Timeless is a brand-new 10-track Prince compilation featuring rare and previously unreleased studio recordings from the artist s legendary archives. This exceptional album spans every period of Prince s career, from 1977 with I Am You to 2016 with the live version of How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore .
The project was meticulously mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Chris James, a former collaborator of Prince, who also mixed the Dolby Atmos version, just as he did for the previous excelent Dolby Atmos release, Purple Rain, which is considered a benchmark in Dolby Atmos mixing.
Does this new compilation reach the same level? That s what we re going to discover in this review.

For this review, you will find 2 versions tested:

• Ed 1: Tidal Max – 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 10 tracks:

1. I Am You
2. Tick Tick Bang
3. Heaven
4. I Wonder
5. With This Tear
6. Stone
7. Calabama
8. The Guilty Ones
9. Bestest Friend
10. How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore (Live)

Summary, scoring and Samples

Ed 1: Tidal Max – 2026

Presentation

This is the Tidal MAX (link) presented in lossless 24 bits 44.1 kHz format. This is also available on Amazon Music an Apple Music.

Waveform and Spectrum: DR8

The waveform of the Tidal Max – 2026 version shows a medium dynamic range confirmed with DR8 (between DR11 to DR15). The dynamic range is between DR8 and DR9 for most of the tracks, except for I Am You (DR7), Tick Tick Bang (DR6), and Bestest Friend (DR7).

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 Max – 2026.
The stereo version is based on a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz, limiting the bandwidth to 22.1 kHz (as show in the graph).

Synthesis and listening

A great remastering job has been done on this album for the stereo version. However, it is regrettable that there seems to be a desire to make the album sound louder (the so-called loudness war), especially for a collection covering such a wide period of time.
The reduction in dynamic range is most noticeable on three tracks: I Am You (DR7), Tick Tick Bang (DR6), and Bestest Friend (DR7).
The other tracks also benefit from a somewhat reduced dynamic range, particularly when compared with the Dolby Atmos version.
The sample available on YouTube clearly demonstrates, when listening, the difference in dynamics between the stereo and Dolby Atmos versions.
This results in more energy at lower listening levels, but as soon as you turn up the volume, the stereo version seems to hit a kind of dynamic ceiling compared with the Dolby Atmos version, which delivers noticeably more punch.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●ooo (2)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Restitution: ●●●oo (3)

Ed 2: Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026

Presentation

This is the Tidal Dolby Atmos (link) presented in Dolby Digital Plus at 768 kbits/s. This is also available on Amazon Music an Apple Music.

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 Tolby Atmos downmixed in 2.0 have global Dynmanic Range DR13 (Between DR11 to DR15).

The spectrogram of the Tidal Dolby Atmos track in 9.1.4 is limited to 20kHz 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 bass channel (LFE) is filtering at 120 Hz..

The graph below represents the spectrum of the Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026.
The spectrum of the Tidal Dolby Atmos track in 7.1 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).

Synthesis and listening

This album features songs spanning a wide range of musical styles, and this is also reflected in the Dolby Atmos mix, which varies from one track to another (the spatialization graphs clearly illustrate the differences in mixing between the various versions.).
On With This Tear , the presentation is more front-focused, with the vocals prominently positioned in the front and an extension into the surround channels that increases with the intensity of the instruments.
On Stone , the sound is immediately immersive, with the various elements spread throughout the listening space, creating a beautiful and highly immersive presentation.
On How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore (Live) , from the very first seconds, you find yourself right in the middle of the audience. The mix completely immerses you in the concert atmosphere.
Overall, this is a very beautiful Dolby Atmos mix for this compilation album. It is only a shame that there is no Pure Audio Blu-ray edition featuring Dolby Atmos TrueHD, the lossless format.

Rating:

• Dynamic: ●●●●o (4.5)
• Bandwidth: ●●●●o (4)
• Spatialization SP: ●●●●●●oooo (6.2)
• Spatialization SK: ●●●●●ooooo (5)
• Restitution: ●●●●o (4)

A very fine compilation, with excellent remastering work and a limitation of the dynamic range because everything apparently has to sound loud these days that remains moderate throughout most of the album, except for three tracks.
The Dolby Atmos mix restores the album s full dynamic range, delivering more punch as soon as you turn up the volume. The Dolby Atmos mix is carefully adapted to each song s particular style, creating a very engaging and immersive presentation while perfectly complementing the character of each track (see the description in the Atmos version review).
It would have been great to have a Blu-ray edition with a Dolby Atmos TrueHD track, as was done for excelent Atmos mix of Purple Rain, in order to benefit from lossless audio for Dolby Atmos. This would always provide greater precision in both the sound and spatial presentation.

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 Max – 2026	Tidal Dolby Atmos – 2026
Global	DR8	DR14
Min	DR6	DR11
Max	DR9	DR17
I Am You	DR07	DR17
Tick Tick Bang	DR06	DR12
Heaven	DR09	DR15
I Wonder	DR09	DR15
With This Tear	DR08	DR15
Stone	DR09	DR14
Calabama	DR09	DR13
The Guilty Ones	DR08	DR13
Bestest Friend	DR07	DR14
How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore (Live)	DR08	DR11

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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