What is Amazon Music HD's highest quality? I started testing where I always start testing, with bit perfect playback. A USB cable between the computer and one's system is all that's required and Amazon Music HD will send along its highest quality. The limited number of options for playback isn't a showstopper in and of itself because many audiophiles use computers directly attached to their HiFi systems. One year on, the landscape is still Sonos, Bluesound, and Denon HEOS (I'm sure people will let me know if I missed any). Given that Amazon is notoriously difficult to work with, it's no surprise that we have so few options. There just aren't many options for listening in another way, such as integration with Lumin, Aurender, Auralic, JRiver, Roon, etc. Most of this use has been on my mobile phone or desktop.
I've been an Amazon Music HD subscriber since day one and have used the service off and on since signing up. Let's take a look at Amazon Music HD, one year later. Not long after Amazon launched, Qobuz matched its pricing and now offers a $14.99 /month plan and $24.99 /month family plan. At the time Amazon's $14.99 per month plan was the lower than all the other lossless or above music services. Many people uninterested in the success of small businesses and good customer service cheered the new offering from the 1.7 Trillion dollar company. More details are available on /hdmiadapter and /hdmiadapter.Just over one year ago Amazon launched its Amazon Music HD streaming service. It is a limitation of the HDMI 2.1 chip and with today's patchwork solution Sound United has seemingly giving up trying to find a permanent fix. However, the company's "compatibility issue" claim is not accurate. You will be able to register on this page starting May 15th to receive the SPK618 HDMI adapter at no cost," announced Sound United. If you experience a black screen and no audio when trying to pass through 4K/120Hz or 8K signals from gaming devices connected to the 8K input of the Denon A/V receiver, this adapter will help you to get a proper gaming experience. "The SPK618 HDMI adapter solution is designed to remedy a compatibility issue between select Denon A/V receivers that support 4K/120Hz and 8K video resolutions and select gaming consoles that support 4K/120Hz and 8K video resolution output.
The extra box is designed to address the issue by converting the signal. We will address the reported HDMI 2.1 issue via these planned future updates in order to provide customers with the best solution available." Adapter kit offered as "solution"Sound United has today announced that it will offer an HDMI adapter kit (SPK618) to affected customers. "From the time we first announced the newest AV receivers from Yamaha, such as the RX-V4A, RX-V6A, RX-A2A, TSR-400 and TSR-700, we have stated that we will support emerging HDMI 2.1 capabilities (such as 4K/120Hz pass-through) via future updates. Yamaha is aware of the issue," said Yamaha ( link).
"An issue has been identified in certain emerging video signals, such as 4K/120Hz, from select sources, resulting in a loss of picture and sound when passed through AV receivers. Likewise, it is recommending owners to use HDMI eARC. Many HDMI 2.0 receivers also support HDMI eARC. However, that defeats the whole purpose of an HDMI 2.1 receiver.
Sound United is advising owners to bypass the receiver by connecting the game console directly to the TV and use the TV's HDMI eARC port to output sound to the receiver. The second part of statement is irrelevant to this specific case as 4K/60 and 4K/120 (4:2:0) fall within conventional HDMI 2.0. "Other 4K/60Hz and 4K/120Hz YCbCr 4:2:0 signals (8-bit) are confirmed to work without issue." "4K/120Hz RGB signal (8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit) is confirmed to be affected by this issue," Sound United's Denon support page states ( Marantz here). Denon's X models are some of the receivers affected by the HDMI 2.1 issue Companies acknowledge the issueSound United, the company behind Denon and Marantz, has acknowledged the issue.