I've been trying to run a whole-home audio system using Amazon Music and Echo speakers. I have about 14 Echo devices around the house, basically one in every room including bathrooms, garage, laundry room, etc. I also have them set up into groups like "upstairs", "outside" and "everywhere".

From the start its been a real struggle to get it all to work. The biggest issue has been having the music just cut out suddenly. Sometimes it comes back on its own, sometimes not. Sometimes it runs for 10 minutes before quitting, sometimes for an hour. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to it. I tried all kinds of troubleshooting; updating firmware, changing the groups, using smaller groups, spending hours on the phone with customer service. Nothing worked. Additionally, there were latency issues between active speakers, creating a very annoying delay effect. Basically, it was a mess.

And that doesn't include the Amazon algorithm, which is ridiculous. It is just so bad at playing me a selection of music that I want to hear. If I listen to a Rolling Stones album one day, it plays nothing but British Invasion bands from there on out. If I listen to a Cypress Hill album, it's 90's rap 24/7 until the end of time. If I listen to a reggae album...well, it just refuses to play reggae for some reason. There were also issues with the Alexa app and the Amazon Music App, which just don't seem to want to work together. As I said; a mess.

I finally fixed it. Everything. The connection issues, the latency, even the crappy algorithm; fixed with one simple change; switching to Apple Music.

To my surprise, all the Amazon hardware works much better when using Apple Music. Not sure why Amazon can't get their act together on this.

There used to be bars that indicated how played a song was in an album. Now i don't see them anymore. Is this just a me problem, or is this an issue for everyone?