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Brantome said:
Amazon Music Free is available to any Amazon customer - it’s Amazon Music Prime which Prime customers get access to. I don’t know if Amazon include those in their numbers, or just those who subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited.
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The benchmarking data online would indicate that it is Prime + Unlimited tiers included in the subscriber counts (not Free tier obviously). Also, it's only including Primer tier subscribers in the count if they actually have used the benefit not just all Prime subscribers who've never used the Music benefit. No idea though on how "active" you need to be to count though.

I'll also agree on great Alexa integration being a killer feature. The whole thing that drew me to the WiiM initially is Alexa makes it easy enough for anyone in my family to use rather than "HiFi stuff only for Dad".
 
CrystalGipsy said:
… but what’s the point of making a protocol that requires your device to have Alexa built in, this limitation is why you don’t see it on most Hifi as they won’t want to add this bit of bloatware for good reasons.
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I think history plays its part there - I get the impression that Amazon released Unlimited on the back of Alexa and the echo devices. Having done that, their delivery mechanism was tied into Alexa and so when they were looking for a casting mechanism for their music app, they used what they already had developed and called their Connect mechanism “AlexaCast” as a result. As I said earlier, a good few big manufacturers like Denon etc jumped on that bandwagon by developing an Alexa skill for their kit, as well as using the Amazon Music API to develop an interface in their own apps. However, those two methods are separate - amazon music support in a third party app didn’t require the use of Alexa, it was just voice control and casting from the amazon music app that required that.
 
Brantome said:
I think history plays its part there - I get the impression that Amazon released Unlimited on the back of Alexa and the echo devices. Having done that, their delivery mechanism was tied into Alexa and so when they were looking for a casting mechanism for their music app, they used what they already had developed and called their Connect mechanism “AlexaCast” as a result. As I said earlier, a good few big manufacturers like Denon etc jumped on that bandwagon by developing an Alexa skill for their kit, as well as using the Amazon Music API to develop an interface in their own apps. However, those two methods are separate - amazon music support in a third party app didn’t require the use of Alexa, it was just voice control and casting from the amazon music app that required that.
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I'll add that using the Skill interface is abysmal vs the actual Alexa Multimedia interface which is part of why WiiM's choice of integration via Alexacast is so great.
 
I still maintain that as far as the audiophile community (in general) is concerned Amazon missed the boat.
Qobuz and/or Tidal are integrated in Roon, LMS and Plex and at least one is generally built into any modern networked amp. Amazon is not built in to the mainstream manufacturers amps and can’t be integrated into Roon etc as there is no open API
 
d6jg said:
I still maintain that as far as the audiophile community (in general) is concerned Amazon missed the boat.
Qobuz and/or Tidal are integrated in Roon, LMS and Plex and at least one is generally built into any modern networked amp. Amazon is not built in to the mainstream manufacturers amps and can’t be integrated into Roon etc as there is no open API
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Hmm my (relatively) cheap Marantz supports Amazon Music, albeit with their awful Heos interface. So does the rest of the Denon stuff and also Pioneer/Onkyo. Also of course the NAD products but I don't think that would be considered mainstream.

Rather than "missing the boat", I think Amazon is on a different boat altogether. Like Brantome, I'll also happily not count myself as a member of the "audiophile community", whatever that means. My family and I just like to listen to music.

It is certainly nice to have a variety of choices. Hopefully we can all agree on that at least.
 
elmoe said:
Hmm my (relatively) cheap Marantz supports Amazon Music, albeit with their awful Heos interface. So does the rest of the Denon stuff and also Pioneer/Onkyo. Also of course the NAD products but I don't think that would be considered mainstream.

Rather than "missing the boat", I think Amazon is on a different boat altogether. Like Brantome, I'll also happily not count myself as a member of the "audiophile community", whatever that means. My family and I just like to listen to music.

