Amazon Music bad sound quality?

[johnscully]

Hi,

I'm looking for an alternative to iTunes match. First I tried Goggle Play Music and was quite happy with it, except that it messes up my playlists over time (54 songs in Playlist X on my iPhone, only 51 in the Browser Version).

So I discovered Amazon Music and it looks quite promising. But I'm concerned about the sound quality, because Amazon uses just 256 kbit/sec MP3s (Google: 320 kb, Apple 256 kb AAC). Before I invest 24,99 $ per year for the Amazon music service: Is the sound quality really lower than with the services of the competitors? Has anybody made any experiences with Amazon Music, good or bad?

 

[Rigby]

256kbps MP3 sounds excellent. I have purchased quite a few digital albums from Amazon and never had an issue. If you have doubts, purchase a song from Amazon for a buck and test it yourself (preferably in a blind test).

I have no idea though whether their service is any better than Google or iTunes when it comes to managing playlists etc.

 

[tonyr6]

Amazon Music sound quality is horrible at best. 256kbps MP3 is no good. I stopped using it in December after trying to listen to some holiday music that sounded like mud.

I also found that Apple Music 256kbps AAC was not great either. Too me it has more of a metallic sound to it instead of a warmer sounded higher bitrate song. Like they used a wave editor to enhance the sound which made it sound worse. My 192kbps AAC's from CD's sounded way better so it is not just the bitrate.

Play Music 320kbps (don't know if they still use MP3) sounds amazing. I was shocked on how much it sounded better with richer louder base instead of a metallic sound that AM had when I went back to Play Music.