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Apple Music and Spotify receive lots of attention, but the world of streaming music services is much larger than those industry juggernauts. Amazon Music Unlimited offers an impressive library of music, a deep well of podcasts, hi-res audio, and clever discovery and AI innovations that make it an Editors’ Choice winner alongside LiveOne, Spotify, and Tidal. It’s a fantastic streaming audio service that’s especially appealing if you’re an Amazon subscriber or device user.How Much Does Amazon Music Unlimited Cost?Amazon Music Unlimited lacked a free listening tier when it debuted, much like Apple Music and Tidal. Not anymore. You can now listen to select ad-supported playlists and thousands of stations (for example, All Hits, Fuego Latino, and Holiday Favorites) via the web, Amazon Music mobile apps, Echo smart speakers, and Fire TV devices. Spotify’s free tier, on the other hand, lets you explore the service’s full 100 million-song catalog. That said, some albums only appear on Spotify Free after a two-week delay.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Of course, Music Unlimited also offers the industry-standard $10.99 per month premium plan for its ad-free Individual tier. Amazon Prime subscribers receive a meager discount that drops the fee to $9.99 per month (or $99 per year)—on top of their $139 per year Prime fees. No, Music Unlimited isn’t included with a Prime membership. Amazon Music Prime is. More on that later.In addition, Amazon has a $16.99 per month (or $159 per year) Family Plan that covers six people. This offering rivals similar packages from Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, and Tidal. A massive 90-day free trial—which is cut down to 30 days for the Family Plan—is available if you want to try it before subscribing. Amazon Music Unlimited’s trial period outclasses competing trial periods, except for the one offered by SiriusXM Internet Radio, which is also 90 days.
Amazon Prime Day is a key time to sign up for the music service. New subscribers see the 90-day trial period extended by an extra 30 days. Keep your eyes open for Prime Day promotions if you’re considering upgrading to Music Unlimited.Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Look, Echo Show, Amazon Fire TV, and Amazon Tap owners receive a discount, too—they pay just $4.99 per month for a single device, which is just a dollar more than LiveOne’s ad-free Plus plan. However, you cannot listen to HD, Ultra HD, or spatial audio with this plan. If you want to stream to multiple smart speakers, you need to upgrade to an Individual or Family plan. Amazon Music Unlimited’s voice-controlled device plans come with another big limitation: You cannot use them to stream music via apps or a web browser; you must use one of the aforementioned devices. Students with a Prime Student account ($7.49 per month, $69 per year) receive a discount that drops the Music Unlimited fee to just $0.99 per month. Non-Prime students pay $5.99 per month.Amazon Music Unlimited does not let you record audio. If you want that feature, your only option is SiriusXM Internet Radio.Amazon Music Unlimited vs. Amazon Music PrimeCurious about the differences between Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Music Prime? We’ll break it down. Amazon Music Unlimited is a standalone streaming music service that offers more than 100 million music tracks. Amazon Music Prime, on the other hand, is bundled into your Prime subscription. Music Prime offers the same robust musical catalog as Music Unlimited, but here’s the rub: your musical selection is shuffled. You are allowed a single, 50-track on-demand playlist. That said, it lacks Unlimited’s HD, Ultra HD, or spatial audio offerings.Signing up for Amazon Music Unlimited updates the service and replaces Amazon Music Prime as your Amazon jukebox, so you needn’t worry about launching the wrong streaming service. Both are ad-free listening experiences and are available on numerous devices.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Alexa and Amazon Music UnlimitedYou can easily command an Echo smart speaker using Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to play a specific song from Music Unlimited on command.Amazon’s smart gear also delivers behind-the-scenes commentary, dubbed Side-by-Sides. For example, you can ask Alexa to “play Side-by-Side with OneRepublic,” and Ryan Tedder comments on songs from the band’s newest album. The Killers, Kongos, Norah Jones, and U2 also provide Side-by-Side content. It’s reminiscent of LiveOne’s DNA stations, but without the deep historical context connecting past and present musicians.In addition, you can use an Amazon device to search for songs by lyrics, fire up playlists, and find songs that match your mood. It’s cool to command Alexa to play up-tempo happy music and have the Echo blast the “Pop To Make You Feel Better” playlist.That said, Amazon Music Unlimited lacks live music offerings. Sure, there are curated stations to enjoy, but nothing compares to the live radio offered by Sirius XM, for example. Amazon’s Music Library and Audio QualityMusic Unlimited contains more than 100 million songs and dozens of stations in its catalog, including the expected Classical, Decades, Rock, and Hip-Hop stations. You can even find more obscure musical offerings within Amazon’s catalog, such as video game soundtracks and fan covers. In a nice touch, any Amazon Music Prime playlists that you’ve created in the past carry over to Music Unlimited. You can, of course, create new ones, too.Several parts of Music Unlimited’s interface are designed to help you discover or buy music. Based on your listening habits, you’ll find several recommended albums and playlists. Thankfully, these suggestions don’t feel forced. In fact, we find them helpful.The left navigation menu contains sections for Purchased and Imported music. The former has Amazon Music-purchased tracks that you can stream or download. The latter houses the files that you uploaded to Amazon’s servers using the Amazon Music desktop app’s now-defunct music uploading feature. Spotify, it should be noted, lets you upload music from your desktop. We were pleased to see “Immigrant Song,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “Black Dog,” and other Led Zeppelin classics appear after keying the band’s name into Music Unlimited’s large search box. They’re the real tracks, not tribute works by bands no one cares about (though those also appear in the search results). The tracks sound good, as they stream up to a clear, 320Kbps bitrate in standard quality. This matches Tidal Premium’s 320Kbps service tier.Music Unlimited has one of the best lyric features we’ve seen in the streaming music space. Instead of offering a static page like Deezer, Music Unlimited has karaoke-like scrolling text that moves in time with the performance. It’s really cool, and we’d like other services to adopt similar lyrics integration.