streaming device or just stick with my Mac. The only thing I see is resolution peaks at 24/96 with the computer. Not sure my battered hearing would notice the difference.

 

From what I understand, bitrate is more important than sampling frequency so as long as 24-bit is already available to you you're good to go.

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On 2/14/2022 at 5:33 PM, wuzzzer said:

I just discovered Dolby Atmos tracks on Amazon Music.  The songs I've listened to so far have been mixed really well.  I like it!

 

46 minutes ago, CWelsh said:

How do you tell what bit rate you're getting? I haven't found anything in my system that tells me, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.

If you're using Amazon Music HD, click on the yellow quality indicator at the bottom left.

image.thumb.png.49f38c4897c96e82fb96274c74c26ba8.png

 

It will then tell you your device capability and what rate the track is streaming at...

 

 

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I'll check this out after my wife wakes up...LOL

 

I'm using the BlueOS interface on my iPad. It looks different than your screenshots, but I know I've seen the quality indicator. I've never tried clicking on it to see if it led to more information. Thanks for the tips.

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