Amy Winehouse’s 2007 Glastonbury Festival concert is available for the first time on vinyl to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Winehouse’s performance on the Pyramid Stage

The review includes 2 editions: Vinyl, Youtube (Back To Black).

You can also find the review of an other album of Amy Winehouse : At The BBC here.

Below you will find the description of the different editions, as well as the measurements of each edition in the following chapters.
The synthesis of the review and the samples are available here.

This album includes 16 tracks reviewed:

1. Addicted
2. Just Friends
3. Tears Dry On Their Own
4. He Can Only Hold Her
5. Cherry
6. Back To Black
7. Wake Up Alone
8. Love Is A Losing Game
9. F*ck Me Pumps
10. Cupid
11. Hey Little Rich Girl
12. Monkey Man
13. You Know I’m No Good
14. Rehab
15. Me & Mr Jones
16. Valerie

First we will analyze each edition in detail (technical and qualitative analysis), then we will compare the successive editions with their dynamics and assign a final score, and you will be able to listen some samples.

The streaming versions may evolve over time, those presented here correspond to the version tested at the date of publication, or update of the review.

Review of the editions:

Part 1: Presentation of the editions

Part 2 : Waveform and dynamique comparaison

Parts 3 : Spectrum comparisons

Part 4 : Spectrogram comparaisons

Part 5 : Summary, scoring and Sample

Part 1: presentation of the editions

Ed1: Vinyl ref : 602445556847 – 2022

Presentation

This is the double vinyl of this album .

Label	‎UMC
Reference	602445556847
Format (speed)	Double LP 33 rpm
Type	180g black vinyl
Master	digital
Mastering/Pressing	Lacquer Cuted by Miles Showell Mastered by Miles Showell
Original recording	digital
State	EU
Year original	2007
Year production	2022

Ed2: Youtube Back To Black video – 2020

Presentation

This is the Youtube video of Back To Black.

Label	‎UMC
Reference	Amy Winehouse – Back To Black (Glastonbury 2007)
Format (speed)	Video Youtube
Type	Stereo encoded in AAC 128 kbits/s
Master	digital
Mastering/Pressing
Original recording	digital
State	EU
Year original	2007
Year production	2020

Part 2 : Waveform and dynamic comparaisons

Waveform

The waveform represents all the tracks of the album for each version.

The graphs below represent the waveforms of the vinyl versions (Ed1).
This version is dynamic without compression effect.

The curve below represents the waveform of the song Back To Black presented in video on Youtube. There are no limitations on the sound levels which suppress all the dynamic peaks.

Dynamic

Dynamic represents the ability to reproduce a wide range of sounds from the softest to the loudest. The target is to compare the dynamics of the music and not of the media (CD, digital files or vinyl).

For our 2 editions we have obtained the following Dynamic Range (DR) :

	Ed1: Vinyl	Ed2: Youtube
GLOBAL	DR13	DR11
Min	DR11	DR11
Max	DR14	DR11
Addicted	DR13
Just Friends	DR11
Tears Dry On Their Own	DR13
He Can Only Hold Her	DR12
Cherry	DR13
Back To Black	DR13	DR11
Wake Up Alone	DR12
Love Is A Losing Game	DR12
F*ck Me Pumps	DR14
Cupid	DR12
Hey Little Rich Girl	DR12
Monkey Man	DR13
You Know I’m No Good	DR12
Rehab	DR13
Me & Mr Jones	DR13
Valerie	DR11

The dynamics are there for this album with a DR13 for the vinyl and a little less with a DR11 for the Youtube video.

As a reminder, the scale goes from 0 to more 20, but the dynamics are considered good from 12, quite good between 10 and 11, and deteriorate below 10.

Part 3 : spectrum comparisons

Spectrum

The Spectrum allows to check the tonal balance of the music (balance between treble, medium and bass sounds) and to detect process that may have been carried out during the recording, the mixing, mastering or manufacturing phases. It is also possible to detect frequency interference issues.

The curve represents the average frequency distribution over the sample “Back To Black”.

The interesting features on this curve Ed1 Vinyl (white) vs Ed2 Youtube (blue) are the following:

• A similar global rendering but with more important differences between the curves above 6 kHz and below 600 Hz.
• The Youtube version has a greater expansion of the low end (green arrow).
• The yellow arrow shows the 16 kHz cutoff of the Youtube version, which is due to the 128 kbits/s AAC encoding. For the vinyl, there is a progressive decrease above 20 kHz.

Part 4 : Spectrogram comparaisons

Spectrogram

Spectrogram is another representation of frequency versus time of a track. For each channel (right and left), horizontal axis represents time, and the vertical axis represents frequency. The amplitude is represented by the intensity (brightness) of the color of each point in the image.

The spectrogram of the vinyl (Ed1) continues above 20 kHz (yellow arrow). The white arrow shows music and a part of the distortion due to the playback of the vinyl above 20 kHz.

The spectrogram of Youtube (Ed2) have a limit at 16kHz (yellow arrow) due to the 128 kbits/s AAC encoding. The black area shows that there is no signal above 16 kHz (white arrow).

Part 5 : Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed1: Vinyl ref : 602445556847 – 2022

This vinyl album offers a very nice pressing with a reduced surface noise. The music is natural, clear and dynamic with a very nice rendering of the stereo space compared to Youtube sound.

• Rating:
  • Dynamic: ●●●●o (4.5/5)
  • Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5/5)
  • Surface noise: ●●●●o (4.5/5)
  • Restitution: ●●●●o (4.5/5)

• Sample : “Back To Black” 24 bits 88.2 kHz:

Ed2: Youtube Back To Black video – 2020

The rendering of the YouTube version is different from the vinyl one, we lose the clarity, dynamics and space for the sound, but we gain the image of the video.

• Rating:
  • Dynamic: ●●●oo (3.5/5)
  • Bandwidth: ●●●oo (3/5)
  • Restitution: ●●●oo (3/5)

• Sample : “Back To Black” 16 bits 44.1 kHz:

The album is available in a very nice vinyl edition which offers a very nice sound rendering of this concert. It offers globally a better restitution than the At The BBC concert released in 2021. For the moment, there is no digital edition that comes with the release of this vinyl.

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Detail of the ratings :

• Dynamic :
  1. Significant dynamic compression, DR less than 7
  2. Compression of the present dynamics, DR between 7 and 9.
  3. Correct piece DR >=10
  4. No dynamic compression (DR >12), dynamic rendering
  5. No dynamic compression, high DR and very dynamic sound rendering
• Spectrum :
  1. Spectrum cut and less than 15 khz
  2. Spectrum cut at 15 khz
  3. Spectrum not conforming to the original and cut (not HD) or original but limited bandwidth (but less than 20 kHz)
  4. Spectrum conforming to the original (but not HD)
  5. Spectrum conforming to the original with HD resolution (higher than 24kHz)
• Surface noise (only for vinyl):
  1. Continuous audible noise
  2. Audible surface noise except on passages with a high level of noise
  3. Reduced surface noise, barely audible on low level crossings
  4. Low surface noise, very good quality
  5. Very low surface noise, no defects, almost inaudible on the quiet passages (exceptional disc)
• Spatialization :
  • Between 0 and 5 for 5.1 or 7.1 channels configuration
  • Between 0 and 10 for Atmos configuration (7.1.4)
  • For more information on spatialization, you can read the article describing this parameter here.
• Restitution :
  1. Low quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments.
  2. Average quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments.
  3. Quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Good record.
  4. High quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Very high level disc.
  5. Maximum quality of the restitution mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Exceptional disc.

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