Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is Taylor Swift’s third re-recorded album, following the albums re-recorded in 2021: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version). These new recordings follow a controversy concerning ownership of the rights to her first six studio albums.

You can also find album reviews :

• Red (Taylor’s Version)
• Midnights

For this review, you will find 3 versions tested: Orchild Marbled vinyl, Amazon Music UltraHD and Tidal Dolby Atmos.

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 22 tracks:

1. Mine (Taylor’s Version)
2. Sparks Fly (Taylor’s Version)
3. Back To December (Taylor’s Version)
4. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
5. Dear John (Taylor’s Version)
6. Mean (Taylor’s Version)
7. The Story Of Us (Taylor’s Version)
8. Never Grow Up (Taylor’s Version)
9. Enchanted (Taylor’s Version)
10. Better Than Revenge (Taylor’s Version)
11. Innocent (Taylor’s Version)
12. Haunted (Taylor’s Version)
13. Last Kiss (Taylor’s Version)
14. Long Live (Taylor’s Version)
15. Ours (Taylor’s Version)
16. Superman (Taylor’s Version)
17. Electric Touch (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat, Fall Out Boy]
18. When Emma Falls in Love (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)
19. I Can See You (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)
20. Castles Crumbling (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat, Hayley Williams]
21. Foolish One (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)
22. Timeless (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)

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 : Spatialization

Part 6 : Summary, scoring and Sample

Part 1: presentation of the editions

Ed 1: Vinyl (marbled purple) – 2023

Presentation

A beautiful edition of 3 marbled purple vinyl discs in 33.33 rpm ( ref: 602448438034) with sticker “Made In france”.

Ed 2: Amazon UltraHD – 2023

Presentation

The stereo version of Amazon Music is presented in UltraHD in 24 Bits 44.1 kHz.

Ed 3: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023

Presentation

The Tidal Dolby Atmos version is presented in Dolby Digital Plus 768 bits/s) or Dolby AC-4.

Part 2 : Waveform and dynamic comparaisons

Waveform

The waveform represents the tracks of this album.

The vinyl waveform below is dynamic, with significant variation in sound levels, as confirmed by the DR measurement with DR11.

The waveform of the Amazon Music digital stereo version clearly shows the zones with an almost constant maximum level (yellow zone), demonstrating the use of a brickwall limiter, as confirmed by the DR7. The same applies to other streaming services.

The waveform of the Dolby Atmos version, downmixed to stereo, shows beautiful dynamics, without the extreme use of limiters, unlike the digital stereo version (Ed2).

Zooming in on the waveforms of the stereo version and the Dolby Atmos version downmixed in stereo clearly shows the limiter’s work on the stereo version (yellow zone), with a flattening of the music 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 3 editions reviewed have obtained the following Dynamic Range (DR) :

	Vinyl (marbled purple) – 2023	Amazon UltraHD – 2023	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023 (7.1.4)
Global	DR11	DR6	DR14
Min	DR10	DR5	DR12
Max	DR12	DR8	DR19
Mine (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR5	DR14
Sparks Fly (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR5	DR15
Back To December (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR6	DR13
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR5	DR17
Dear John (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR6	DR13
Mean (Taylor’s Version)	DR12	DR7	DR19
The Story Of Us (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR5	DR16
Never Grow Up (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR8	DR12
Enchanted (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR5	DR14
Better Than Revenge (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR5	DR13
Innocent (Taylor’s Version)	DR12	DR6	DR14
Haunted (Taylor’s Version)	DR12	DR6	DR16
Last Kiss (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR7	DR14
Long Live (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR6	DR13
Ours (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR8	DR13
Superman (Taylor’s Version)	DR11	DR5	DR13
Electric Touch (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat, Fall Out Boy]	DR10	DR5	DR12
When Emma Falls in Love (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)	DR10	DR5	DR13
I Can See You (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)	DR11	DR5	DR13
Castles Crumbling (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) [feat, Hayley Williams]	DR11	DR6	DR13
Foolish One (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)	DR11	DR6	DR12
Timeless (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)	DR11	DR7	DR13

The streaming stereo version (Amazon Music) has a reduced DR7 dynamic range. You’ll need to listen to the vinyl or Dolby Atmos version to get a higher DR, up to DR14 for the Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 version.

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) with the spectrum of the stereo streaming version (blue curve). The curves overlap perfectly up to 8 kHz, and beyond this frequency (yellow zone), there’s a decrease of a few dB for vinyl (-5 dB at 15 kHz). The yellow arrow shows the maximum frequency of the stereo streaming version at 22 kHz due to the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency. The red zone shows a disturbance in the frequency response around 18 kHz due to the cutting of the vinyl record lacquer.

The spectrum of the Dolby Atmos Tidal version decoded in 5.1 shows that the front left and right channels are the most used, with a higher level than the other channels throughout the spectrum. The bass channel is filtered at 120 Hz, as indicated by the green arrow. The yellow arrow indicates the limit of high frequencies at 20 kHz due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding.

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 that the frequencies of the audio signal rise above 20 kHz (yellow arrow). The signal above 20kHz (white arrow) is due to distortion caused by the vinyl’s playback principle. There is no signal in the digital master for these frequencies (above 22 kHz).

The spectrogram of the Amazon stereo track is limited to 22kHz (yellow arrow) with no signal above (white arrow). This limitation is due to the 44.1kHz sampling frequency used for the UltraHD format of this album.

The spectrogram of the Dolby Atmos track downmixed in stereo is limited to 20kHz (yellow arrow) with no signal above (white arrow). This limitation is due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding, which is a lossy encoder that limits bandwidth to optimize data size for a bit rate of 768 kbits/s.

Part 5 : Spatialization

Spatialization allows you to define the sound distribution of the music on all the channels. The spatialization indicator and the description of the graph are described here.

Spatialization is available for Tidal Dolby Atmos .

Below the spatialization for the 22 tracks of Tidal Dolby Atmos version. Click on the images to zoom in.

Part 6 : Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Vinyl (marbled purple) – 2023

The vinyl version is in keeping with the trend for colored marbled vinyl records. The color is very successful and the pressing is correct. Listening to this version, the sound is more open and detailed than Amazon’s digital stereo version, with a slightly warmer sound and more natural vocals.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●oo (3)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Surface noise: ●●●●o (4)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (4)

Sample : ”Better Than Revenge” 24 bits 88.2 kHz:

Ed 2: Amazon UltraHD – 2023

No surprises with this digital stereo version, which despite its 24-bit presentation is compressed with DR7. In comparison, the dolby Atmos version brings more dynamics and detail. In stereo, the vinyl version is more pleasant to listen to, with a more open rendering.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●ooo (2)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Restitution: ●●●oo (3)

Sample : ”Better Than Revenge” 24 bits 44.1 kHz:

Ed 3: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023

The Dolby Atmos version is more dynamic, with a wider front soundstage than the stereo version, thanks to the use of the side channels. The Atmos mix is not very demonstrative, but on certain tracks, the spacialization is more important, with occasional effects using all the channels, as on the track “Better Than Revenge”.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●●●oooooo (4.2)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (4)

Sample : ”Better Than Revenge” 5.1 :

The sample is in 5.1 wav format, if you can not play the sample in your navigator, you can save it, right button menu and “Save Audio As…” and play it with an external player.

As with the RED (Taylor’s Version), the stereo digital version is dynamically compressed and less pleasant to listen to than the vinyl version, with a more open and natural soundstage. The Dolby Atmos version provides a wider, more dynamic front soundstage, with greater use of the side channels than the stereo version. Some tracks, such as “Better Than Revenge”, are more enveloping.

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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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