Amazon Music HD Arrives With High Quality Music Streaming
In the music streaming space, Amazon finds itself in heated competition with the likes of Google, Spotify, and Apple. With that in mind, it needs every edge it can get, and todayuit's rolling out a new one. Amazon has announced a new tier of its music subscription service called Amazon Music HD, which promises higher-quality streaming for many of the songs it offers.
More specifically, Amazon says that Music HD offers 50 million lossless songs which have 16 bit depth and a 44.1kHz sample rate, which is equal to CD quality. Beyond that, there are "millions more" songs that are eligible for "Ultra HD" streaming, which translates to 24 bit depth and sample rates that top out at 192kHz.
That all sounds great, but of course, the price needs to be right for people to sign up. Amazon Music HD will be available to Amazon Prime customers at $12.99 per month. When compared to other services like Apple Music and Spotify, which both charge $10 per month for individual users, Amazon Music HD is only a few dollars more per month. That doesn't seem to bad on the surface, but remember that in order to get this monthly rate, you need to be paying for Amazon Prime as well, which adds to the cost significantly (but also offers perks beyond music streaming).
If you're not an Amazon Prime subscriber, then the monthly cost for Amazon Music HD jumps up to $14.99 per month, the same monthly cost of the family plans offered by other services. If you're already a subscriber to Amazon Music Unlimited, you can upgrade to Amazon Music HD for an extra $5 per month. That extra $5 charge applies to both individual and family plans, so if you've got the latter plan, you can upgrade everyone on it for an additional 5 bucks.
Amazon says that Music HD will play the highest quality audio supported by the device it's being streamed on and network conditions. The company is also offering a 90-day free trial of Amazon Music HD to new customers and to current subscribers, so you've got some time to check it out before you commit to a higher cost-per-month. Amazon Music HD is available beginning today.