If you have known Dire Straits for many years, and are familiar with the stereo versions and all the nuances of the different editions, the idea of switching to a new Dolby Atmos mix is not natural.
But, it is without prejudice that we dive into listening to the Dolby Atmos version of the “Brothers In Arms” and “Money For Nothing” albums. On a system in 7.1.4, the first seconds (even minutes for some) are surprising, then we get used to this immersion with a frontal sound scene which makes really 180 degrees.
The front and side speakers are strongly solicited. One finds a distribution of the instruments and the sounds in space, and also a little reverb to supplement the volume.
Spatialization can be very different from one song to another like for the songs “One World” and “Why Worry” as shown in the spatialization charts below.
But, it is especially when we go back to stereo that we realize the difference, we lose this volume, even if a good stereo system allows to have a very beautiful sound image, we do not find this sound space of Dolby Atmos.
To take advantage of the Dolby Atmos mix, it is preferable to have a system in 7.1.4 to benefit from the side channels to have the widening of the sound scene.
Concerning the finesse of the sound reproduction, the Dolby Atmos version available is in Dolby Digital Plus 768 kBits/s, it is a lossy encoding, a Dolby Digital TrueHD version (lossless encoding) on Bluray would make it possible to find completely the finesse of the stereo versions.
Find the samples and all the measures of “Brothers In Arms” and “Money For Nothing“.
Magic Vinyl vs Digital 