Music streaming: After Apple, Amazon is also increasingly luring with 3D sound

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Sony artist Alicia Keys (archive picture): Your complete catalog is now in 360 Reality Audio on Amazon Music

Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa

In the competition for music streaming services, Amazon follows Apple with the introduction of three-dimensional sound for all subscription customers.

Market leader Spotify, which does not yet offer 3D music, is therefore under pressure to catch up with its rivals.

Amazon Music offers the songs in both Dolby Atmos format and Sony's competing 360 Reality Audio format, the company announced on Tuesday. So far, Apple has only relied on Dolby Atmos. Special equipment or an upgrade of the streaming subscription are not necessary at Amazon.

Although Amazon has been offering 3D audio for two years, the spatial effect could only be used on a few devices such as the in-house speaker Echo Studio. From now on, according to Amazon, you can also use common headphones, provided they are coupled with iOS or Android devices. Sony's SRS-RA5000 and SRS-RA3000 as well as the home theater systems HT-A9, HT-A7000 and HT-A5000 are added to the speakers. In the course of the year, songs in Dolby Atmos should also be audible via the Sonos soundbars Sonos Arc and Beam (2nd generation), provided that the Sonos app is used and Amazon Music is the source.

Amazon did not announce how large the offer of appropriately produced or subsequently processed music is.

According to the press release, the catalog has grown 20 times since Amazon has been offering spatial sound.

The website in question only mentions »thousands of songs«.

With around 165 million premium accounts, Spotify is the clear number one in the music streaming business ahead of Apple.

The iPhone company had more than 60 million subscription customers for its Apple Music service in the summer of 2019, but has not published any new figures since then.

Unlike Spotify, Apple does not offer an ad-supported free version of its service.

It is unclear how many subscription customers Amazon Music has.

The service could benefit from the fact that customers of Amazon's subscription offer Prime can get it cheaper.

pbe / dpa