Steven Wilson’s “The Harmony Codex” is his seventh solo album, due for release on September 29, 2023. It’s an experimental and varied album, containing 10 tracks, 3of which are already available: “Economies of Scale” , “Impossible Tightrope” (10 minutes) and “Rock Bottom”.
Steven Wilson is also known for his progressive rock projects such as Porcupine Tree, No-Man and Blackfield.
Steven Wilson is also a sound engineer who has been mixing new album versions in stereo and above all multichannel, including Dolby Atmos for some years now, such as “The Tipping Point” (Tears For Fears), “The Hurting” (Tears For Fears), “Suede”, “The Lexicon of Love” (ABC)….

Steven offers us an album composed for space music, as we will discover in this review.

For this review, you will find 2 versions tested: Amazon Music HD in 16 bits 44.1 kHz and Tidal Dolby Atmos (also available on Apple Music and Amazon Music).

The album is composed of 10 tracks, 3 tracks available at time of review:

1. Economies of Scale
2. Impossible Tightrope
3. Rock Bottom

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.

Waveform and dynamic

The waveform represents tracks of the 3 tracks.

The waveforms of the Amazon UltraHD and Dolby Atmos version, downmixed in stereo, show good dynamics as shown in the graph below, with no limitation of sound peaks and as confirmed by DR11.
Differences between the two waveforms are due to the different mixes used for these two versions.

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 reviewed have obtained the following Dynamic Range (DR) :

	Amazon UltraHD – 2023	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023
Global	DR11	DR11
Min	DR8	DR10
Max	DR12	DR13
Economies of Scale	DR8	DR10
Impossible Tightrope	DR12	DR11
Rock Bottom	DR12	DR12

The DR measurement confirms the dynamics visible in the waveform analysis, with an average DR11 for the two versions.

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.

Spectrum comparisons

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 of the track Economies of Scale.

The graph below compares the spectrum of the Amazon stereo version.
The spectrum is limited to 22 kHz (yellow arrow), due to the use of a 44.1 kHz sampling frequency.
There’s a high level at 30 Hz in the “Economies of Scale” track, which should give the listener a deep bass.

The spectrum of the Dolby Atmos version decoded in 5.1 shows that all channels are well used, with the same sound level in the area between 300 Hz and 2 kHz.
The bass channel is filtered at 120 Hz, as indicated by the green arrow.
The yellow arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 20 kHz due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding.

Spectrogram comparaisons

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 stereo version shows that the signal rises above 22 kHz (yellow arrow), with no signal above this frequency (white arrow). This confirms the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency used.

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.

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 all tracks. Click on the images to zoom in.

Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Amazon UltraHD – 2023

Congratulations to Steven for this very fine stereo edition, which is not influenced by loudness war, and features a dynamic stereo version that perfectly reproduces the musical composition with dynamics and precision.

Rating:

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

Sample : ”Economies of Scale” 16 bits 44.1 kHz:

Ed 2: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023

The Dolby Atmos version is truly exceptional.
Steven Wilson has mastered Dolby Atmos perfectly, as he has shown on numerous mixes such as “The Tipping Point” (Tears For Fears). For his new album, Steven Wilson goes even further, and you can feel that his musical composition has been designed to render the music in space.
Steven plunges us into a 360-degree musical space, and on the track “Economies of Scale”, the music really is all around us, swirling and twirling through all the channels. It’s music designed for spatial rendering, with instruments and voices distributed throughout the sound space.
The first notes of the track “Impossible Tightrope” and “Rock Bottom” begin on the high speakers, then spread and descend through all the channels. This is followed by a very spatial and dynamic use of sound space.
Steven has applied all his mastery of Dolby Atmos mixing to his album and composition, using it to take us into his 3D musical universe.
Once listened to in Dolby Atmos, it’s hard to go back to the stereo version.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4.5)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●●●●●●●oo (8.2)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (4.5)

Sample : ”Economies of Scale” Dolby Atmos downmixed in 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.

Steven Wilson takes us into his musical world with a stereo version that’s dynamic without the loudness war. A rarity these days.
But that’s not all: Steven really immerses us in his 3D music, with a musical composition designed for spatial sound.
The result is grandiose, a reference for the Dolby Atmos format. It’s a true 3D musical composition that deserves to be listened to on a multichannel system to perceive the sound universe of this album. After listening to Dolby Atmos, it’s hard to go back to the stereo version.
Available for streaming in Dolby Digital Plus, “The Harmony Codex” will also be available on Blu-ray Audio with a Dolby Atmos track in Dolby TrueHD format, which should bring even greater spatial precision and finesse to the rendering, with the added benefit of Atmos Lossless sound.

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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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