Dolby Atmos now available across the entire Mercedes fleet, but there’s a catch

Mercedes was one of the first brands to step-up and offer Dolby Atmos in its cars, but for a few years it was only available on its top models. It was the preserve of the S Class, the Maybach and top EQ models. That has now changed, with Dolby Atmos support available to all Mercedes cars.

That means, when go to configure your new A Class, you’ll get the option to have Dolby Atmos, bringing a new dimension to your in-car entertainment.

I drove from Dolby’s labs in Nuremberg to the Mercedes Centre of Excellence in Sindelfingen to test out the audio in range of different models and Atmos really changes the in-car music experience.

While all Mercedes models will now let you specify that you want Dolby Atmos music, the first car that was actually designed with Atmos in mind is the new Mercedes CLA.

While this is yet to become available, I had a brief listen to some content and enjoyed the spaciousness that it offered. That 16-speaker system with 850 watts really delivers.

I said there was a catch, however. To get Atmos support, you’ll have to opt for an uprated Burmester sound system in the car and on some models that might be part of the Premium Plus package.

But once you have that pack, you have the speakers to support Atmos, as well as the Atmos decoder.

How to listen to Dolby Atmos tracks in your Mercedes

Apple Music is one of the best sources of Dolby Atmos, but it’s also supported by Amazon Music and Tidal. Beyond that, an interested source of Dolby Atmos content is Audible, with audio books providing a surprising opportunity for an immersive experience.

It listened to some Audible titles and found it more like being at the theatre, a very real sense of having the voice actors there in the room with you.

While there’s plenty of Dolby Atmos content out there, the experience isn’t consistent. Take a track like Boom from Tiesto and you’ll find discrete placement of parts of the track around the Atmos sound stage, so you can hear it moving around you.

But some are simply mixed in Dolby Atmos to adjust the a sense of more space, like you’re listening in a larger room.

That’s the thing to bear in mind with Atmos music, but the car is a great platform for it and even when you’re not listening to Atmos music, the sound system is still really capable.