Photo Credit: Waldemar Brandt
Amazon is partnering with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group for remastered Ultra HD songs.
The new partnership will see thousands of songs and albums remastered for streaming on Amazon Music HD. “We launched Amazon Music HD last year with a promise to always offer our customers the best quality recording available for streaming,” Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music relayed. “With this partnership, we are building upon that promise by upgrading existing recording to make the listening experience even better, and preserving artistic legacy for future generations.”
When Amazon launched Amazon Music HD last year, it came with access to about five million tracks. Amazon says it will also remaster select songs and albums to support new 3D audio formats like Sony 360 Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos. Amazon Music HD subscribers will be able to stream the new 360 audio mixes using the Echo Studio.
Some of the albums selected for 3D audio remaster include:
- Tom Petty’s Wildflowers & All the Rest
- Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory 20th Anniversary Edition
- The Ramones’ debut album
- Selena Gomez’s Rare
Amazon Music HD allows users to stream around five million tracks in 24-bit, 192 kHz sample rate. It features around 60 million lossless HD songs, with 16-bit, 44.1 kHz sample rate (CD Quality). Amazon is also growing its catalog of 3D audio.
“All titles resulting from this Ultra HD music partnership will be delivered in 24-bit and 96 kHz or 192 kHz,” the company shared. Amazon says hundreds of albums have already been remastered and will soon be released in Ultra HD.
“Hundreds of albums including Kid Cudi’s Man On The Moon: The End of Day; Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York; Waylon Jennings’ Don’t Think Twice; Diana Ross’ Diana & Marvin; B.B. King’s Lucille; Lady Gaga’s Joanne; Ariana Grande’s debut album, Yours Truly; 2 Chainz’ The Play Don’t Care Who Makes It; J. Cole’s album KOD; and Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Natty Dread, have already been remastered and will soon be available to stream in Ultra HD,” the company continues.
It’s nice to see a major streaming service commit to HD audio for once. Spotify has dabbled in HD audio but mostly pulled out. Both TIDAL and Deezer support high-fidelity audio streaming – though Deezer is geared more towards 3D audio experience. Perhaps this partnership will show Spotify and Apple Music the value of higher-bitrate streaming. If anyone is happy about this news, it’s definitely Neil Young.