Yuja Wang - The Vienna Recital: a hole in the spectrum! (Comparison between stereo and Dolby Atmos)

[Jean.Francois]

Hello,

World-renowned pianist Yuja Wang continues to captivate audiences with her latest album "The Vienna Recital". Recorded during a recital in Vienna in 2022, this album features an eclectic selection of works, from complete sonatas by Beethoven and Scriabin to individual pieces by Albéniz and etudes by Ligeti and Glass.

For this review, you'll find 2 versions tested: Tidal MAX Flac and Tidal Dolby Atmos.

The Tidal Max waveform has a high dynamic range, as confirmed by the graph below, with a dynamic range of DR14, with values between DR10 and DR16 depending on the track.

However, the red arrow also shows the frequency hole present at 10 kHz (9700 to 10700 Hz) on the graph below. The problem is also present on other streaming services.

The Dolby Atmos mix that reproduces the concert soundstage, extending from the front speakers to the side speakers, with the ambience and volume of the hall. But the use of Dolby Digital Plus, which is a lossy format, doesn't provide all the finesse of the stereo version.

Spatialization

You can listen to the different samples to make up your own opinion HERE and find all the measurements.

Enjoy listening,

 

[kemmler3D]

Hello,

World-renowned pianist Yuja Wang continues to captivate audiences with her latest album "The Vienna Recital". Recorded during a recital in Vienna in 2022, this album features an eclectic selection of works, from complete sonatas by Beethoven and Scriabin to individual pieces by Albéniz and etudes by Ligeti and Glass.
View attachment 369560

For this review, you'll find 2 versions tested: Tidal MAX Flac and Tidal Dolby Atmos.

The Tidal Max waveform has a high dynamic range, as confirmed by the graph below, with a dynamic range of DR14, with values between DR10 and DR16 depending on the track.
View attachment 369561

However, the red arrow also shows the frequency hole present at 10 kHz (9700 to 10700 Hz) on the graph below. The problem is also present on other streaming services.
View attachment 369563

The Dolby Atmos mix that reproduces the concert soundstage, extending from the front speakers to the side speakers, with the ambience and volume of the hall. But the use of Dolby Digital Plus, which is a lossy format, doesn't provide all the finesse of the stereo version.
View attachment 369565
Spatialization

You can listen to the different excerpts to make up your own opinion HERE and find all the measurements.

Enjoy listening,

Wow, that's very interesting. Haven't seen something like that before.

I wonder if there was some high frequency noise in the recording / concert hall that had to be eliminated by brute force... this was almost definitely done deliberately, I would be amazed if it was some kind of encoding artifact.

Luckily a live piano won't have a ton going on that high up, you can see that the notch is cutting from almost the noise floor, about -70dB from the peak of the spectrum. So the choice they made here was probably reasonable and I doubt it was more than marginally audible, if at all.

 

[amirm]

Maybe they had some interference they had to notch out after the fact.

 

[Keith_W]

I decided to take a look. I opened the first track (Albeniz Malaga) from Tidal (Master Quality FLAC) in Audacity. This is what I saw:

The vertical scale seems to indicate that it's missing at about -78dB. I had a listen on my main system and on headphones. Despite knowing that it's there, I can't hear it.

I had a look at some other Deutsche Grammofon recordings I have in my collection as well as other Tidal tracks. I can not seem to find another example.

 

[Sokel]

That's the 24-bit/96Khz version:



Same stuff at 10Khz.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I've seen filters applied to notch out TV line-refresh frequencies, but nothing quite as obvious as this.

When devices with CRT screens started being used regularly in studios (e.g. Fairlight), microphones began picking up line whistle, which engineers don't seem to have spotted. Original 1980s releases have the line whistle, but often remasters don't. But the filter width is not normally as wide as this.

 

[Multicore]

Unfortunately this filter isn't tuned quite right to notch out my tinnitus;>

I listened to the Ligeti. Wow. Thanks for drawing attention to it.

You said it was recorded during a recital. Does that mean live recording? So stage lighting?