The legendary band Duran Duran are back in the spotlight with their 16th studio album, Danse Macabre. Released for Halloween, the album features a dark, mysterious atmosphere inspired by the legends of gothic rock. Fans of the band will be treated to Simon Le Bon’s charismatic vocals, accompanied by haunting melodies and driving rhythms.
The album contains 13 tracks, including the eponymous first single “Danse Macabre”. This Halloween Opus features three original tracks and ten covers, including Paint It Black (Rolling Stones), Psycho Killer (Talking Heads) and Bury A Friend (Billie Eilish).
Duran Duran’s return to the spotlight proves that it is still capable of renewing itself and surprising its audience with its chosen theme.

For this review, you will find 3 versions tested: vinyl record (smog color), Tidal MAX flac in 24 bits 96 kHz and Tidal Dolby Atmos with a Halloween-style mix.
The blu-ray with stereo and Dolby Digital TrueHD Atmos tracks will be added as soon as it becomes available.

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 13 tracks:

1. PSYCHO KILLER (feat, Victoria De Angelis)
2. NIGHTBOAT
3. BLACK MOONLIGHT
4. LOVE VOUDOU
5. BURY A FRIEND
6. SUPERNATURE
7. DANSE MACABRE
8. SECRET OKTOBER 31ST
9. GHOST TOWN
10. PAINT IT BLACK
11. SUPER LONELY FREAK
12. SPELLBOUND
13. CONFESSION IN THE AFTERLIFE

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: Smog vinyl record – 2023

Presentation

A beautiful edition of 2 smog vinyl records in 45 rpm ( ref : 4050538952247) with an 8-page booklet.

Ed 2: Tidal MAX Flac – 2023

Presentation

The Tidal Max Flax is presented in Flac 24 bits 96 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 tracks of the album.

The waveform of the Tidal Atmos version downmixed in 2.0 and vinyl record show good dynamics, particularly for the Dolby Atmos version, as the graphs below confirm.

The waveform of the Tidal MAX clearly shows the use of a dynamic limiter, as confirmed by the Dynamic Range measurement with a DR6!

If you zoom in on the waveform of Tidal MAX, as shown in the curve below for the track ‘Love Voudou’, you can see the yellow areas where the dynamic range has been compressed on the highest peaks. You can clearly see the limiting work that has been done, but without causing brutal clipping.

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) :

	Smog vinyl record – 2023	Tidal MAX Flac – 2023	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023
Global	DR10	DR6	DR14
Min	DR9	DR5	DR12
Max	DR12	DR7	DR15
PSYCHO KILLER (feat, Victoria De Angelis)	DR9	DR6	DR12
NIGHTBOAT	DR11	DR5	DR14
BLACK MOONLIGHT	DR9	DR7	DR14
LOVE VOUDOU	DR10	DR6	DR13
BURY A FRIEND	DR12	DR6	DR14
SUPERNATURE	DR10	DR7	DR14
DANSE MACABRE	DR10	DR6	DR13
SECRET OKTOBER 31ST	DR11	DR6	DR14
GHOST TOWN	DR10	DR7	DR14
PAINT IT BLACK	DR10	DR6	DR14
SUPER LONELY FREAK	DR10	DR6	DR14
SPELLBOUND	DR10	DR6	DR15
CONFESSION IN THE AFTERLIFE	DR10	DR5	DR12

The streaming stereo version (Tidal MAX Flacc) has a reduced DR6 dynamic range. You’ll need to listen to the vinyl record or Dolby Atmos version to get a higher DR, up to DR13 for the Dolby Atmos decoded in 7.1.4.
The dynamics of the vinyl cannot be used to deduce the dynamics of the master used to cut the vinyl record. It’s impossible to know whether or not the vinyl master was dynamically compressed. This phenomenon is described here.

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 spectrum of the vinyl record (white curve) with the spectrum of the Tidal Max stereo streaming version (blue curve). The two spectra overlap perfectly from 200Hz to 14kHz.
Above the 14 kHz frequency (yellow zone), there is an attenuation for vinyl beyond 16 kHz with -8 dB to 20 dB, the attenuation on the peaks (19 and 20 kHz) is more important.
The yellow arrow indicates the noise of vinyl compared with the digital version. The green zone shows a very slight difference in bass (less than 1 dB).

The spectrum of the Tidal Dolby Atmos version decoded in 5.1 shows that all channels are well used. The center channel is used extensively in this track.
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.
The white arrow indicates the 24 kHz high-frequency limit due to encoding at the 48 kHz sample rate used, confirming that it is the Dolby Digital Plus encoding algorithm that cuts frequencies at 20 kHz to reduce data size in order to maintain the 768 kbits/s bit rate.

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 spectrogram of the vinyl record below shows that the frequencies of the audio signal rise above 24 kHz (yellow arrow). The signal above 24 kHz (white arrow) is composed of music and distortion caused by the vinyl playback principle.

The spectrogram of the stereo version Tidal Max shows that the signal rises above 24 kHz (yellow arrow).There is signal above this frequency (white arrow), 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.

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 all tracks. Click on the images to zoom in.

Part 6 : Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Smog vinyl record – 2023

A very nice smog-colored vinyl record in 45 RPM that extends the atmosphere for Halloween, complete with cover and booklet.
The cutting is of good quality, with reduced background noise. The sound is very pleasant, with a more natural presence than the digital stereo version.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●oo (3)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5)
• Surface noise: ●●●●o (4)
• Restitution: ●●●oo (3.5)

Sample : ”Danse Macabre” 16 bits 88.2 kHz:

Ed 2: Tidal MAX Flac – 2023

As ever, the digital stereo version is limited in dynamics, with an average DR6 for this album despite its 24-bit 96 kHz presentation. In comparison, the dolby Atmos version brings more dynamics, detail and, above all, beautiful spatialization.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●oooo (1)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5)
• Restitution: ●●ooo (2)

Sample : ”Danse Macabre” 16 bits 96 kHz:

Ed 3: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2023

Duran Duran has succeeded in making full use of Dolby Atmos while respecting its Halloween music style. The soundstage is perfect, with a static and dynamic distribution of music and voices.
You’re totally immersed in the music, with a very natural feel.
On the track “Danse Macabre”: the spatialization distributes the voices and instruments around us. We find the singer’s voice in the center, the backing vocals in the surrounds, but with coherence between music and spatial rendering.
On “Secret October”: the track starts on the high channels, then the vocals in front, and then it’s a global spatial extension as the instruments and vocals arrive.
The subwoofer is also present, as on the track “Bury a friend”.
This album is a reference for what can be achieved with a Dolby Atmos mix.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●●●●●●ooo (6.8)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (4.5)

Sample : ”Danse Macabre” 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.

The Duran Duran band is surprising with this Halloween album, they have fun with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack that mixes the Halloween spirit with the music and spatialization to make a reference mix for this spatial format.
This is an album to be listened to on a Dolby Atmos system if you have the opportunity.
The stereo is logically less spatial, but remains more pleasant when listened to on vinyl (or in a Dolby Atmos downmix) than the digital stereo version affected by the loudness war, and the vinyl also comes with a beautiful Halloween cover and booklet.

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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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