Amazon Music HD Launches Promising Lossless Listening

A 90-day free trial offers access to HD and Ultra HD lossless audio streaming of over 50 million songs before the $12.99-$14.99 subscription kicks in.

Today, Amazon launched a new music subscription service called Amazon Music HD with the selling point being "50 million songs in the highest-quality streaming audio."

Your typical music streaming service plays audio at up to 320kbps, but Amazon has decided to offer a higher-quality (CD quality) streaming experience by promising lossless audio if you subscribe to Music HD. What does that mean for audio playback? You'll have access to over 50 million songs in either high definition (up to 850kbps) or Ultra HD (up to 3,730kbps).

Amazon already has over 50 million songs available to stream in HD and "millions of songs in Ultra HD." It's also offering 90 days free for you to try the service and see if you enjoy the higher quality streaming. Existing Amazon Music subscribers also get access for 90 days without any additional charge. If you can't really tell the difference through your listening device and headphones of choice, it's probably not worth the price without a hardware upgrade happens first.


Subscribing beyond the 90 day free trial will cost $12.99 for Amazon Prime customers or $14.99 for non-Prime listeners. Existing Amazon Music subscribers will pay an extra $5 a month. Amazon's main competition for HD streaming audio is Tidal, which offers a 30-day trial, 60 million tracks, but costs $19.99 a month. That's a huge difference and suggests Amazon is about to steal a lot of Tidal's customers away unless it rethinks its pricing quickly.

Taking full advantage of Amazon Music HD does come with a few pre-requisites. You're going to need an internet connection capable of achieving at least 1.5Mbps to ensure you're getting the highest quality streaming Music HD can offer. Your streaming device needs to support 16-bit/44.1kHz playback and your headphones or speakers need to support the same.

For now, the HD service is limited to customers located in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan.