Amazon launches music streaming

[Smokey]

Amazon has launched a music streaming service for its Prime members called Prime Music . Starting Thursday, Amazon now offers more than a million tracks for ad-free streaming and download to Kindle Fire tablets as well as to computers and the Amazon Music app for Apple and Android devices.

People who pay $99 a year for Prime can listen to tens of thousands of albums from for no extra cost. By adding music, Amazon is hoping to hook new customers and retain existing ones on its Prime free-shipping plan, which also allows subscribers to watch streams of movies and TV shows.

Amazon reached licensing deals with most of the top independent labels and major recording companies Sony and Warner Music, but failed to reach a deal with top-ranked Universal Music Group.

Universal didn’t reach a deal with Amazon because it disagreed with the value of the lump sum royalty payment on offer for the albums in question, which amounted to about $40 million to $50 million.

The service also won’t have many new releases – and for major artists that could mean music that has been released within the last six months.

The Durango Herald 06/12/2014 | Amazon launches music streaming for Prime members

[topspeed]

I found out about this when they updated the app on my phone. It's actually pretty cool and I can find a lot of albums I've been wanting to listen to but was too cheap to buy. I've always used Pandora for background music, but will try Amazon out as well. I bought in to Prime a while back before the price hike, simply because it saves me so much in shipping costs during the holidays. For the the (then) $72, it was a no brainer, plus most of the time I can find what I want for less than a B&M and have it on my doorstep in 48 hours. When they added video, it was merely icing on the cake. I guess Amazon music is now the cherry?

[Smokey]

For the the (then) $72, it was a no brainer, plus most of the time I can find what I want for less than a B&M and have it on my doorstep in 48 hours. When they added video, it was merely icing on the cake. I guess Amazon music is now the cherry?

Don't get too fat

How would you rate sound quality of audio stream? I listen to services like Pandora, but find sound quality wanting especially on home system.

[topspeed]

Don't get too fat

How would you rate sound quality of audio stream? I listen to services like Pandora, but find sound quality wanting especially on home system.

I haven't tried it on my main system, only the garage stereo (Denon/Onix X-LS speakers) when I'm working on the cars and via Sonos when I'm in the yard. Maybe I need to change my concept of streaming music, but I've always found it to be so lacking I've always relegated it to background music. I would say it certainly sounds no worse than Pandora and may even sound a bit better, but I haven't really taken the time to seriously listen to either.

I wonder if you can take streaming music, feed it into a dac, and make it sound better?