Steven Wilson - Impossible Tightrope: Live in Madrid (2026) [Hi-Res]

Artist, producer and immersive audio mixer Steven Wilson has announced a new initiative, a website called Headphone Dust which is a hi-res audio resource that, in his words, “will provide a permanent home for my work to be downloaded in high resolution, 5.1 and Atmos / spatial audio”. In time, he hopes that it might include his work with other bands and collaborations etc.

To celebrate the launch he’s making some exclusive recordings/versions available including Impossible Tightrope: Live in Madrid, a two-hour plus live album that documents the final concert of the European leg of The Overview tour, from last year. The show has been mixed from the multi-tracks in stereo, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos. “There are no plans for any physical release of this recording”, Wilson says.

Steven has also remixed his 2013 album The Raven That Refused to Sing and 2015’s Hand.Cannot.Erase. in Dolby Atmos for the first time. Raven is available now and Hand.Cannot.Erase. is “coming soon”.

Branded as the ‘Definitive Digital Edition‘ the Raven download package includes Atmos, 5.1, Stereo, Binaural versions and extras, such as Jess Cope’s official music videos for ‘Drive Home’ and ‘The Raven That Refused To Sing’ in 4K and the complete The Raven That Refused To Sing studio documentary by Lasse Hoile, also now presented in 4K. Additionally, there’s a selection of demos.

The audio/video downloads are delivered either in MKV or FLAC files/containers and since Atmos playback across various devices is notoriously confusing (particularly the ‘Binaural’ versions on headphones) there’s a useful Playback Guide on the site which first asks whether you are a ‘casual listener‘ (headphones) ‘immersive listener‘ (5.1/soundbar) or an ‘enthusiast‘ (full beans Atmos set-up). The enthusiast is defined as someone who wants “reference quality” audio – which is the equivalent of blu-ray style uncompressed Dolby Atmos in True HD. Whereas via blu-ray audio, you ‘just’ need a blu-ray player, an Atmos-compatible amp/receiver and the appropriate speaker set-up, a TrueHD downloaded file is much more fussy and has more specific requirements.

Talking of blu-rays, fans of the format will be reassured, since Wilson says “I love (and am still committed to) the Blu-ray format, but not everyone has the capacity to play these discs”.