A quick unofficial Apple Music Spatial Audio FAQ

So, what is it?

Music mixed in Dolby Atmos.

So, like, surround sound?

Yes, with an asterisk we’ll come back to. Most surround systems use multiple channels: the original Dolby Surround used four (left, right, center, and rear), then moved to five (splitting the rear into left rear and right rear), and a few Even More Channels variants. Dolby Atmos, though, doesn’t have channels. Instead, it assigns audio tracks to “audio objects,” which have three-axis positions in virtual space. Each object ...