Why Is No One Talking About Amazon Music Unlimited?

There are some music streaming services out there that simply do not get the spotlight that they deserve. One of them is Amazon Music Unlimited, which could be the service that you may be missing out on.

What Is Amazon Music Unlimited?

Amazon Music Unlimited is a stand-alone music streaming service by Amazon. It offers some interesting features, with the main benefit being unlimited access to millions of songs that you can listen to in high-quality audio.

This underrated service is often confused with Amazon Music Prime, but there are a few major differences between the two. For starters, you do not need to have a Prime membership to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, which is great news if you are only looking for an audio streaming service.

You can subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited for $10.99/month as a non-Prime member or $9.99/month as a Prime member. You can also avail a 30-day free trial before you sign up for the subscription.

If you are a Prime member, you get free access to Amazon Music Prime, apart from perks like free shipping. But your options are very limited with this "free" pass, with restricted access to songs and offline listening and a forced Shuffle mode.

Amazon Music Unlimited also offers superior features compared to Music Prime, which extends to audio quality, a wide catalog of songs and podcasts, and personalized stations. Here's a look at a few reasons why you might want to check out this service.

Audio Quality

An Amazon Music Unlimited subscription offers many perks, with an enticing one being high-quality audio streaming. It offers HD audio, which is CD-quality audio, also known as lossless audio. But beyond this, you can also listen to songs in Ultra HD quality, which is even better than CD-quality audio and ten times the bitrate (the higher the bitrate, the better your audio is going to sound) of standard audio quality.

Amazon Music Unlimited offers curated HD and Ultra HD playlists and exclusive access to Ultra HD remastered albums for classics. You can also listen to thousands of songs in spatial audio, which lets you experience Dolby Atmos and 360 reality audio. Having the option to switch between stereo and spatial is great, especially since the spatial audio can also be listened to on select headphones and smart speakers.

A Wide Catalog

Like Spotify and Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited also offers a massive catalog of over 100 million songs. Out of this, nearly 75 million songs can be listened to in HD audio quality, and around 7 million have Ultra HD quality. Unlike Amazon Music Prime, you can listen to these songs with unlimited skips in any way you like: online or offline.

You can also access thousands of ad-free podcasts and live music through Amazon Music Live, which are live streams of events and concerts that can be accessed through Prime Video or Twitch.

I find the Amazon Music Unlimited web and mobile apps easy to use, with a simple yet neat interface. The "Find" tab also lets you discover new music or podcasts, with options to search by genres, moods, podcast categories, and charts. New releases can also be quickly checked here, which can keep your library fresh.

A Sorted Library

There are many ways to sort your Amazon Music Unlimited library, which makes it an easy task to filter your favorite music. You can choose to filter your library by songs, artists, albums, downloaded, and playlists. As for your favorite songs, you can sort by artist names, recently added, titles, and album names.

You can even sort your songs by audio quality and choose from Ultra HD, Dolby Atmos, and 360 Reality Audio. This feature can be used to, say, pick Ultra HD songs when you are creating playlists.

One of my favorite things about the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription is that you will not have a difficult time discovering new music and artists. You can explore genre and artist stations from the "Find" page, access curated playlists, discover songs by seasons or celebrations (like Halloween), and find some killer artist and song recommendations from the home page.

With every song you play, you also get an "X-ray" option that lets you access artist-specific polls and fun trivia that really connects you with the musicians in your library. When discovering songs, you have the option to see what type of music listeners of a song are interested in. You also get to unlike songs, so that similar songs are not recommended.

The music discovery aspect of Amazon Music Unlimited is tied in with the option to play similar songs, which acts as a personal radio station.

Device Integration

You can use Amazon Music Unlimited on all Amazon Music-supported devices. There is also an "Alexa" tab in the app for seamless integration that lets you use the smart speaker hands-free to play music.

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The Amazon Music app is available on the App Store and Google Play Store for download. A web version is also available for use through the Amazon website. While you can play songs on your preferred headphones and speakers, a few brands that Amazon recommends for optimal audio quality include:

What Could Be Better

I find that Amazon Music Unlimited has a list of solid features that you would find a dream to use. There is, however, always room for improvement. You do not have the option to arrange your library by pinning playlists or songs, which can bring a level of customization beyond sorting.

While present for podcasts, the forward button is missing for songs, and this could be a neat addition. I also find that while the lyrics feature is good, it can be a little difficult to follow since each line and not each word highlights the lyrics.

Is It Worth It?

Weighing the pros and cons of what Amazon Music Unlimited offers, I believe that this is an extremely underrated music streaming service that would be worth every cent if you are specific about super high-quality audio, Alexa integration, and Amazon device compatibility.

On the other hand, I find that this service is not highly differentiated from top competitors by features. It can also be disappointing not to find the songs you are looking for in your preferred audio quality since Ultra HD audio is not available for all songs.

However, if you are looking into Amazon Music Prime subscription options, it might be a better deal for your wallet and listening experience to just opt for the unrestricted, higher-quality version. Amazon Music Unlimited remains a hidden gem option that offers some of the best audio quality options I have seen, so it might just be the right fit for you, which you can always decide on during your free trial period.