Nearly every brand right now has its own version of spatial audio. Apple has the imaginatively named "Spatial Audio," and arguably leads the Dolby Atmos pack. The Sonos Ace contain Dolby Atmos programming for music and movies, and then the Bose QuietComfort Ultra have "Immersive Audio," the brand's own take that works with existing stereo mixes.
Sony, too, has its own version. The WH-1000XM6 (and the XM5 that came before them) have "360 Reality Audio," and it used to be a viable option for spatial audio on the go. Now, though, it's all gotten a bit weird.
So what's going on — and how should Sony move on in the future?
I hope you like Japanese Jazz concerts
The Sony headphones feature one of the most involved spatial audio setups around. While most just kind of work, with minimal setup, the XM6 plays sounds from different directions so that it can determine where you are and how you perceive spatial sounds.
It's not quite as annoying as the old setup from previous headphones — those saw you taking pictures of your ears. It would also be less irritating if you got something good out of it.
But you just kind of don't. Once you've finished ticking boxes and selecting where sounds are coming from, you're asked to optimize some services. The list for me was as follows:
- Artist Connection
- Nugs
- 360 Reality Audio Live
Never heard of those three streaming services? Me neither, until Sony spat them out at me once I'd finished my 360 Reality Audio setup. Artist Connection is a streaming service for live concerts. So is Nugs. And so is 360 Reality Audio Live.
The former costs $15 a month, Nugs costs the same, leaving 360 Reality Audio as the only free option. It contains, as you might have already guessed, live recordings of concerts. Mostly Japanese Jazz concerts. So, I hope you like complex drum rhythms and scat — because that's about all you're going to get.
Tidal used to be on the list, but then it pulled its spatial audio offerings, leaving Sony users high and dry. If you really want to get some spatial audio, then you're going to have to head over to Amazon Music Unlimited — a music service I pay for only for work.
Upmix this
There remains another option if you want your music to sound more spacious. It's called "360 Upmix," and, much like Bose's Immersive Audio, it takes existing music mixes and makes them wider. There's a large hitch, though. It's designed for movies and TV, and it's called cinema.
Turn it on for your visual content, and it's pretty cool. You get a great surround bubble for your movies, and sounds feel like they're coming from all around you. It's fun. I like it.
Turn it on for music, however, and things aren't as rosy. Your listening is thinner, with some frequencies that seem to completely evaporate. Instruments come from bizarre places, and all of the impact is gone. Not good.
What can be done?
Amazon Music Unlimited is a few things: expensive, irritating and not particularly widely adopted. Apple Music is more widely used, and it features the (personally) superior Dolby Atmos mixes. The Sonos Ace headphones work with both versions of spatial audio, so why can't Sony's?
There's the first step to making the spatial audio inside the XM-series work better. Support more music services, including those from the arch enemy.
Improving 360 Upmix for music is the other part. At the moment, it works very well for movies, but Bose's feature works great for both. Perhaps we need two modes for 360 Upmix: a movie mode and a music mode.
Either way, spatial audio in Sony's best headphones is irritating at best and downright nonsense at worst. Thankfully, it's all software, so I don't see why Sony can't improve on the formula without releasing a new pair of headphones.
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