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Sonos Now Supports Apple Music Spatial Audio on These Speakers and Sound Bars

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Sonos this week updated its iPhone and iPad app with support for Apple Music spatial audio playback on compatible Sonos speakers and sound bars, including the newly-released Era 300, the Arc and Arc SL, and the second-generation Beam.

Sonos-Era-300-With-iPhone.jpeg

Spatial audio simulates surround sound, making it seem like the audio is coming from all around you for a 360-degree listening experience. Apple Music offers thousands of songs in spatial audio, which are labeled with a Dolby Atmos badge in the Sonos app after updating to version 15.2, available now on the App Store.

Sonos launched new Era 300 and Era 100 speakers today with AirPlay 2 support for wirelessly streaming audio from Apple devices. The speakers were announced earlier this month, with more details and pricing outlined in our previous coverage.

Article Link: Sonos Now Supports Apple Music Spatial Audio on These Speakers and Sound Bars
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/03/28/sonos-apple-music-spatial-audio/
I think I'm getting old and am getting very confused with all this Atmos and Spatial Audio stuff. Is that even the same thing with two different names?
I have a HomePod, Sonos Arc and two Sonos One. The Arc had its firmware update this morning, all Apple devices have been updated a few hours ago. But it seems like the only way to play Atmos content is
  1. by playing it from my iPhone only
  2. by starting playback from the Sonos app only
So, at home, I must use my iPhone and must use a third party music app for all this to works? Surely it must be easier and I'm missing something?
Just playing music via AirPlay from my Mac seems much easier, especially with Siri (for once, it works).
 
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In > 90% of the use cases everyone reading this should be concerned about how the Era 300 work as stereo speakers (not spatial audio), and whether they support lossless playback over Airplay 2.

The other 10% of the use cases will be people using them as surrounds, and for those that passionately care about Dolby Atmos / Spatial Audio.
 
Spatial Audio and homologues like Dolby Atmos may be great for films but, in my experience, they don't add much when listening to music on a hi-fi and, what's worse, can sometimes be distracting. (Disclaimer: I listen almost exclusively to classical and jazz.)

Cambridge Audio recently announced they had no plans to incorporate the technology into their domestic audio systems because they feel its only truly useful application for music is in cars: Spatial audio makes more sense in a car than a living room.

The next step Sonos and Apple need to take is making lossless and hi-res playback work on Sonos speakers. Qobuz and Amazon already have, which is why I'm planning to ditch Apple Music and Apple Classical for Beginners Apple Classical when Qobuz finally becomes available in Canada in May.
 
Once more and more music is created using spatial audio to begin with, and not synthesized after the fact in the studio, is when Spatial Audio will really take off in my opinion. As of now it seems more of a party trick.

I will say though, Spatial Audio with head tracking on the AirPods Pro really is incredible. It sounds like the audio is playing from the speaker on my iPhone but it’s all through the headphones! Pretty cool.
 
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arnoz said:
I think I'm getting old and am getting very confused with all this Atmos and Spatial Audio stuff. Is that even the same thing with two different names?
I have a HomePod, Sonos Arc and two Sonos One. The Arc had its firmware update this morning, all Apple devices have been updated a few hours ago. But it seems like the only way to play Atmos content is
  1. by playing it from my iPhone only
  2. by starting playback from the Sonos app only
So, at home, I must use my iPhone and must use a third party music app for all this to works? Surely it must be easier and I'm missing something?
Just playing music via AirPlay from my Mac seems much easier, especially with Siri (for once, it works).
Click to expand...
It's not you, there are two separate things that are named the same, Apple's Spatial Audio and just spatial audio that simulates the 3d audio world by using multiple speakers around the room, headphones or whatever makes it sound like the audio is coming at you from 360 degree.

Apple's Spatial Audio is Apple's specific technology that integrates with the hardware (AirPods) to track where you're listening and adjusts the sound to you.

Dolby Atmos is nothing like that, it is a specific speaker topology that includes height audio channels (as well as the special encoded audio format); in other words, extra speakers that bounce sounds off or coming from the top. It needs specific audio encoded format that includes extra metadata to know which sound should be coming from the top.

You need AirPods to use Apple's Spatial Audio (on top of other apple-specific hardware that can use Dolby Atmos). However, it doesn't work with any random audio or video, you need audio formats that has 360 degree separation, thus where Dolby Atmos come in.

You can also simulate "spatial audio" with your headphone by using Dolby Atmos software on PC, xbox with its sonic, etc.
 
I tried this with my Beam Gen 2. So I threw on the Beatles and wow. Just wow what a difference. Guitars sounded like they were coming from behind me and what not. It’s great.
 
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Thanks for taking the time to explain.
I now understand the Spatial Audio stuff that does work flawlessly when streaming from my iPhone and using my AirPods Pro.
But, I'm still confused about home usage from my Mac: there isn't any way to stream music from the Music app and benefit from Atmos "effects" (when the source album supports it, of course). Did a few tests from with different settings and from different devices, I was only able to stream from the Sonos app to the Arc soundbar to have Atmos support enabled ("atmos" being displayed when I played some Beatles for ex.).
 
zubikov said:
In > 90% of the use cases everyone reading this should be concerned about how the Era 300 work as stereo speakers (not spatial audio), and whether they support lossless playback over Airplay 2.

The other 10% of the use cases will be people using them as surrounds, and for those that passionately care about Dolby Atmos / Spatial Audio.
Click to expand...

and the early reviews seem to suggest the era 300 isn't too good with stereo audio.
 
sammo123321 said:
Off topic, but I didn't realize how large the Era 300/100 actually are. They look gigantic in that stock photo.
Click to expand...
The Era 100 is only slightly bigger than the Sonos One (2 cm -- less than an inch -- taller and about half an inch deeper) while the Era 300 is actually smaller than the Five it "replaces."
 
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Can I ask Alexa to play Apple Classical Spatial Audio track on my Sonos device and have it just "work"?
 
The key words that makes me wonder why I would even bother upgrading to Spacial audio speakers at this time, ”thousands of songs”. Apple Music has how many millions of songs? Plus how many of those thousands would I like. Might actually hear a Spacial track someday! Until that number gets to two digit millions, or my current speakers NEED replacing before a consideration.
 
If I've purchased music from Apple, would I have a path to play that purchased music on Sonos and experience spacial audio? Or is this only available with Apple Music subscription?
 
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