At first I didn’t get the height channels on speakers not designed to be a part of a home theater setup (Height channels for Atmos are already built into the sound bars).  But all the streaming services are pushing some for of spatial audios these days so I guess it makes sense for the eventual replacements for the ones and 5s to have that added dimension.  Plus if there were small Optimos with upwards firing speakers they could be used as surrounds as well increasing the height effect of what’s on the soundbar.

It will be interesting to see where this is heading.  Hope we hear something official soon.

We are moving toward object oriented audio where a sound will be assigned an apparent location in three dimensions.

In controlled environments only two transducers are required to provide the 3-D playback experience for a listener, but in general multiple transducers are required. This implies that, on playback, one must establish locations for the transducers. One scheme would be multiple speakers in the walls and ceilings, but this is not practical in many rooms. Speakers with up and side firing drivers could be scattered about the room and generate or simulate sound originating from various directions. With enough processing available, the listener can be fooled into perceiving that a sound originated from a particular location. This requires that the original audio be encoded while recording and decoded during playback, tailoring arrival times and frequency response at the listener’s ears to be similar to what would be the case if the instrument was physically in the room.

We are early in this transition and there is a growing contingent of speaker systems designed to cooperate with this effort.

@buzz I listen to Apple spatial audio on headphones and via my Apple TV connected to a home theater system (AVR and 5.1 speakers non Sonos although I have a Port hooked up to this AVR for 2 channel Sonos listening too.). I’d say about half the time it sounds really good and the other half it sounds worse than the 2 channel version of the audio. With Dolby Atmos some types of music really lose presence in the bass or the vocals almost recede into the background.  

Its all very interesting but I agree we are in early days right now.  Unlike previous multichannel music (DVD Audio, etc) I think Atmos/spatial audio has a chance to take hold because it doesn’t require you go out and buy new equipment and new recordings for it to work.  All you need is a pair of headphones and a streaming service.  They flip the switch and you have it if you want.

@minimalist In a controlled, academic type demo at a convention we were given a “haircut” while wearing headphones. It was very convincing. As the “scissors” progressed over our heads, the hairs stood up and waited their turn. It’s possible that some of this research is buried in the Apple spatial audio. Apple was barely a company at the time of this demo.

Another very interesting demo also involved headphones. It dealt with a problem that you don’t realize you have until you’ve used a pair of headphones that don’t exhibit the issue. A sort of gold standard for listening is binaural recording and playback. Here microphones are embedded in an actual or dummy head ear canals, then played through headphones. The listener has an amazing sense of the original space and can easily locate sounds. Unfortunately, there is an issue with this “perfect”’ setup. As we listen, we actually move our heads in an effort to localize sounds. While we are not explicitly aware of this movement it is a vital part of the listening process. It is absolutely disorienting for the binaural listener if the recording head walks around the room while recording. For the poor listener, the audio cues confirm movement while the body sense suggests no movement and the listener’s environment processing is confused due to the lack of correlation.

You can experience a little of this disorientation in simple stereo headphone listening while watching a movie screen or a phone/pad. As you move your head relative to the picture, the audio image does not stay with the video screen, but follows the head. For this particular demo we were watching a video screen and the headphones would shift the audio image such that it stayed with the screen as we walked about. The improvement was amazing. It was very obvious that this is the way things should operate. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen an actual product take advantage of this. It was one of those experiences that leaves the experimental subject “damaged”.

I’ve followed binaural audio developments for years so the fact that modern computing devices now have the power to simulate it all on the fly in a very interesting development to me. Apple tying in the sensors on their headphones to the 3d soundstage is genius in my opinion.  It works great with movie and TV content, not so great with music which is why I guess they gave us the option to turn off head tracking with spatial audio on music.  Again, sometimes I use it, sometimes I don’t depending on the source. Some genres, like electronic music and some jazz recordings, can really benefit from the atmos/spatial audio processing.  Some, like rock, not so much. A lot (at least with Atmos enabled music) depends on the engineer who remasters the recording.  Some are aggressive with the 3d positioning, some are very subtle.

I am very interested in where all this is headed with Sonos though. If they can find a way to use the rear and upwards firing drivers and the mics embedded for Trueplay to customize a speakers 3d soundstage for whatever space its in that could be a really cool.  Especially if it worked for single speaker or multispeaker room setups.

https://www.techradar.com/opinion/sorry-youll-have-to-wait-for-sonos-leaked-dolby-atmos-speakers-heres-why

I agree with the article above regarding timing of when an Optimo device(s) would be released by Sonos.  This does really look like it’s rather early early in the development cycle as the article mentions, but I also don’t think this is the right time in the market to release such a device.  The Five  and Arc (assuming Optimo can do TV audio) are still relatively new products, and I wouldn’t think Sonos want to replace them before their run.  That said, the Five was a minor redesign of Play:5, and Arc would still have a market for those who prefer soundbars.

Outside of Sonos though, I don’t think much of the general public is all that interested in replacing their existing system right now given economy.  And there isn’t a ton of atmos music tracks out there, or many other speaker options to play them, especially outside of home theatre or headphones.

I would guess we won’t see this till Spring ‘24 personally, another 2 years to refine the product and get it better integrated with existing speakers.  Sonos has promised 2 new products every  fiscal year, so that would allow for the rumor Sonos mini and headphones in ‘23 before we get these in ‘24.

I was not aware that Apple has incorporated head tracking in some of their recent headphones.

I think that here may be a rush of SONOS product tweaks migrating toward WiFi-6. This could result in “product series n+1” type releases. They would not be complete redesigns, just some tweaks.

@buzz Yes, the Airpods Pro and Airpods Max have head tracking. Soon to come to the regular Airpods. I imagine.  The head tracking feature works great with movie content because the audio stays locked with the screen you are watching and the soundstage feels enormous  It’s so effective I’ve had to remove my headphones during fligths to make sure Im not blasting people around me with sound .

Head tracking with music is silly though. Because people are rarely stationary when listening so the sensors get confused and the soundstage sort of drifts around not knowing which way is “front”.  

@melvimbe I agree, nobody is going to run out and replace Sonos 5’s and ones with Optimos just to have spatial audio (that may or may not be that impressive with single speaker setups anyway).  

But it’s a good future proofing tactic and a way to ensure Sonos doesn’t fall behind the competition which already offer Atmos in much less expensive soundbars than the arc or Beam.  And when those of us who already have Sonos setups are ready to replace or expand our systems these new speakers will be there.

The old demo used an IR beacon. That approach would probably not be accepted in today’s market.