Saxophonist Joshua Redman, considered one of the most talented and charismatic saxophonists in contemporary jazz, makes his Blue Note debut with his new studio album “Where Are We”, accompanied by vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa. He is joined by pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Brian Blade, as well as other guests.

For this review, you will find 3 versions tested: Amazon Music UltraHD in 24-bit 96 kHz, Tidal Dolby Atmos and, for the first time in testing, Tidal MAX using the FLAC format in 24-bit 96 kHz, the Flac format is gradually replacing the MQA format at Tidal.

The album is composed of 13 tracks:

1. After Minneapolis (face toward mo[u]rning)
2. Streets Of Philadelphia
3. Chicago Blues
4. Baltimore
5. By The Time I Get To Phoenix
6. Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans-
7. Manhattan
8. My Heart In San Francisco (Holiday)
9. That s New England
10. Alabama (intro)
11. Stars Fell On Alabama
12. Alabama
13. Where Are You

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 two tracks.

The waveform of the digital stereo version of Amazon Music and Tidal Max shows zones with an almost constant maximum level (yellow zone), demonstrating the use of a limiter, as confirmed by the Dynamic Range measurement with DR9. The same applies to other streaming services.

The waveform of the Dolby Atmos version downmixed to 2.0 shows a beautiful dynamic range. It’s a pity that, for a jazz album, this dynamic range cannot be found in stereo.

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) :

	Amazon UltraHD – 2023	Tidal MAX Flac – 2023	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023
Global	DR9	DR9	DR13
Min	DR7	DR7	DR7
Max	DR11	DR11	DR13
After Minneapolis (face toward mo[u]rning)	DR8	DR8	DR13
Streets Of Philadelphia	DR8	DR8	DR12
Chicago Blues	DR9	DR9	DR12
Baltimore	DR8	DR8	DR12
By The Time I Get To Phoenix	DR10	DR10	DR13
Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans-	DR8	DR8	DR12
Manhattan	DR9	DR9	DR13
My Heart In San Francisco (Holiday)	DR9	DR9	DR12
That s New England	DR10	DR10	DR12
Alabama (intro)	DR7	DR7	DR7
Stars Fell On Alabama	DR11	DR11	DR11
Alabama	DR8	DR8	DR13
Where Are You	DR10	DR10	DR11

What we find in POP music, i.e. loudness war, also applies to this jazz album. It’s less pronounced, because the stereo version has a DR that remains at DR9, but it’s a version that doesn’t exploit the full dynamic range like the Dolby Atmos 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.

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 graph below shows the waveform of the Tidal Max version (white curve) and Amazon Music (blue curve). You can see that the two curves overlap perfectly, thanks to the use of the same master.

The spectrum of the Dolby Atmos version decoded in 5.1 shows that the front and surround channels are well stressed. The yellow arrow indicates the high-frequency limit of 20 kHz due to frequency optimization and Dolby Digital Plus encoding, which performs processing to optimize bitrate reduction to 768 kbit/s.The LFE channel is filtered at 120 Hz (green arrow).

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 the 22 kHz frequency (yellow arrow), with the signal exceeding this frequency (white arrow). This is due to the 96 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

The stereo version is offered in high-resolution 24-bit 96 kHz. This version sounds louder than the Dolby Atmos version. It’s a pity that a limiter is used to limit the dynamic range of the Jazz album produced by Blue Note, which is somewhat noticeable in terms of listening finesse. Jazz is also affected by the loudness war, albeit to a lesser extent than POP, but it’s a real shame for a label like Blue Note. We had already noticed this phenomenon, but less strongly, on the CD of Dianne Reeves’ “I remember” album.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●ooo (2)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (3.5)

Sample : ”Chicago Blues” 16 bits 96 kHz:

Ed 2: Tidal MAX Flac – 2023

Tidal now offers music in Lossless high resolution, which is excellent news, as it joins Apple Music, Amazon Music, Qobuz… The sound quality is similar to that of the Amazon Music version, which also offers listening based on the FLAC format.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●ooo (2)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (3.5)

Sample : ”Chicago Blues” 16 bits 96 kHz:

Ed 3: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023

Dolby Atmos rendering doesn’t seek spectacular rendering, but rather a more natural rendering of the room, giving us the impression of having the musicians and singer in front of us, with a very wide stereo, while being with them in the room.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●●●●●●ooo (6.8)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (3.5)

Sample : ”Chicago Blues” 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.

Listening to and analyzing this album, I thought, oh no, they didn’t do that, not on Jazz, not on Blue Note!
Yes, jazz is also affected by the loudness war for stereo editions.
Fortunately, not with a DR5, but with a DR9, so less limitation, but still with a limitation of peaks bringing a little less dynamics to the reproduction.
It’s all the more unfortunate that Steven Wilson’s latest album “The Harmony Codex” avoids this problem of heavy limiter use.
Once again, it’s the Dolby Atmos version that offers the most dynamics, with a natural spatial rendering, but without the same finesse and precision as PCM. Let’s hope this doesn’t become the standard at Blue Note!

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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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