„Brothers in Arms” 2-Disc Back To Black Edition (2014)

With Dire Straits selling 9 million copies of „Brothers in Arms” in the United States alone, it’s no wonder it continues to evoke emotions and remain a coveted album among music lovers. Besides the standard BIA edition, two audiophile editions have been released over the years, and fans still debate which is sonically superior. The first is the two-disc Back to Black edition from 2014, and the best part is that it’s still available in many record stores (or online). I found my copy for under 90 PLN (approx. 25 USD) at the Świat Książki bookstore in Warsaw, Poland. Some fans accuse this edition of having masters cut directly from the digital masters, although this isn’t entirely true. Some of the BIA material was indeed mastered digitally, but the other portion was analog, and masters were made from both formats in 2014. The Back to Black edition contains full versions of songs that, for obvious reasons, didn’t fit on the original release, as their total running time exceeds 55 minutes, while the original length is 47:21. The songs „So Far Away,” „Money For Nothing,” „Your Latest Trick,” and „Why Worry” have been newly remastered and extended accordingly („Why Worry” by a whopping 3 minutes!), taking into account the original studio recordings. The original running time from the first 1985 release is given in parentheses:

„So Far Away” – 5:12 (3:59)
„Money For Nothing” – 8:26 (7:04)
„Your Last Trick” – 6:33 (4:46)
„Why Worry” – 8:31 (5:22)

The album is released on two 180-gram discs, so three sides have two songs each, and only one side has three tracks. Clearly, no effort was spared to ensure high sound quality (I read somewhere that a maximum of 15 minutes per side is optimal for the highest possible quality). The discs actually sound very good without any noticeable distortion, perhaps a bit smoother than the original release.

Labels

Matrix Numbers

My records have the following numbers on the board ends (I’m guessing the actual matrix numbers are the 7-digit number right after the logo):

Page 1: 00602537529070-A MPO 0602537529087 A [logo] 18 52062
Page 2: 0602537529087-B MPO 00602537529070 B [logo] 18 52061
Page 3: 00602537529070-C 0602537529094 C [logo] 18 52061 [logo] 18 51735
Page 4: 00602537529070-D 0602537529094 D [logo] 18 52061 [logo]18 51738

Post Scriptum

The second interesting audiophile release is the 2015 Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) edition, reportedly made entirely from analog mastered material. The track versions included there have different running times, for example, „Why Worry” is 8:24 (BTB 8:31, 1st Press 5:22), and „So Far Away” is 5:05 (BTB 5:12, 1st Press 3:59). Unfortunately, this release is much rarer and harder to find, but I’m hunting for it, and as soon as I manage to find a decent copy, I’ll certainly add an article about it in the section devoted to this album.