It is certainly nice to have a variety of choices. Hopefully we can all agree on that at least.
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I stand corrected then but are you sure it’s AM Unlimited?
 
d6jg said:
I stand corrected then but are you sure it’s AM Unlimited?
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The Denon/Marantz gear definitely does full resolution (Amazon Music UHD). I don't own the Pioneer/Onkyo new lines but I believe any devices that integrate with DTS Play-Fi should get full resolution Amazon Music. Obviously so does NAD or any other Blusound integrations.
 
d6jg said:
I stand corrected then but are you sure it’s AM Unlimited?
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Yeah - as I mentioned above on my journey towards Wiim, my heos link hs2 supported AMU bit perfect up to 24/192 over coax into my amp, but the API it used was restrictive (it didn’t access my user playlists nor music I had uploaded to Amazon Music) and the app was dire.
 
I too originally bought the Mini because of its (promised at that time) Amazon Music casting and find that between the Wiim, my Sonos and Echo kit that AM meets all of my music needs. Yes, AM probably only offered CD/hires on Apple’s prompting, but having trialled services including Apple and Tidal, like others here I find it really difficult to justify paying more - sometimes considerably more - for indistinguishable or worse sound quality. I get the lack of Roon and LMS could be a dealbreaker for those using them but feel the app deficiencies are largely historic and any music curation disadvantages are not especially important to me. Indeed, I think Amazon Music generally gets a bit of a raw deal from the ‘audiophile community’, to a degree that Apple Music does not, despite it being more restrictive overall, or other services despite costing more and/or not even reaching CD quality.
 
Hiphiman said:
Yes, AM probably only offered CD/hires on Apple’s prompting
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Unless my memory is failing me, Amazon Music HD (as the service was first called) pre dated hi res Apple Music. However, when hi res Apple Music appeared, it did prompt Amazon to drop the additional $/£5 premium it charged for HD over lossy Unlimited.
 
Brantome said:
Unless my memory is failing me, Amazon Music HD (as the service was first called) pre dated hi res Apple Music. However, when hi res Apple Music appeared, it did prompt Amazon to drop the additional $/£5 premium it charged for HD over lossy Unlimited.
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My mistake. In fact, I should know, because I originally paid the premium for HD! Yes, Apple’s prompting led to that surcharge being removed before Amazon HD users jumped ship. Thanks for the correction.
 
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Amazon has regular pricing in the US. In Europe they are charging a market entry price €3,- Once they have gained a sufficient market share they will raise to €10 or more. I don't think Amazon cares much for audiophiles, numbers are just too small for them to. They offer Hi-res because they can afford to and think it will help them gain dominance in the market.
 
D1N0 said:
Amazon has regular pricing in the US. In Europe they are charging a market entry price €3,- Once they have gained a sufficient market share they will raise to €10 or more. I don't think Amazon cares much for audiophiles, numbers are just too small for them to. They offer Hi-res because they can afford to and think it will help them gain dominance in the market.
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Not sure what you mean by a market entry price in Europe - could you please expand in that? In my experience in the U.K., Amazon Music subscriptions have most often just been the same number either in USD or GBP.
 
CrystalGipsy said:
Because he doesn’t use Amazon , he tests what he has which is why he choose Tidal connect as all the devices supported it. Tbh I hardly know anyone that uses AM at all. It’s pretty bad as a music app and as it’s got very limited hardware support it’s not exactly the Hifi enthusiasts choice.
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I quite like the AM app. It works with the Wiim devices and has come on significantly in the last few years. It's a bit cluttered compared to Qobuz app. However if you buy tracks via Amazon the downloads work seamlessly in the AM app and are picked up in the WHA.
 
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Blundie said:
I haven't seen any threads about this but it would seem that it is not possible to stream Apple Music to WiiM products in even CD-quality since it's operating in Airplay 2 mode if I understand this correctly?

nvm, I just found this: https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/while-streaming-via-airplay-the-app-shows-256kbps-bitrate-only.1329/page-2#post-18503

Apple AirPlay isn’t always lossless. Sometimes it’s lossy — but why?
View attachment 2826
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Yeah, “Brother Thomas” is repeating old news, albeit with a slightly different slant. That audiophilestyle article has been posted many times here and on audiosciencereview.

Edit: don’t think he mentioned the special case where MacOS can send CD quality on airplay 2 as mentioned on audiophilestyle.
 
You can as long as your streaming app uses airplay 1. So maybe Apple users should ask for an Airplay 1 option in the WIIM home app.
 
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