I got a Firestick 4K today. It has up to 24 bit/192KHz (the absolute ultimate which is also fully supported by my Onkyo) audio support with up to Dolby Atmos. It supports all popular video and audio formats including FLAC. When listening to Spotify Premium, it's like my entire system got a huuuuge audio upgrade over my previous Chromecast Video. Now I'm gonna try Amazon Music Ultra HD.

Dolby Digital+ is being sent to my speakers now. It's quite incredible!

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-digital-plus.html

It's very interesting how I always had a music enhancer option on my Onk. Now it's grayed out. Like the Onk knows it can't/shouldn't enhance the incoming stream.

Mojo,
I just received my fire stick today I will set up on the weekend. So you like it ?
RJ

That's great! Maybe we can learn from each other. It was easy peasy to set up and I was floored with the improved audio quality. I also set it to 24-bit color depth which is supported by both my Onk and my TV. Admittedly I can't see a difference on that one.

On the DD+, after weekly beatings I administered to Netflix about lacklustre audio, apparently back in May they introduced Atmos and DD+. But I didn't know because my TV (on which my Netflix apps sits), doesn't support DD+. With Neflix on the Firestick, one can get DD+ or Atmos. DD+, although compressed, sounds as good as HD MA to me. My Netflix content has come alive!

I really want to try Amazon's Music Unlimited now because I know Spotify isn't great even though I have Premium. I noticed a difference between Spotify Premium and Tidal HD. But the Tidal interface wasn't great so I switched back to Spotify. Music Unlimited is CD quality however and cheaper than Spotify Premium. Then there's also Music Ultra which is 24-bit/192KHz and it just doesn't get better than that. If you can hear out to 96KHz, it's the way to go...LOL!

Sadly, Firestick 4K does NOT support Atmos with Netflix.

Interested to see how Music Unlimited compares to Tidal. I love the quality on Tidal, but agree that the interface isn't quite as good as Spotify. It's also missing some content.

That's sad. Thanks for letting us know. For me, the Dolby+ and improved over-all sound was worth the $50.

It might be worth noting that I can't get 4K HD with my Onk. It supports upscaling to 4K but not a native 4K stream. It doesn't matter to me. The upscaled image is superb even at 30Hz.

I like how Spotify gives you similar playlists to what you've listened to. Sadly Tidal relates all that to top 40 or random Hip Hop hits.
In my reading and watching of random RMAF\CEDIA they keep saying you need JRiver/Audervana or ROON to properly stream the content lossless. I've been using the Tidal app for the last year and a half happily.
How much better can it get with an extra processing suite? What do you guys use or prefer? would one of these sticks do that conversion?

Folks, this is very instructive. Sources, sampling, modulation schemes...they ALL matter. I can hear details in the Firestick and PS3 renditions that I can't hear in the Chromecast Video. Keep in mind that's the first gen Chromecast Video. You can click on the thumbnail and it will take you to the image.

Now here's a surprising thing. I just signed up for a free trial of Amazon Music Unlimited which is claimed to be CD quality and hence better than Spotify Premium. On the same song, it was hitting 4dBC lower than Spotify on the Firestick (103.5dBC).

I have to conclude Spotify is superior for dynamic range.

And I've tested to see if the difference I'm hearing may be due to thermal compression of the M100 but no!

So...I've just cancelled Amazon Music Unlimited and will continue with Spotify.