Jean.Francois
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hello,
Muse The Wow! Signal is the tenth studio album by the British rock band Muse. Conceived as a concept album, it revolves around the themes of cosmic mystery, extraterrestrial intelligence, and human connections, drawing inspiration from the famous 1977 radio astronomy event known as the Wow! Signal.
The album continues in Muse s signature style, blending epic rock with electronic and orchestral elements, while venturing further into science-fiction storytelling. Through its tracks, it explores the idea of potential contact with something beyond Earth, using space and extraterrestrial communication as metaphors for emotional and existential questions.
Unsurprisingly, this album suffers from extremely heavy dynamic range compression, just as we already observed when the first single was released. Some will argue that this is simply a characteristic of this style of music, which is expected to sound loud and powerful. However, with an average DR value of 4 (ranging from DR3 to DR5 depending on the track), the processing is clearly excessive, resulting in a completely squashed sound.
A comparison with the Dolby Atmos version shows that it is perfectly possible to preserve Muse’s signature sound while allowing for significantly greater dynamic range.
The graph below compares the spectrum of the Tidal MAX – 2026 (white curve) with the spectrum of the Colored vinyl record – 2026 (blue curve).The two spectral curves almost perfectly overlap across the entire frequency range, with only a slight boost in the vinyl above 10 kHz, varying between 1 and 3 dB.
With its dynamic and lively mix, the Dolby Atmos version makes full use of all available channels, as illustrated by the spatialization visualization video.
With The Wow! Signal, the immersive Dolby Atmos version stands out as the best way to fully experience the album, delivering a more dynamic and enveloping sound. For stereo listening, the vinyl edition offers a more enjoyable experience than the digital version, it’s a bit more “dynamic” with a sound that’s slightly less muffled.
The full review with all graphics and analyses is available here (link).
Enjoy listening
Jean-François
Muse The Wow! Signal is the tenth studio album by the British rock band Muse. Conceived as a concept album, it revolves around the themes of cosmic mystery, extraterrestrial intelligence, and human connections, drawing inspiration from the famous 1977 radio astronomy event known as the Wow! Signal.
The album continues in Muse s signature style, blending epic rock with electronic and orchestral elements, while venturing further into science-fiction storytelling. Through its tracks, it explores the idea of potential contact with something beyond Earth, using space and extraterrestrial communication as metaphors for emotional and existential questions.
Unsurprisingly, this album suffers from extremely heavy dynamic range compression, just as we already observed when the first single was released. Some will argue that this is simply a characteristic of this style of music, which is expected to sound loud and powerful. However, with an average DR value of 4 (ranging from DR3 to DR5 depending on the track), the processing is clearly excessive, resulting in a completely squashed sound.
A comparison with the Dolby Atmos version shows that it is perfectly possible to preserve Muse’s signature sound while allowing for significantly greater dynamic range.
The graph below compares the spectrum of the Tidal MAX – 2026 (white curve) with the spectrum of the Colored vinyl record – 2026 (blue curve).The two spectral curves almost perfectly overlap across the entire frequency range, with only a slight boost in the vinyl above 10 kHz, varying between 1 and 3 dB.
With its dynamic and lively mix, the Dolby Atmos version makes full use of all available channels, as illustrated by the spatialization visualization video.
With The Wow! Signal, the immersive Dolby Atmos version stands out as the best way to fully experience the album, delivering a more dynamic and enveloping sound. For stereo listening, the vinyl edition offers a more enjoyable experience than the digital version, it’s a bit more “dynamic” with a sound that’s slightly less muffled.
The full review with all graphics and analyses is available here (link).
Enjoy listening
Jean-François
