Michael Jackson – BAD (Streaming Dolby Atmos)

Spatialization SP: ●●●●●●oooo (6.1) , SK: ●●●●●ooooo (5.5) – Dynamique: ●●●●● (5) – Global: ●●●●o (4.5)

Presentation

This is the Tidal Dolby Atmos presented in Dolby Digital Plus (768 kbits/s) (link).

The Dolby Atmos version features a completely new mix that stands out for its remarkable use of the immersive sound field, distributing instruments, music, vocals, and effects throughout the listening space,much like BAD while preserving strong coherence with the front soundstage.
It also delivers exceptional dynamics, bringing impressive energy and impact to the album.
One can only hope for the release of a Blu-ray Audio edition, which would allow listeners to fully appreciate the finesse of the Dolby TrueHD Atmos format.
Being lossless, it would offer a substantial improvement over the streaming version, whose heavily constrained bitrate and lossy Dolby Digital Plus encoding significantly limit its potential.
Perhaps we may even see a Blu-ray collector bringing together the four Michael Jackson albums released in Dolby Atmos.
This is undoubtedly a version best experienced on a full 7.1.4 or 9.1.6 system.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●● (5)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization SP: ●●●●●●oooo (6.1) , SK: ●●●●●ooooo (5.5)
• Global score: ●●●●o (4.5)

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

Waveform ,Spectrum and Dynamique: DR16 (Min: DR14 , Max: DR19)

The waveform of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026 shows a very high range confirmed with DR16.

The spectrogram of the Tidal Dolby Atmos track in 9.1.6 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 filtered at 120 Hz.

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. The LFE channel is used 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. The yellow arrow indicates the high-frequency limit at 24 kHz due to encoding at the 48 kHz sampling frequency used.

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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