Amazon Fire TV Cube 3rd Generation

[Trebdp83]

Yeah, I'm at it again. I like playing with new devices. After using an Apple TV 4K 1st Generation for many years, a Roku Ultra for about a year and a brief stint with the Nvidia Shield Pro, I'm giving the new Amazon Fire TV Cube 3rd Generation a shot. I guess I can count my LG C1 TV as well, but it is the least capable streamer of the bunch. Three days in with the Fire Cube and I'm having mixed emotions about it. It really does combine the best AND the worst characteristics of those other streamers. But, what I wanted it to do, it actually does well and I've decided to keep it and have actually disconnected the Apple TV 4K and the Roku Ultra from my system for a bit.

The new Fire Cube is an attractive little box covered in fabric in its new iteration. I do like the blue light bar that is activated when using Alexa and also the red light bar when disabling Alexa. The remote control is small and well equipped but a bit on the cheap plastic side and somewhat slippery. Set the Cube up properly and Alexa can do quite a few things for those who like voice control. You can tell Alexa to play show X, season X, episode X on the X app and she'll actually do it. But, Alexa is not without glitches and I still like to use remote controllers and don't like a machine listening to everything going on in my room. The mic can be disabled with a button press on the top of the Cube. While the Fire Cube is an attractive little streamer, Amazon's GUI, Prime Video and Music apps are not so much.

With an awful Prime Video and Amazon Music app, why settle on the Fire Cube? Well, because content on the Prime app looks f#%kin' amazing and the Music app supports Dolby Atmos AND hi-res output over HDMI! The Apple TV 4K cannot do that with Apple's own Apple Music app. Now, bit perfect fans might be concerned with signal displays when playing hi-res tracks on the Fire Cube. Amazon will display the tracks info, the Fire Cube's playback info and the capabilities of the connected receiver. Because 24/192 is supported, the receiver displays 192kHz all of the time even if the Fire Cube reports a track's specs otherwise. My TV was also confused about information concerning signals coming from the Fire Cube. I also noticed some cross up mixing limitations based on the Cube's audio settings and some bugs and other things I still need to figure out.

Oh, and for those with limited HDMI ports, the Fire Cube includes an input port as well as the single output port. But, those with next gen gaming consoles connected through it will be limited to 60Hz and have other issues. Then, there are the various audio and video settings to deal with when connecting any device through the Fire Cube to say nothing about TV and receiver settings. With so many different settings combos concerning every device in the chain, things can go wrong far more often than they can go right. It's a jungle out there.

There is quite a bit going on with this device. I was impressed by the Alexa assisted setup. It goes through quite a bit in helping to connect the Fire Cube to one's system. I was surprised that not only does the Fire Cube support the Apple TV app, Apple's app is better than the Prime Video app and anybody with a big iTunes movie library will find all of their media available in the app and it all looks and sounds great. Speaking of sounding great, I did notice when watching content I've watched many times on other devices that the Fire Cube is very generous in the bass department without any tinkering with receiver settings. Dolby Atmos tracks come in at a bit lower volume than I'd like but no complaints on the bass from any app. The Fire Cube also supports the Roku Channel app which is mostly what I used on the Roku Ultra when the Apple TV 4K was handling everything else and did not support that app. While the Apple TV app is supported on the Fire Cube, there is no support for the Apple Music app.

Everybody has their favorite device and/or ecosystem. I'm currently enjoying what Amazon is offering up using their own apps with one of their own devices. But, Amazon really needs to redesign and better equip their GUI and the Prime Video and Music apps. They just really f#%kin' suck. But, I'm gonna' take the good with the bad for now and have some fun with it. The Apple TV 4K 3rd Generation is still gimped in too many ways for me to consider upgrading my 1st Generation model for it so I'm glad the Amazon Fire Cube 3rd Generation is as capable as I need it to be.

 

[isolar8001]

Yeah, I'm at it again. I like playing with new devices. After using an Apple TV 4K 1st Generation for many years, a Roku Ultra for about a year and a brief stint with the Nvidia Shield Pro, I'm giving the new Amazon Fire TV Cube 3rd Generation a shot. I guess I can count my LG C1 TV as well, but it is the least capable streamer of the bunch. Three days in with the Fire Cube and I'm having mixed emotions about it. It really does combine the best AND the worst characteristics of those other streamers. But, what I wanted it to do, it actually does well and I've decided to keep it and have actually disconnected the Apple TV 4K and the Roku Ultra from my system for a bit.

The new Fire Cube is an attractive little box covered in fabric in its new iteration. I do like the blue light bar that is activated when using Alexa and also the red light bar when disabling Alexa. The remote control is small and well equipped but a bit on the cheap plastic side and somewhat slippery. Set the Cube up properly and Alexa can do quite a few things for those who like voice control. You can tell Alexa to play show X, season X, episode X on the X app and she'll actually do it. But, Alexa is not without glitches and I still like to use remote controllers and don't like a machine listening to everything going on in my room. The mic can be disabled with a button press on the top of the Cube. While the Fire Cube is an attractive little streamer, Amazon's GUI, Prime Video and Music apps are not so much.

