Stacey Kent is an American jazz singer known for the clarity of her tone and the finesse of her interpretation. With over a billion streams worldwide, she has established herself as an artist capable of embodying every lyric with subtlety and depth. A Grammy-nominated performer and a frequent recipient of international awards, she enjoys significant critical acclaim. Her new album A Time for Love adopts a style that is both understated and refined, supported by the virtuoso piano playing of Art Hirahara and the sensitivity of Jim Tomlinson.

Is this Jazz album impacted with loudness war?

For this review, you will find 2 versions tested:

• Ed 1: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026
• Ed 2: Tidal Max – 2026

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 are available here.

The album is composed of 10 tracks:

1. Lucky To Be Me
2. God Only Knows
3. The Shadow Of Your Smile
4. La Javanaise
5. As
6. A Time For Love
7. Trains And Boats And Planes
8. What Goodbye Is For
9. Carinhoso
10. E La Chiamono Estate

Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026

Presentation

TThis is the Tidal Dolby Atmos presented in Dolby Digital Plus (768 kbits/s) or AC-4.

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

Waveform and Spectrum: DR12

The waveform of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026 version shows a very good dynamic range confirmed with DR12.

The spectrogram of the Tidal Dolby Atmos track in 7.1.4 is limited to 20kHz with no signal above ). 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 bass channel (LFE) is not used forall the track.

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026.

The spectrum of Dolby Atmos version decoded in 7.1 shows that all channels are used except the LFE channel on this track. The white arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 20 kHz due to Dolby Digital Plus encoding. The yellow arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 24 kHz due to encoding at the 48 kHz sampling frequency used.

Synthesis and listening

The Dolby Atmos version allows the full dynamic range of the album to be restored, but it offers an immersive mix that is almost entirely front-focused, and in some cases fully so for tracks that only use the L, R, and C channels. However, some subtle detail is lost compared to the stereo version in lossless 24-bit / 96 kHz format, particularly in the low-level passages.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●oo (3.5)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization: ●●oooooooo (2)
• Restitution: ●●●oo (3)

Sample : Lucky To Be Me. 7.1 Dolby Atmos (Downmixed in 7.1) :

The sample is in 7.1 FLAC 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 : Lucky To Be Me. Dolby Atmos (Downmixed 2.0) :

Ed 2: Tidal Max – 2026

Presentation

This is the Tidal MAX presented in 24 bits 96 kHz.

Waveform and Spectrum: DR7

The waveform of the Tidal Max – 2026 version shows a low dynamic range confirmed with DR7.

The spectrogram shows that the signal rises to 48 kHz with no signal above this frequency due to the 96 kHz sampling frequency.

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal Max – 2026.
The spectrum shows that the signal rises to 48 kHz with no signal above this frequency due to the 96 kHz sampling frequency.

Synthesis and listening

Classified in the jazz category, this track shows that even this genre is no longer immune to the loudness war. Fortunately, the situation is less extreme than in pop music, where some productions reach extremely low dynamic range levels (DR3 or DR4). Nevertheless, the stereo version exhibits a noticeable loss of dynamic range compared to the Dolby Atmos mix. This is all the more regrettable given that this edition is offered in 24-bit / 96 kHz.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●ooo (2)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●● (5)
• Restitution: ●●●oo (3)

Sample : Lucky To Be Me. 24 bits 96 kHz:

We are gradually observing the emergence of dynamic range limiting in recent jazz albums, a trend that is unfortunately confirmed with Stacey Kent s new album A Time for Love, affecting the overall listening experience. The Dolby Atmos version, while offering more dynamic range, remains rather lacking in terms of immersion.

Dynamic Range measurements 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 2 editions reviewed have obtained the following Dynamic Range (DR) :

	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026	Tidal Max – 2026
Global	DR12	DR7
Min	DR10	DR7
Max	DR14	DR8
Lucky To Be Me	DR14	DR07
God Only Knows	DR12	DR08
The Shadow Of Your Smile	DR12	DR08
La Javanaise	DR11	DR08
As	DR12	DR08
A Time For Love	DR12	DR07
Trains And Boats And Planes	DR12	DR07
What Goodbye Is For	DR12	DR07
Carinhoso	DR10	DR07
E La Chiamono Estate	DR14	DR08

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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