The Toy Story 5 soundtrack album is composed by Randy Newman and released by Walt Disney Records. It mainly features the instrumental score that accompanies the film’s key moments.
The album also includes the original song “I Knew It, I Knew You“, performed by Taylor Swift. Written and produced by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff, the song was inspired by an early screening of the film. Inspired by the character Jessie, it explores themes of memories, friendship, and hope through a blend of pop and country influences. It is the first original song in the Toy Story series that was not written by Randy Newman.
The soundtrack alternates between orchestral pieces, action cues, and emotional themes. Overall, the album enhances the film’s storytelling and reinforces the musical identity of Toy Story 5.

The song I Knew It, I Knew You was also released as a single with multiple physical editions, produced in limited quantities and intended mainly for collectors and fans. Three limited CD versions were released, including the original track as well as acoustic and piano versions. In parallel, several vinyl editions were also made available, including special pressings inspired by Jessie’s universe.

For this review, you will find 2 versions tested:

• Ed 1: Tidal – 2026
• Ed 2: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 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 27 tracks:

1. I Knew It, I Knew You
2. Buzzs
3. Tire Swing Hill
4. Tech Boom
5. Bonnie’s New E-Friends
6. Calling Woody
7. Making Land
8. Back Home
9. Welcome Woody
10. Shed Toys
11. Smarty Pants
12. Man Down
13. The Drawer
14. Blaze
15. Bonnie Returns
16. Truce
17. Operation Jessie
18. Queen Jimmy
19. Hey Lily
20. Bad News
21. Interrogation
22. Breakdown
23. Buried Treasure
24. Highway Robbery
25. Reunion
26. Bonnie and Blaze
27. Happy Landing

Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Tidal – 2026

Presentation

This is the Tidal version presented in lossless format 16 bits 44.1 kHz.

Waveform and Spectrum: DR9

The waveform of the Tidal – 2026 version shows a low dynamic range confirmed with DR9. The start of the waveform, aligned at its maximum level, corresponds to the Taylor Swift song, with a DR8 dynamic range.

The spectrogram shows that the signal rises to 22 kHz with no signal above this frequency due to the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency.

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal – 2026.
The spectrum shows that the signal rises to 22 kHz due to the 44.1 kHz sampling frequency.

Synthesis and listening

The album is split into two parts. The first, which includes the song I Knew It, I Knew You , is designed to sound very loud, using dynamic limiting that significantly reduces the range and results in a less dynamic presentation than the Dolby Atmos version. The second part, featuring the film score, is less affected by this processing, although some compression is still present. It offers a more defined sound with a relatively open soundstage. However, for a film soundtrack, it is unfortunate that the full dynamic range was not preserved.

Rating:

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

Ed 2: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026

Presentation

This the Dolby Atmos version encoded in Dolby Digital Plus (lossy format) at 768 kBits/s.

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

Waveform and Spectrum: DR14

The waveform of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026 shows a high range confirmed with DR14.

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 filtrered at the 120Hz.

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, below the high-frequency limit at 24 kHz (yellow arrow) due to encoding at the 48 kHz sampling frequency used.

Synthesis and listening

Unsurprisingly, it is in the Dolby Atmos version that the album s full dynamic range is restored, which is particularly noticeable on the song I Knew It, I Knew You. The Dolby Atmos mix mainly opens up the soundstage to around 180 degrees, providing an immersive experience that makes greater use of the side surround channels than the rear channels, as well as the height channels. The song I Knew It, I Knew You makes a bit more use of all the channels, as shown in the video. Even though it lacks a bit of the finesse of the lossless stereo version, it delivers a more immersive listening experience that draws the listener deeper into the musical world of Toy Story 5.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4.5)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization SP: ●●●ooooooo (3.4)
• Spatialization SK: ●●●●oooooo (4)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (4)

The film score benefits from its full dynamic range in cinemas, but unfortunately this is not always carried over to the commercially available soundtrack, which is the case with the stereo version. Fortunately, the Dolby Atmos version helps address this issue by offering better dynamics and with a more frontal immersion and a side opening of the film’s music. However, only the lossy Dolby Digital Plus format is available, which results in a slight loss of precision compared to the lossless stereo version.

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 – 2026	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026
Global	DR9	DR14
Min	DR7	DR11
Max	DR13	DR17
I Knew It, I Knew You	DR08	DR14
Buzzs	DR09	DR14
Tire Swing Hill	DR10	DR11
Tech Boom	DR10	DR14
Bonnie’s New E-Friends	DR07	DR13
Calling Woody	DR10	DR15
Making Land	DR11	DR15
Back Home	DR08	DR13
Welcome Woody	DR10	DR16
Shed Toys	DR10	DR11
Smarty Pants	DR09	DR13
Man Down	DR07	DR11
The Drawer	DR09	DR15
Blaze	DR10	DR15
Bonnie Returns	DR08	DR13
Truce	DR13	DR13
Operation Jessie	DR09	DR13
Queen Jimmy	DR08	DR12
Hey Lily	DR10	DR15
Bad News	DR11	DR14
Interrogation	DR07	DR15
Breakdown	DR11	DR13
Buried Treasure	DR11	DR17
Highway Robbery	DR07	DR14
Reunion	DR13	DR14
Bonnie and Blaze	DR09	DR12
Happy Landing	DR07	DR12

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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