Amazon has announced that their higher-quality streaming music service, Amazon Music HD, is now available for free for all standard Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers. The premium music service used to cost an extra $5 a month over Amazon’s standard music subscription prices but now it’s included at no additional charge. However, receiving the better audio quality isn’t automatic, so you do need to manually upgrade to it.
Competition is a great thing. Earlier today, Apple announced that they will begin offering Apple Music subscribers higher music quality at no additional charge starting next month. Within minutes of Apple’s announcement, Amazon announced that they’ll be doing the same starting immediately. Individual plans of Amazon Music Unlimited, both at the Prime member rate of $7.99/month and the regular rate of $9.99/month, qualify for the free upgrade, as does the $14.99/month family plan. I’ve seen reports that the $0.99/month Prime Studen plan and the $3.99/month Echo-only plan might not be eligible for the upgrade, but I’m unable to confirm it.
To upgrade to the higher-quality audio streams, you must visit Amazon’s music subscription page and click the “Upgrade Now” button at the top. Amazon Music HD was originally only supported on the 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube but it became available on the Fire TV Stick 4K and the 3rd-gen Fire TV Stick late last year. I’m not sure if it has come to other Fire TV models since then. It’s also available through 2nd-gen Echo devices and later.
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Really wish I could get rid of the whole “Amazon Music Unlimited” bull-loney from all of my damn devices… yet every time I want to listen to music from My Collection, my phone App wants me to “SIGN UP TO AMAZON MUSIC UNLIMITED”, and every time my 6 year old kid asks to hear a song on my Echo devices, Alexa wants him to “JOIN AMAZON MUSIC UNLIMITED!”… I just want to listen to the songs I’ve bought Amazon… GTFO with this garbage. Let me OPT OUT!
heres your wambulance!!!
Thanks for the heads up on this!
Anyone done it yet. When I go into account it says I have unlimited at the top. And has update button.
But below it, has the radio dot on family. And no “unlimited” option.
I’m afraid if I update to HD it’s going to switch to family.
I can’t work out how to actually make the change to upgrade either. It’s not clear from the account page that the link takes me to.
I wasn’t sure either from the e-mail and follow on web page that it linked to. I opened the AMAZON MUSIC app on my Android Phone and received a pop up message to UPGRADE FOR FREE. Selected this and it took me to the normal home page and I now see quite a few HD, ULTRA HD and ULTRA HD 3D badges for a lot of music. Might be the placebo effect, but I popped in my new 2nd Gen ECHO BUDS and sampled some ULTRA HD music and it sure sounded top notch. Not that it was terrible before, but it did seem improved.
Competition is good. Thanks Apple!!
Did you notice the cost selection below the button.
Alsondo you know what it gets entered in bank account as I can’t find mine.
Nice. Now will anyone really hear the difference? And what Echo devices do you need to listen to this new HD music?
Which Amazon devices support Amazon Music HD?
Alexa-enabled Echo devices (2nd generation and later), Fire TVs and Fire Tablets all support HD quality audio. The Echo Studio, Echo Link, and Echo Amp support Ultra HD quality audio.
Here’s hoping that Amazon starts to include separate digital audio outputs on their FireTVs again!
Disappointed in Amazon and What HiFi with false, misleading info regarding HD & Ultra as free downloads within unlimited streaming. As everything costs. Even 3month trial turned into 1 month. So much misleading information & it took 2.5 hours to find the truth behind the offers. I’m canceling both Amazon & What Fi Hi. What a waste of time.