Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon (Live at Wembley)” album was recorded in 1974, and is available for the first time on vinyl, either on its own or as part of the 50th anniversary box set which also includes the CD. This concert album only includes tracks from “The Dark Side of the Moon” and not the entire concert.

For this review, you will find 3 versions tested: vinyl and CD from the 50th anniversary box and streaming Qobuz Hi-Res.

You can find the review of other Pink Floyd albums:

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

The album is composed of 10 tracks:

Speak to Me
Breathe
On the Run
Time
The Great Gig in the Sky
Money
Us and Them
Any Colour You Like
Brain Damage
Eclipse

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

Ed 1: Vinyl 50th BOX – 2023

Presentation

This is the vinyl included in the 50th anniversary box.

Ed 2: CD 50th BOX – 2023

Presentation

This is the CD included in the 50th anniversary box.

Ed 3: Qobuz Hi-Res – 2023

Presentation

This is the streaming Qobuz presented in Hi-Res 24 bits 96 kHz

Part 2 : Waveform and dynamic comparaisons

Waveform

The waveform represents tracks of this album.

The 3 waveforms below represent the vinyl, CD and Qobuz Hi-Res. We find a dynamic signal on all the tracks without the intensive use of a brickwall limiter.

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 3 editions reviewed have obtained the following Dynamic Range (DR) :

	Vinyl 50th BOX – 2023	CD 50th BOX – 2023	Qobuz Hi-Res – 2023
Global	DR11	DR10	DR10
Min	*DR10*	*DR8*	*DR8*
Max	*DR12*	*DR13*	*DR11*
Speak to Me	DR12	DR13	DR11
Breathe	DR12	DR11	DR11
On the Run	DR11	DR8	DR8
Time	DR12	DR11	DR11
The Great Gig in the Sky	DR10	DR11	DR11
Money	DR12	DR9	DR9
Us and Them	DR10	DR9	DR9
Any Colour You Like	DR12	DR10	DR9
Brain Damage	DR11	DR9	DR9
Eclipse	DR10	DR8	DR8

The dark Side Of The Moon (Live At Wembley) is an album with an average dynamic range of DR10/DR11 found on all media.

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 graph below compares the vinyl spectrum (white curve) to the Qobuz Hi-Res spectrum (blue curve). The curves overlap completely between 400 Hz and 10 kHz, below 400Hz, the white curve is very slightly above the blue curve, which will give slightly more bass for the vinyl (the difference remaining less than 1 dB). Above 10kHz the white curve falls below the blue curve, with the difference increasing up to 20kHz to 5dB. This means that there is less high end on the vinyl version. The signal is very clean above 10 kHz, without any disturbance like on the studio vinyl “The Dark Side Of The Moon” also present in the box.

Spectrum Ed 1 Vinyl 50th BOX – 2023 (white) vs Ed 3 Qobuz Hi-Res – 2023 (blue)

The graph below compares the CD spectrum (white curve) to the Qobuz Hi-Res spectrum (blue curve). The curves overlap completely up to 22 kHz, which is the maximum frequency of the CD due to its 44.1 kHz sampling rate. The red arrow indicates the presence of a spurious frequency peak recorded on the Qobuz Hi-Res version at 31.5 kHz. This frequency indicates the presence of a television tube during recording.

Spectrum Ed 2 CD 50th BOX – 2023 (white) vs Ed 3 Qobuz Hi-Res – 2023 (blue)

The graph below shows another passage of the Qobuz Hi-Res spectrum which has the large 35 dB peak at 22 kHz (red arrow). This is also visible on the spectrogram.

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 vinyl spectrogram below shows a signal that rises above 22 kHz (yellow arrow), the signal that rises above 30 kHz (white arrow) represents some of the music and especially the distortion due to the vinyl playback technique. On some tracks there is also a large spike at 22 kHz (black arrow) which can reach 25 dB.

Spectrogram Ed 1 : Vinyl 50th BOX – 2023

The spectrogram of the CD below shows a signal that does not rise above 22 kHz (yellow arrow) due to the sampling rate of the CD at 44.1 kHz. There is no signal above 22 kHz as indicated by the white arrow.

The vinyl spectrogram below shows a signal rising above 22 kHz (yellow arrow), and well above 30 kHz as shown by the white arrow. The spurious frequency peak at 31.5 kHz (green arrow) seen in the spectrum analysis is also present throughout the album. On some tracks there is also a large spike at 22 kHz (black arrow) which can reach 35 dB.