Irish artist Sinéad O’Connor, whose recent death has left the music world in mourning, made a stunning international breakthrough with her second album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”, unveiled in 1990. The critically acclaimed opus included the iconic single “Nothing Compares 2 U”, a poignant cover of a Prince song. With its memorable video featuring a close-up of her face in tears, the song became a worldwide hit. The album, reflecting her powerful voice and artistic sensibility, confirmed Sinéad’s status as one of the most influential voices of her generation.

For this review, you will find 6 versions tested: vinyl, CD, Qobuz, Qobuz Deluxe Version, Amazon and Tidal.

This test compares the quality of an album on a physical support (CD, vinyl) and streaming. Are we sure we’re getting the best possible quality from the album when we listen to it via streaming?

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 21 tracks:

Feel So Different
I Am Stretched on Your Grave
Three Babies
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Black Boys on Mopeds
Nothing Compares 2 U
Jump in the River
You Cause as Much Sorrow
The Last Day of Our Acquaintance
I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Night Nurse *
My Special Child *
Damn Your Eyes *
Silent Night (Long Version)
You Do Something to Me *
Mind Games *
What Do You Want *
I Am Stretched on Your Grave (Apple Brightness Mix)
Troy *
I Want Your (Hands on Me) (Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, 25 May 1990)
The Value of Ignorance *

* Only available on Deluxe Version

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 – 1990

Presentation

The original 1990 vinyl contains 10 songs from the album’s release, and weighs 140g (ref: 210547 – 4007192105472).

Ed 2: CD – 1990

Presentation

The original 1990 CD with booklet containing song lyrics (ref: CDP32 1759-2 — 094632175922)

Ed 3: Qobuz – 1990

Presentation

The Qobuz version is presented in 16-bit 44.1 kHz.

Ed 4: Qobuz (Deluxe Version) – 2009

Presentation

The Qobuz version (Deluxe Version) contains 11 additional tracks. This version is presented in 16-bit 44.1 kHz.

Ed 5: Amazon – 1990

Presentation

The Amazon version is presented in 16-bit 44.1 kHz.

Ed 6: Tidal – 1990

Presentation

The Tidal version is presented in 16-bit 44.1 kHz.

Part 2 : Waveform and dynamic comparaisons

Waveform

The waveform represents tracks of this album.

The vinyl and CD waveforms below are highly dynamic, as shown by the wide variation in sound levels on the curves. This is confirmed by the DR measurements, DR14 for vinyl and DR15 for CD.

The waveform of the streaming version of Qobuz, Qobuz (Deluxe Version), Amazon, Tidal clearly shows the zones with an almost constant maximum level (yellow zone), demonstrating the use of a brickwall limiter, as confirmed by the DR (DR10 and DR9 for the Deluxe Version). Not shown here, the same characteristics are found for the Apple Music version and the other Deluxe Versions.

Waveform Ed 4 : Qobuz (Deluxe Version) – 2009

The curves below compare waveforms for the song “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. CD and vinyl are the most dynamic versions. For the streaming versions (standard and Deluxe), we can clearly see the effect of the limiter, which caps the maximum peak level. The Deluxe version is the one most affected by the use of a limiter. All 4 waveforms are adjusted to the same sound level of -16.7 LUFS.

Waveform “The Emperor’s New Clothes”: CD vs Vinyl vs Streaming vs Streaming Deluxe version

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

	Vinyl – 1990	CD – 1990	Qobuz – 1990	Qobuz (Deluxe Version) – 2009	Amazon – 1990	Tidal – 1990
Global	DR14	DR14	DR10	DR9	DR10	DR10
Min	*DR12*	*DR11*	*DR7*	*DR7*	*DR7*	*DR7*
Max	*DR15*	*DR16*	*DR12*	*DR12*	*DR12*	*DR12*
Feel So Different	DR12	DR13	DR10	DR8	DR10	DR10
I Am Stretched on Your Grave	DR15	DR14	DR10	DR10	DR10	DR10
Three Babies	DR12	DR11	DR10	DR9	DR10	DR10
The Emperor’s New Clothes	DR14	DR15	DR11	DR9	DR11	DR11
Black Boys on Mopeds	DR15	DR15	DR12	DR12	DR12	DR12
Nothing Compares 2 U	DR14	DR14	DR8	DR9	DR8	DR8
Jump in the River	DR13	DR14	DR12	DR9	DR12	DR12
You Cause as Much Sorrow	DR13	DR13	DR12	DR9	DR12	DR12
The Last Day of Our Acquaintance	DR14	DR14	DR10	DR9	DR10	DR10
I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got	DR15	DR16	DR7	DR7	DR7	DR7
Night Nurse *
My Special Child *
Damn Your Eyes *
Silent Night (Long Version)
You Do Something to Me *
Mind Games *
What Do You Want *
I Am Stretched on Your Grave (Apple Brightness Mix)
Troy *
I Want Your (Hands on Me) (Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, 25 May 1990)*
The Value of Ignorance *

The Dynamiqye Range measurement classifies the versions into 2 categories: – the original Cd and vinyl, which are the most dynamic DR14/DR15 versions. – all streaming versions are limited in dynamic range with a DR9/DR10.

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 is very little variation (approx. 1 dB) between the two curves up to 20 kHz. The yellow arrow indicates the maximum CD frequency at 22 kHz, due to the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency.

Spectrum Ed 1 Vinyl – 1990 (white) vs Ed 2 CD – 1990 (blue)

The graph below compares the spectrum of the Amazon version (white curve) with the spectrum of the CD version (blue curve). We can see an increase in bass levels (green zone) of up to 3dB and in treble levels (yellow zone) of up to 4dB for the Amazon version. The remastered version is therefore used for Amazon.

Spectrum Ed 5 Amazon – 1990 (white) vs Ed 2 CD – 1990 (blue)

The graph below compares the spectrum of the Qobuz Deluxe Version (white curve) with the spectrum of the Qobuz Version (blue curve). We can see an increase in bass levels (green zone) of up to 3dB and in treble levels (yellow zone) of up to 4dB for the Qobuz version compared with the Qobuz Deluxe Version. It is therefore not the same masters that are used for these two versions. The Qobuz version uses the remastered version, while the Qobuz Deluxe Version is based on the original version (without preserving the dynamics).

Spectrum Ed 4 Qobuz (Deluxe Version) – 2009 (white) vs Ed 3 Qobuz – 1990 (blue)

The graph below compares the spectrum of the Qobuz Deluxe Version (white curve) with the spectrum of the CD version (blue curve). The two curves overlap perfectly. The Qobuz Deluxe Version is based on the original CD version (without affecting dynamics).

Spectrum Ed 4 Qobuz (Deluxe Version) – 2009 (white) vs Ed 2 CD – 1990 (blue)

The graph below compares the Amazon spectrum (white curve) with the Tidal spectrum (blue curve). The two curves overlap perfectly.

Spectrum Ed 5 Amazon – 1990 (white) vs Ed 6 Tidal – 1990 (blue)

The graph below compares the Qobuz spectrum (white curve) with the Tidal spectrum (blue curve). The two curves overlap perfectly.

Spectrum Ed 3 Qobuz – 1990 (white) vs Ed 6 Tidal – 1990 (blue)

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.

The spectrograms of the digital versions (CD and streaming) are limited in frequency to 22.1kHz (yellow arrow) with no signal above (white arrow). This limitation is due to the 44.1kHz sampling frequency used for the CD and streaming of this album.

Spectrogram Ed 4 : Qobuz (Deluxe Version) – 2009