Some games have already added support for Dolby Atmos for headphones. True Dolby Atmos requires a hardware receiver and special speaker setup, while Dolby Atmos for headphones is a digital signal processor (DSP) that takes surround sound from your PC and mixes it to offer an improved positional sound experience in headphones. Really, this is a completely different feature that’s only linked by Dolby’s branding. It’s a type of virtual surround sound built into Windows. You don’t need special Dolby Atmos headphones. This feature promises improved positional audio in any pair of headphones or earbuds. Windows 10’s Creators Update also added a separate feature named “Dolby Atmos for headphones”. RELATED: What's the Difference Between Virtual and 'True' Surround Sound Gaming Headsets? Microsoft also just added Dolby Atmos support to the Xbox One, and many Blu-ray discs include Dolby Atmos audio. This feature requires Dolby Atmos-enabled hardware, notably a Dolby Atmos-enabled receiver. Dolby Atmos systems may include ceiling-mounted speakers above you or speakers on the floor that bounce their sound off the ceiling, for example. A Dolby Atmos-enabled receiver then uses specially calibrated speakers to position these sounds. It isn’t mixed into several separate channels instead, sounds are mapped to virtual locations in 3D space, and that spatial data is sent to your speaker system.

Traditional 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound uses 5 or 7 speaker channels, plus a subwoofer. When you watch a movie or play a game with surround sound, that movie or game is actually sending 6 or 8 separate channels of sound to your speakers.ĭolby Atmos is an improved type of surround sound.

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