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Amazon’s AI DJ MaestroMaestro is an AI playlist generator currently in beta that’s available to Amazon Music, Prime, and Unlimited subscribers (you access it via the app’s Playlist button). To use Maestro, you launch it and then enter a prompt. You can use text or emoji for playlist ideas.We tested it with a variety of silly text prompts and emojis and were given an eclectic selection of tracks. When using the hot and cold emojis, Maestro concocted what it called a Thermal Thrills playlist, which it described as a “mix of hot and cold songs to give you chills.” The music included “Fireman” by Lil Wayne, “Cold as Ice” by Foreigner, and “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry. In a more practical experiment, we used the keywords “work” and “therapeutic” to find a suitable playlist. Maestro treated us to a wonderful mix of new-age and electronic tracks, including “Porcelain” by Moby, “Black Sands” by Bonobo, and “Near Light” by Olafur Arnalds. It had the occasional dud suggestion, as one might expect from an AI generator in beta, but Maestro was surprisingly fun to use.Amazon Music Unlimited HDAll Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can enjoy more than 100 million songs in HD quality (up to 850Kbps, 16-bit at 44.1kHz) and more than 7 million songs in Ultra HD quality (up to an absurd 3,730Kbps, 24-bit at 192kHz). This measures up pretty well to Tidal, which features non-compressed, 1,411Kbps FLAC and a few Master tracks at 9,216Kbps.For HD audio, you need a device and an internet connection that supports it. Amazon recommends a 1.5Mbps or higher connection, and headphones or speakers that support a dynamic range (20kHz+ for HD audio, 40kHz+ for Ultra HD audio). You’ll also need more than a standard Amazon Echo; the company recommends the $199.99 Amazon Echo Studio or hardware from Bose, Denon, Onkyo, or Polk. You can only listen to Amazon Music HD via the Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps; you cannot stream high-quality music via a web browser. On the upside, the apps have quality indicators to show when you’re listening to an HD or Ultra HD track. You can read about the Ultra HD hardware requirements and general compatibility on Amazon’s Music HD page.The Amazon Music HD tracks sound quite good, though the improvements are mostly subtle. We found several Music HD playlists, including ones for David Bowie, Ariana Grande, Billie Holiday, and Queen, as well as many individual albums and songs. A decent amount of K-Pop is available on Amazon Music Unlimited; we jammed to an HD version of NCT Dream’s “Hot Sauce” and an UltraHD version of CIX’s “All For You.”We particularly enjoyed Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” as John Deacon’s bass lines sounded a hair deeper in the hi-res audio format. Cymbal crashes seemed to linger a bit longer, too. Note that we listened using a pair of mid-tier Audio-Technica headphones connected to a PC, a computer with a speedy landline connection. When we compared the sound using a pair of low-end earbuds plugged into our test phone, we couldn’t detect a quality difference as the songs streamed over a Wi-Fi signal.
(Credit: Amazon/PCMag)
Podcasts and VideoAs mentioned earlier, Amazon Music Unlimited offers little non-music content aside from a handful of comedy specials (in audio form). That said, Amazon Music Unlimited takes a page from Spotify’s playbook by offering a robust podcast catalog. Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers who love Code Switch, Dolly Parton’s America, or WTF With Marc Maron no longer need to venture elsewhere for those shows. Even better, Amazon Music Unlimited features exclusive, original podcasts hosted by notable celebrities, such as DJ Khaled, Becky G, Will Smith, and Dan Patrick. It’s Amazon Music Unlimited’s continuing move to stay at par with the competition, especially in the highly competitive entertainment category. We previously dinged Music Unlimited for lacking video, so it’s nice that Amazon has added music videos to complement its audio offerings. Music videos are organized by genre and iconic artist categories. You get a rich selection, such as Classic Hip-Hop, ’90s Pop Throwbacks, ’80s Hits, and Classic Country, alongside collections from artists like Britney Spears.Amazon Music Unlimited Mobile AppsAmazon Music Unlimited has Android and iOS apps. We tested the Android version and discovered that it closely duplicates the Music Unlimited desktop experience. The app contains copious playlists, useful recommendations, and a music store for making purchases. It contains lyrics, too.In addition, you can use Amazon’s Alexa tech to search for songs by lyrics or to play tracks and playlists. For example, when we asked Alexa for dinner music, it supplied a laidback, easy-listening playlist.Verdict: An Excellent Streaming Service, Particularly for Amazon UsersAmazon Music Unlimited is a top choice for streaming music, thanks in part to its features as well as its close integration with Alexa voice control, Echo devices, and Fire TV. Though it lacks live radio, it offers just about everything else you could want, from a comprehensive catalog of hi-res audio to podcasts and music videos. And if you already use other Amazon products or services, chances are you can get a discount on Music Unlimited, making it even more appealing. All of this makes it an Editors’ Choice winner for streaming services.Mike Williams contributed to this review.
Pros
Large music and video library
Cool AI-generated playlists
Karaoke-style lyrics
Supports hi-res audio
Tight integration with Amazon device family
Ad-supported free tier
Lengthy 90-day free trial
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The Bottom Line
Amazon Music Unlimited’s feature-rich music, video, and podcast selection makes the streaming service a worthy premium upgrade from the limited Prime Music.
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