One observation, read five times.
The cube is jw02457-o054 — a NIRSpec pointing through the G235H grating and the F170LP filter. It was worked five separate times at the desk; the five renders are trimmed to twenty-three minutes each and played in order.
The bench does not move between them. Image row becomes pitch, column becomes stereo position, wavelength becomes time. So the cloud is fixed, and what differs from pass to pass is the handling — which was never written down anywhere except in the audio itself.
Measured before mastering, this is the flattest thing on the album: a loudness range of under 3 LU across nearly two hours. It holds one level and asks to be heard into rather than across.
The same cube is read a second and unrelated way in Episode 7.
Before Birth is an acknowledged test series.