Jennifer Lopez is back on the music scene with her ninth opus, entitled “This Is Me…Now”. The 13-track album reflects her personal and artistic journey, her joys and sorrows, her influences and inspirations.
To accompany the release of this album, Jennifer Lopez has also made an autobiographical film, in which she gives an unfiltered account of her private life and career. This documentary is available exclusively on the Prime Video platform.

For this review, you will find 3 versions tested: vinyl records White/Yellow/Black, Tidal MAX Flac 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 13 tracks:

1. This Is Me…Now
2. To Be Yours
3. Mad in Love
4. Can’t Get Enough
5. not,going,anywhere,
6. Rebound
7. Dear Ben, Pt. II
8. Hummingbird
9. Hearts and Flowers
10. Broken Like Me
11. This Time Around
12. Midnight Trip to Vegas
13. Greatest Love Story Never Told

Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Vinyl record White/Yellow/Black – 2024

Presentation

This is the limited edition of the album on vinyl record in White/Yellow/Black color (ref: 4050538953275).

Waveform and Spectrogram: DR8

The waveform of the vinyl version is less limited in dynamics (DR9) than the Tidal stereo version (DR5), but remains less dynamic than the Dolby Atmos version (DR13).The dynamics of the vinyl record suggest that the master used was compressed (more information “Does analog media force a dynamic on music?“).

The graph of the spectrogram of the vinyl recod show that the frequencies of the audio signal rise above 20 kHz (yellow arrow). The signal above 20 kHz (white arrow) is due to the signal present above 20 kHz and to the distortion caused by the vinyl playback principle. Click on the images to zoom in.

Synthesis and listening

Colored vinyl is all the rage these days, as this special edition shows. But the content isn’t as good as the container: the analysis shows that the vinyl’s DR is higher than the DR of the stereo version, but the waveform doesn’t deceive and shows that the master used was well compressed ( more information “Does analog media force a dynamic on music?“). The sound is strong, a little more listenable than the stereo version, but less dynamic than the Dolby Atmos version.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●ooo (2)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5)
• Surface noise: ●●●●o (4)
• Listening: ●●●oo (3)

Sample : ”This Is Me…Now” 24 bits 96 kHz:

Ed 2: Tidal MAX Flac (Deluxe) – 2024

Presentation

The stereo version of Tidal Music is presented in 24 bits 44.1 kHz, with bonus tracks : Rebound (feat. Anuel AA), Can’t Get Enough (feat. Latto) and Can’t Get Enough (Bruno Martini Remix).

Waveform and Spectrogram: DR5

The waveform of the Tidal Max version is limited in dynamic range, as confirmed by the Dynamic range DR5.

The spectrogram is limited to 22 kHz (yellow arrow) with no signal above (white arrow). This limitation is due to the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency used. Click on the images to zoom in.

Synthesis and listening

The loudness war is very much in evidence on this album, with high dynamic range compression (DR5) resulting in a very loud sound that removes a great deal of finesse and nuance.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●oooo (1)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Listening: ●●ooo (2)

Sample : ”This Is Me…Now” 16 bits 44.1 kHz:

Ed 3: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2024

Presentation

This is the Tidal Dolby Atmos presented in Dolby Digital Plus (768 kbits/s) or AC-4. Only two tracks on the album are in Dolby Atmos: “This Is Me…Now” and “Can’t Get Enough”

Below the spatialization for all tracks. Click on the images to zoom in.

Waveform and Spectrogram: DR13

The waveforms of the Dolby Atmos downmixed in 2.0 track show good dynamics, as confirmed by the graph below, with dynamic range measurements at DR13.

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. Click on the images to zoom in.

Synthesis and listening

The Dolby Atmos version is the most dynamic, providing a much wider soundstage for music, and exploiting all the different channels. Unfortunately, only 2 titles are available in Dolby Atmos.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●●●oooooo (4.2)
• Listening: ●●●oo (3.5)

Sample : ”This Is Me…Now” 5.1 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.

Sample : ”This Is Me…Now” Dolby Atmos (Downmixed in 2.0) :

This is the worst possible case in terms of album quality, with a digital stereo version heavily compressed in dynamics, and a vinyl disc that follows the stereo version with limited dynamics without exploiting the capacities of the support. That leaves the Dolby Atmos version to listen to this album, but limited to the 2 tracks available in this format, making it impossible to offer all the tracks with correct dynamics.

Dynamic Range and spectra are shown below.

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Measurements

Dynamic Range comparaisons

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).

The waveforms below represent the song “This Is Me…Now” for the three versions tested with the same integrated loudness level of -17 LUFS.

For our 3 editions reviewed have obtained the following Dynamic Range (DR) :

	Vinyl record White/Yellow/Black – 2024	Tidal MAX Flac (Deluxe) – 2024	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2024
Global	DR8	DR5	DR13
Min	DR7	DR3	DR13
Max	DR9	DR6	DR14
This Is Me…Now	DR9	DR5	DR13
To Be Yours	DR8	DR5
Mad in Love	DR7	DR4
Can’t Get Enough	DR9	DR6	DR14
not,going,anywhere,	DR9	DR5
Rebound	DR9	DR5
Dear Ben, Pt. II	DR8	DR4
Hummingbird	DR8	DR5
Hearts and Flowers	DR8	DR5
Broken Like Me	DR7	DR6
This Time Around	DR7	DR3
Midnight Trip to Vegas	DR8	DR4
Greatest Love Story Never Told	DR8	DR5

The Dolby Atmos version (DR13) is the most dynamic, followed by the vinyl and Stereo 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 graph below compares the spectrum of the Vinyl record White/Yellow/Black – 2024 (white curve) with the spectrum of the Tidal MAX Flac (Deluxe) – 2024 (blue curve).The curves of the 2 spectra overlap perfectly between 100 Hz and 16.4 kHz. Below 100 Hz, the Tidal stereo version is slightly higher (maximum 1 dB), and above 16.4 kHz, the vinyl version rises, with 10 dB more at 20 kHz. The yellow arrow shows the limit of the Tidal version at 22 kHz, due to the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency used.

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2024.
The yellow arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 20 kHz due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding. The white arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 24 kHz due to encoding at the 48 kHz sampling frequency 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 bit rate of 768 kbits/s.The green arrow shows that the bass channel (LFE) is not in use.

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.
• Listening:
  1. Poor sound quality: mix dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments.
  2. Average sound quality: mix dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments.
  3. Sound reproduction quality: mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Good recording.
  4. High quality sound reproduction: mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Very high-level disc.
  5. Maximum quality of sound reproduction: mixing dynamics, clarity, separation of voices and instruments. Exceptional record.

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