With an awful Prime Video and Amazon Music app, why settle on the Fire Cube? Well, because content on the Prime app looks f#%kin' amazing and the Music app supports Dolby Atmos AND hi-res output over HDMI! The Apple TV 4K cannot do that with Apple's own Apple Music app. Now, bit perfect fans might be concerned with signal displays when playing hi-res tracks on the Fire Cube. Amazon will display the tracks info, the Fire Cube's playback info and the capabilities of the connected receiver. Because 24/192 is supported, the receiver displays 192kHz all of the time even if the Fire Cube reports a track's specs otherwise. My TV was also confused about information concerning signals coming from the Fire Cube. I also noticed some cross up mixing limitations based on the Cube's audio settings and some bugs and other things I still need to figure out.

Oh, and for those with limited HDMI ports, the Fire Cube includes an input port as well as the single output port. But, those with next gen gaming consoles connected through it will be limited to 60Hz and have other issues. Then, there are the various audio and video settings to deal with when connecting any device through the Fire Cube to say nothing about TV and receiver settings. With so many different settings combos concerning every device in the chain, things can go wrong far more often than they can go right. It's a jungle out there.

There is quite a bit going on with this device. I was impressed by the Alexa assisted setup. It goes through quite a bit in helping to connect the Fire Cube to one's system. I was surprised that not only does the Fire Cube support the Apple TV app, Apple's app is better than the Prime Video app and anybody with a big iTunes movie library will find all of their media available in the app and it all looks and sounds great. Speaking of sounding great, I did notice when watching content I've watched many times on other devices that the Fire Cube is very generous in the bass department without any tinkering with receiver settings. Dolby Atmos tracks come in at a bit lower volume than I'd like but no complaints on the bass from any app. The Fire Cube also supports the Roku Channel app which is mostly what I used on the Roku Ultra when the Apple TV 4K was handling everything else and did not support that app. While the Apple TV app is supported on the Fire Cube, there is no support for the Apple Music app.

Everybody has their favorite device and/or ecosystem. I'm currently enjoying what Amazon is offering up using their own apps with one of their own devices. But, Amazon really needs to redesign and better equip their GUI and the Prime Video and Music apps. They just really f#%kin' suck. But, I'm gonna' take the good with the bad for now and have some fun with it. The Apple TV 4K 3rd Generation is still gimped in too many ways for me to consider upgrading my 1st Generation model for it so I'm glad the Amazon Fire Cube 3rd Generation is as capable as I need it to be.

View attachment 61896
View attachment 61895

I like my FireStick 4K Max, it's pretty stable....but I only use it for SmartTube. Still can't stomach the picture/sound quality of content streaming, that's what my Dune HD hooked into 70tb of hard drives are for.

 

[Trebdp83]

One of the other things I’d read about the Fire Cube was that it supported Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. I don’t have rips of those kinds to stream to it so I connected the Sony UBP-X800M2 to the HDMI input on the Fire Cube. Would it be tripped up? Nope. It was able to bitstream Atmos/TrueHD and DTS:X tracks without issue with the HDMI input set at Passthrough.

The audio settings on the Fire Cube are peculiar. It does support Dolby MAT and, like the Apple TV 4K, everything is sent out as LPCM when audio is set to Best Available and Atmos metadata is still intact and available for processing in Atmos tracks. But, unlike my Apple TV 4K, this setting disables my receiver’s ability to apply DTS up mixing to non Atmos tracks. Set the audio output to Dolby Digital Plus, which still allows for Dolby Atmos from services, and DTS up mixing is available for use. Strange, but it is what it is.

 

[isolar8001]

Lots of feedback/tips here....Amazon could easily make this one of the best boxes out there for file playback...they just don't want that.

Amazon Fire TV Cube 3rd Gen

www.avsforum.com

 

[Trebdp83]

Yeah, read many of those posts. I’ll just stick with streaming services on this thing and sleep better at night.

 

[afterlife2]

I bought a used first gen one a couple of years ago for cheap. I think $20ish on woot. It's does OK, but seems slow recently after an update. The remote sometimes seems to be slow to operate as well. I like my old MI box better though, which is in my room. Cube is in the living room.

 

[Auditor55]

T

One of the other things I’d read about the Fire Cube was that it supported Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. I don’t have rips of those kinds to stream to it so I connected the Sony UBP-X800M2 to the HDMI input on the Fire Cube. Would it be tripped up? Nope. It was able to bitstream Atmos/TrueHD and DTS:X tracks without issue with the HDMI input set at Passthrough.

The audio settings on the Fire Cube are peculiar. It does support Dolby MAT and, like the Apple TV 4K, everything is sent out as LPCM when audio is set to Best Available and Atmos metadata is still intact and available for processing in Atmos tracks. But, unlike my Apple TV 4K, this setting disables my receiver’s ability to apply DTS up mixing to non Atmos tracks. Set the audio output to Dolby Digital Plus, which still allows for Dolby Atmos from services, and DTS up mixing is available for use. Strange, but it is what it is.

The 2nd gen FireTV Cube had the unfixable low volume issue. Do the 3rd gen Cube suffer from that issue?

 

[Trebdp83]

Volume level is comparable to other streamers with most services. Though, when playing Dolby Atmos tracks from Amazon Music, one must really crank it up.

 

[Auditor55]

Volume level is comparable to other streamers with most services. Though, when playing Dolby Atmos tracks from Amazon Music, one must really crank it up.

The firesticks and FireTV Cubes reportedly have a low volume issue on all content and not just Atmos music. That's why I was asking about the FireTV Cube gen 3.

 

[Trebdp83]

The Fire Cube Gen 3 seems to be comparable to my Apple TV 4K and Roku Ultra using various streaming service apps. Results will vary of course.