A quick question. When I use Amazon Music on my iPhone to control the Alexa app on my PC, what is the audio quality that my PC feeds my DAC? This appears to be the only way that I can use my phone to remotely control Amazon Music.
I can run the Amazon Music app on PC, and then it gives me full "Ultra HD", but there isn't indication what the audio quality is when doing what works to have a remote control.
Tidal not having any remote capability was a deal breaker for me. If I want to listen to a high quality source and get up every time I need to change songs or volume, I'll use vinyl. In this day and age, Tidal not having this capability (Spotify does) is just not acceptable.
Any info that you may have would be much appreciated
I can run the Amazon Music app on PC, and then it gives me full "Ultra HD", but there isn't indication what the audio quality is when doing what works to have a remote control.
Tidal not having any remote capability was a deal breaker for me. If I want to listen to a high quality source and get up every time I need to change songs or volume, I'll use vinyl. In this day and age, Tidal not having this capability (Spotify does) is just not acceptable.
Any info that you may have would be much appreciated
Control music playback to your device remotely from the Alexa app -
Amazon.com Help: Control Music Playback and Volume from the Alexa App
Is the Windows 10 Amazon Music desktop app capable of handling Amazon Music Ultra HD? Apparently yes, depending on the configuration of your DAC under Windows 10 -
Amazon.com: Amazon Music HD FAQs: Digital Music
How to know what sample-rate is being delivered to the DAC? The only way to be 100% sure is to have a DAC which displays the sample-rate. Even if yours doesn't, you could borrow a DAC temporarily, just to check your setup.
Personally I consider a Windows 10 computer complete overkill just to receive music streams, whether they be "HD" or not.
If you decide that Amazon Music HD (or Ultra HD) is your preferred service, consider getting a dedicated streamer to do the job instead, and free this task from your computer, which is far more useful for other things.
Under the last link I provided, see Which Amazon devices support Amazon Music HD? and Which home audio devices support Amazon Music HD?
Amazon.com Help: Control Music Playback and Volume from the Alexa App
Is the Windows 10 Amazon Music desktop app capable of handling Amazon Music Ultra HD? Apparently yes, depending on the configuration of your DAC under Windows 10 -
Amazon.com: Amazon Music HD FAQs: Digital Music
How to know what sample-rate is being delivered to the DAC? The only way to be 100% sure is to have a DAC which displays the sample-rate. Even if yours doesn't, you could borrow a DAC temporarily, just to check your setup.
Personally I consider a Windows 10 computer complete overkill just to receive music streams, whether they be "HD" or not.
If you decide that Amazon Music HD (or Ultra HD) is your preferred service, consider getting a dedicated streamer to do the job instead, and free this task from your computer, which is far more useful for other things.
Under the last link I provided, see Which Amazon devices support Amazon Music HD? and Which home audio devices support Amazon Music HD?
linuxfan: Thanks for your reply.
When I use Alexa on my phone, I can't see my laptop running Amazon Music as an option. It only works when I have Amazon Music on my phone, and the Alexa app running on my PC.
I can run Amazon Music on my PC, and it runs well, but I can't remotely control it from my phone.
My Windows 10 PC cost $260 CAD and is completely silent because it doesn't have a fan or hard drive. As an inexpensive, ready made source, I am very satisfied with it.
Thanks for the advice to try a DAC with a display. I'll borrow one and try it out.
When I use Alexa on my phone, I can't see my laptop running Amazon Music as an option. It only works when I have Amazon Music on my phone, and the Alexa app running on my PC.
I can run Amazon Music on my PC, and it runs well, but I can't remotely control it from my phone.
My Windows 10 PC cost $260 CAD and is completely silent because it doesn't have a fan or hard drive. As an inexpensive, ready made source, I am very satisfied with it.
Thanks for the advice to try a DAC with a display. I'll borrow one and try it out.
I wonder if windows 10 have some info similar to the /proc/asound virtual files of linux which give instant details of the sound driver operation, including all the stream parameters.
I realized that I had an older DAC on hand that shows bitrate, but it only shows whatever my PC is set to output, regardless of the actual bitrate. When I use Amazon Music app on my PC, the app tells me both what the file bitrate is, and what my computer is set to output. When using Alexa on the PC, the only thing that is readable is the bitrate my computer is feeding the DAC, but not the file bitrate.
Oops. I now realise you are mostly asking about bitrate, not samplerate.
Amazon Music has 3 levels of quality:
"SD" - lossy compression streams up to 320 kbps bitrate. Samplerate will be 44.1 kHz
"HD" - lossless compression (FLAC) streams up to 850 kbps bitrate. Samplerate will be 44.1 kHz
"UHD" - lossless compression stremas up to 3730 kbps bitrate. Samplerate will be from 44.1 kHz up to 192 kHz
I stress that "HD" and "UHD" are Amazon's terms, not necessarily standard, or accepted, terms.
DAC's are not playback devices, they never see the (compressed) source stream, so they can never show you the bitrate of the original stream.
They could be programmed to display the bitrate of the audio data they receive, but since they always receive uncompressed audio data, this is somewhat meaningless - all 16bit 44.1 kHz audio data will have the same bitrate - 1411 kbps.
It makes more sense for a DAC to display sample-rate - which is more meaningful in that you know if your audio data is at the long established norm of 44.1 kHz, or the "hi res" standards of 96 kHz or 192 kHz.
So back to your original question, how to know what the bitrate of the source stream is;
The playback application could (and probably should) display the bitrate of the source stream, but from what I can see on the web, the Amazon Music app doesn't. Instead the app simply give you a yellow logo indicating "HD" or "ULTRA HD".
From what I can see, that's your only indication of stream quality.
Amazon Music has 3 levels of quality:
"SD" - lossy compression streams up to 320 kbps bitrate. Samplerate will be 44.1 kHz
"HD" - lossless compression (FLAC) streams up to 850 kbps bitrate. Samplerate will be 44.1 kHz
"UHD" - lossless compression stremas up to 3730 kbps bitrate. Samplerate will be from 44.1 kHz up to 192 kHz
I stress that "HD" and "UHD" are Amazon's terms, not necessarily standard, or accepted, terms.
DAC's are not playback devices, they never see the (compressed) source stream, so they can never show you the bitrate of the original stream.
They could be programmed to display the bitrate of the audio data they receive, but since they always receive uncompressed audio data, this is somewhat meaningless - all 16bit 44.1 kHz audio data will have the same bitrate - 1411 kbps.
It makes more sense for a DAC to display sample-rate - which is more meaningful in that you know if your audio data is at the long established norm of 44.1 kHz, or the "hi res" standards of 96 kHz or 192 kHz.
So back to your original question, how to know what the bitrate of the source stream is;
The playback application could (and probably should) display the bitrate of the source stream, but from what I can see on the web, the Amazon Music app doesn't. Instead the app simply give you a yellow logo indicating "HD" or "ULTRA HD".
From what I can see, that's your only indication of stream quality.
Yes, sample rate is what I meant to say.. When you click on the HD or Ultra HD symbol on Amazon Music when a song is playing, it does display the sample rate. However, in order to have remote capability, it has to be Alexa on the PC controlled by Amazon Music on my iPhone. When used this way, sample rate is not shown on the Amazon Music app. Alexa never shows sample rate.