John Williams in Tokyo, comparison Japanese Deluxe Edition Box (SACD, CD, Blu-ray stereo/5.1/Atmos) vs the Japanese vinyl vs Tidal

[Jean.Francois]

Hello,
30 years after his last visit to Japan, John Williams returned for an exceptional concert. Captured live, the Tokyo concert is a musical celebration of friendship.

Available on streaming and as a preview in Japan in a box set including SACD, CD and Bluray, as well as on vinyl, this album will be released worldwide on CD and Blu-ray on July 12, 2024.
So it's the Japanese versions that I've compared, in particular the deluxe box set including 2 SACDs!

I might as well say it now: this is a very fine job that respects dynamics, as shown by the waveform of the SACD version below with its DR13.

In terms of bandwidth, this is a high-resolution recording, with the spectrum of the music rising above 20 kHz, as shown by the comparison of spectra between the SACD and the vinyl record below:

Note that the blu-ray video mix is slightly different from that of SACD and vinyl (or streming versions), as it also includes ambient noise to match the video, and a highly immersive dolby atmos track to match the concert ambience, as shown in the spatialization graph below:

Listening to it, it's a great success, with in particular a very fine SACD version. You'll find samples from the different versions here, as well as all the measurements and analyses.

Enjoy listening,
Jean-François

 

[Jost Buergi]

@Jean.Francois , you're doing an incredible work! I love reading your reviews and additional topics (bitrates etc.) on your website. It seems somewhat strange to me that some of your posts over here like this one get so little attention. Please keep going like that.

Anyway, I'd like to make my Denon X4800H play Dolby Atmos tracks from my TIDAL subscription, too. So far I do only get them in Stereo (AVR's own TIDAL Connect from Android Phone and iPad, WiiM Pro, Google Chromecast Ultra). May I ask your for a recommendation, or how do you do it?

 

[Jean.Francois]

@Jean.Francois , you're doing an incredible work! I love reading your reviews and additional topics (bitrates etc.) on your website. It seems somewhat strange to me that some of your posts over here like this one get so little attention. Please keep going like that.

Anyway, I'd like to make my Denon X4800H play Dolby Atmos tracks from my TIDAL subscription, too. So far I do only get them in Stereo (AVR's own TIDAL Connect from Android Phone and iPad, WiiM Pro, Google Chromecast Ultra). May I ask your for a recommendation, or how do you do it?

Thank you!

To send Dolby Atmos to my A/V amp, I use the Tidal app on an Amazon Stick HD, or an Nvidia Shield (HDMI connection). I haven't tested it with the Chromecast Ultra, but it normally supports Dolby Atmos via HDMI passthrough. There may be a parameter to configure in the sound settings to indicate to let Dolby Atmos output in HDMI and not output in stereo. I hope this helps.

 

[Jost Buergi]

Thanks a lot! I will try that, starting with the Chromecast.

 

[gsp1971]

@Jean.Francois a few months ago I came across the magicvinyldigital.net website and saved it to my favorites.

I did not know you are an ASR member.

Many congratulations on your work. I am a follower!

G S P

 

[Scytales]

No multichannel tracks on the SA-CD release? What a shame!