Apple Music How to activate Spatial Audio?

[Kay_Ess]

Hello!

How do you activate Spatial Audio?

I’ve just upgraded to a receiver with AirPlay 2 and I’ve set it up for Dolby Atmos and everything works, except Apple Music’s Spatial Audio.

I’ve been to settings and set Dolby Atmos to Always.

I’ve contacted Apple Support and they recommended I reset my iPhone to factory settings which I’ve done. Unfortunately that didn’t solve the issue.

Does anyone here maybe know how to activate this feature?

Thank you!
K.

 

[Puonti]

I wasn't aware Airplay 2 supports streaming multichannel audio from iPhone to receiver. Can you link to the page where you learned that it does?

 

[Kay_Ess]

I wasn't aware Airplay 2 supports streaming multichannel audio from iPhone to receiver. Can you link to the page where you learned that it does?

You’re not telling me it’s not supported at all and Apple Support has had me reset my entire ****** iPhone for nothing, right? I’ve been in contact with them for hours……😅

 

[Puonti]

You’re not telling me it’s not supported at all and Apple Support has had me reset my entire ****** iPhone for nothing, right? I’ve been in contact with them for hours……😅

That's been my understanding, for streaming audio from an iPhone to a receiver via Airplay 2. I was curious if perhaps you had found documentation that indicated otherwise because I'd be interested to know if I had missed something.

 

[Kay_Ess]

That's been my understanding, for streaming audio from an iPhone to a receiver via Airplay 2. I was curious if perhaps you had found documentation that indicated otherwise because I'd be interested to know if I had missed something.

I’ve been asking for technical documentation for weeks but they don’t want to share it. To be honest I doubt the Apple Advisors have access to any information that’s not already available on apple.com.

Ffs, weeks of contact, I’ve spoken to so many of their employees and today I’ve spent hours trying to get this to work. If it’s not supported over AirPlay 2 I’m going to be really mad haha.

Is Spatial Audio only available on AirPods then?
Why do they mention “Dolby Atmos” everywhere if they don’t mean Dolby Atmos but just something proprietary that only works on AirPods???

 

[Puonti]

Is Spatial Audio only available on AirPods then?
Why do they mention “Dolby Atmos” everywhere if they don’t mean Dolby Atmos but just something proprietary that only works on AirPods???

Spatial Audio is what Apple calls their immersive surround sound tech, but it's not just about playing back Dolby Atmos.

While wearing supported AirPods Spatial Audio can be used to make a stereo sound source sound like it's coming from a specific location. The foremost example of this is where you watch something on your iPhone wearing AirPods, and turning your head has the sound pan around and "stay" with the iPhone.

If you're listening to Dolby Atmos tracks on Apple Music via AirPods, the effect is of course much more complex than that; you can have multiple sound sources all around you. It's this part that - to my knowledge - you can't currently replicate when using AirPlay to stream music from an iPhone to a receiver.

HomePods also support Spatial Audio + Dolby Atmos, but I don't know how that sounds. To my knowledge in that use case the HomePod's streaming the track from the internet and playing it back directly.

 

[dannyyankou]

I love Spatial Audio. My dad got a pair of AirPods Pro for Christmas, his reaction was priceless when listening to one of his favorite Rolling Stones songs in Dolby Atmos. He couldn't believe the music was just coming from in his ears. He thought it was playing through the speakers in his phone and filling the room. He kept asking others in the room "are you hearing that?"

 

[Kay_Ess]

Spatial Audio is what Apple calls their immersive surround sound tech, but it's not just about playing back Dolby Atmos.

While wearing supported AirPods Spatial Audio can be used to make a stereo sound source sound like it's coming from a specific location. The foremost example of this is where you watch something on your iPhone wearing AirPods, and turning your head has the sound pan around and "stay" with the iPhone.

If you're listening to Dolby Atmos tracks on Apple Music via AirPods, the effect is of course much more complex than that; you can have multiple sound sources all around you. It's this part that - to my knowledge - you can't currently replicate when using AirPlay to stream music from an iPhone to a receiver.

HomePods also support Spatial Audio + Dolby Atmos, but I don't know how that sounds. To my knowledge in that use case the HomePod's streaming the track from the internet and playing it back directly.

Thanks, that’s disappointing but that also makes it clear why it doesn’t work over AirPlay.
Hope they one day make it available to people with a home theater setup!