Released on September 12, 2025, Play is Ed Sheeran’s eighth studio album and marks the beginning of a new thematic series in his discography. This work, blending contemporary pop with Indian and Persian influences, stands out for its rich arrangements and international collaborations, notably with Arijit Singh on the track Sapphire. Among the main singles are Azizam, Old Phone, and Camera, which have achieved significant success in the United Kingdom and India. The album is available in CD, vinyl, digital download, and streaming formats (with Dolby Atmos), including deluxe and extended editions.

Other Ed Sheeran albums reviewed :

For this review, you will find 3 versions tested:

• Ed 1: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2025
• Ed 2: Tidal MAX – 2025
• Ed 3: Vinyl record – 2025

Below you will find the description of the different editions, as well as the measurements of each edition in the following chapters.

The album is composed of 13 tracks:

1. Opening
2. Sapphire
3. Azizam
4. Old Phone
5. Symmetry
6. Camera
7. In Other Words
8. A Little More
9. Slowly
10. Don’t Look Down
11. The Vow
12. For Always
13. Heaven

Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2025

Presentation

This is the Tidal Dolby Atmos presented in Dolby Digital Plus or AC-4 (link).

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

Below the video of spatialization (track Azizam):

https://videopress.com/v/rR360Ozc?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

Waveform and Spectrum: DR13

The waveform of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2025 shows a high range confirmed with DR13.

The spectrogram of the Tidal Dolby Atmos track in 7.1.4 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. The green arrow shows the 120Hz filtering of the bass channel (LFE).

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2025.
The spectrum of Tidal’s Dolby Atmos version decoded in 7.1 shows that all channels are active, with the front and side channels being the most prominently used. The LFE channel operates with a cutoff frequency of 120 Hz (green arrow). The white arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 20 kHz due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding, while the yellow arrow marks the 24 kHz limit imposed by the 48 kHz sampling frequency.

Synthesis and listening

The Dolby Atmos version delivers a significantly wider soundstage and makes extensive use of the side channels. Vocals and instruments also regularly take advantage of the full set of channels, resulting in a highly immersive overall rendering, far superior to the stereo version. The latter, despite offering greater finesse on the guitar, remains limited in both dynamics and soundstage openness.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●●●●●●ooo (7)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (4)

Sample : Azizam 7.1 Dolby Atmos (Downmixed in 7.1) :

The sample is in 7.1 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 : Azizam Dolby Atmos (Downmixed 2.0) :

Ed 2: Tidal MAX – 2025

Presentation

This is the Tidal Max version presented in 24 bits 48 kHz (link).

Waveform and Spectrum: DR5

The waveform of the Tidal MAX – 2025 version shows a extremely low dynamic range confirmed with DR5.

The spectrogram shows that the signal rises to 24 kHz (yellow arrow) with no signal above this frequency (white arrow) due to the 48 kHz sampling frequency.

The graph below compares the spectrum of the Tidal MAX – 2025 (white curve) with the spectrum of the Vinyl record – 2025 (blue curve).The two curves overlap almost perfectly up to 10 kHz. Beyond this frequency (yellow area), and especially from 15 kHz onwards, a treble attenuation can be observed on the vinyl record, reaching more than 10 dB at 20 kHz. The yellow arrow indicates the frequency limit at 24 kHz of the Tidal Max version, imposed by the 48 kHz sampling rate. Beyond 24 kHz, the vinyl record exhibits distortion and noise inherent to its operating principle.

Synthesis and listening

This version suffers from excessive dynamic compression (a consequence of the loudness war). In dense passages, when all instruments are present, micro-dynamics are clipped and the effective dynamic range is reduced. This results in a loss of definition, a collapsed soundstage, and an overall impression of saturation. By comparison, the Dolby Atmos version maintains better airiness and more precise channel separation, while the vinyl record delivers a more natural rendering.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●oooo (1)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Restitution: ●●ooo (2.5)

Sample : Azizam 24 bits 48 kHz:

Ed 3: Vinyl record – 2025

Presentation

This is the pink vinyl record released in a gatefold sleeve with one LP at 33.33 rpm, with pictures (ref : 5021732758224).

Waveform and Spectrum: DR9

The waveform of the Vinyl record – 2025 version shows a low dynamic range confirmed with DR9.

The spectrogram shows that the signal rises above 20 kHz (yellow arrow) with signal above this frequency (white arrow) containing musical information and distortion due to the vinyl record’s operating principle.

The graph below compares the spectrum of the Tidal MAX – 2025 (white curve) with the spectrum of the Vinyl record – 2025 (blue curve).The two curves overlap almost perfectly up to 10 kHz. Beyond this frequency (yellow area), and especially from 15 kHz onwards, a treble attenuation can be observed on the vinyl record, reaching more than 10 dB at 20 kHz. The yellow arrow indicates the frequency limit at 24 kHz of the Tidal Max version, imposed by the 48 kHz sampling rate. Beyond 24 kHz, the vinyl record exhibits distortion and noise inherent to its operating principle.

Synthesis and listening

The vinyl record delivers a more pleasant listening experience than the Tidal MAX version, providing a less compressed sound than the digital version, although it does not match the dynamic range of the Dolby Atmos version. However, in the absence of precise information, it is difficult to determine whether the master used for the vinyl was already dynamically compressed (considering the effects inherent to the cutting process, as explained in this article “Does analog media force a dynamic on music? or Does Analog Media increase the dynamics?“).

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●ooo (2.5)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5)
• Surface noise: ●●●●o (4)
• Restitution: ●●●oo (3.5)

Sample : Azizam 24 bits 192 kHz:

For this new Ed Sheeran album, and given his musical style, one could have hoped for a more open dynamic range (average DR of 5, minimum DR3).
Unfortunately, the digital version remains heavily compressed, and this limitation is particularly noticeable when compared to the Dolby Atmos version, which features an exceptionally well-executed mix, offering better instrument separation, greater depth, and a more immersive soundstage.
Meanwhile, the vinyl record stands out with a generally more pleasant listening experience than the Tidal MAX version, providing a less congested and more natural sound, although its dynamic range still falls short of the Dolby Atmos version.

Dynamic Range measurements 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).

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

	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2025	Tidal MAX – 2025	Vinyl record – 2025
Global	DR13	DR5	DR9
Min	DR12	DR3	DR7
Max	DR14	DR7	DR11
Opening	DR13	DR3	DR8
Sapphire	DR13	DR4	DR9
Azizam	DR14	DR4	DR9
Old Phone	DR12	DR5	DR11
Symmetry	DR13	DR5	DR10
Camera	DR12	DR5	DR9
In Other Words	DR12	DR5	DR11
A Little More	DR12	DR7	DR8
Slowly	DR12	DR4	DR10
Don’t Look Down	DR13	DR5	DR11
The Vow	DR13	DR5	DR8
For Always	DR12	DR4	DR9
Heaven	DR12	DR5	DR8

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.

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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