Native Spatial Sound vs. Upmixer - Your Experience?

Hi
My name is Rishabh, I hope you are doing great out there. I’m happy to help you with your question.

The Starfield Limited Edition headset is designed to support spatial audio and provide an immersive gaming experience, so if you're not getting spatial audio and the audio sounds like it's coming from the center of your head, there might be some settings or compatibility issues to address:

Driver Installation:
Make sure you have installed any necessary drivers or software provided by the headset manufacturer. Some headsets require specific drivers to enable spatial audio features.

Windows Sonic or Dolby Atmos for Headphones:
Spatial audio in Windows can be enabled through technologies like Windows Sonic for Headphones or Dolby Atmos for Headphones. You need to enable one of these spatial audio solutions to experience 3D audio. You can activate them by right-clicking the sound icon in the system tray, selecting "Spatial sound," and choosing either Windows Sonic or Dolby Atmos.

Game Compatibility:
Not all games support spatial audio, and some may require specific settings to be configured within the game itself. Make sure you're playing a game that supports spatial audio and check its settings to enable it if necessary.

Headset Compatibility:
While the Starfield Limited Edition headset is designed for spatial audio, it's possible that there could be compatibility issues with certain systems or setups. Check the manufacturer's website or support resources to ensure the headset is compatible with your specific setup.

Audio Output Settings:
Confirm that the audio output settings on your PC are correctly set to use the Starfield Limited Edition headset as the default audio device. Sometimes, incorrect settings can affect spatial audio performance.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks and regards
Rishabh Sohal

First of all, you need to understand that you are always getting a Stereo signal from the two speakers in your headphones, as there are only two speakers.

Since you only have two ears, your brain will get the spatial information from where the sound is coming from by comparing the sound difference, echos and reverb between your two ears.

The Dolby Atmos App simply adds echo and reverb effects to the sound to fool your two ears to think that something to the right and above you is making a sound by applying a small delay to the sound reaching your right ear, and then playing the sound a bit
later in your left ear.

From my experience, if a game does not support Dolby Atmos, you do get "flat" surround sound, meaning you should at least hear sounds appearing to come from "behind" you, however on the same height level as your ears. Just as with a normal standard 5.1 setup.
Just be aware, that this also is just simulated surround through your two stereo headphone speakers.

As for the upmixing of non-Atmos sound to spatial Atmos sound:
This is in testing on the Alpha and Alpha Skip Ahead channels of the Insider Preview. However, unless you also want to have issues with soundbars not working or Atmos receivers crackling and popping, I recommend to NOT join the Insider Preview just yet
for that feature, if you value sound quality. If however you wish to test stuff, and file feedback for things that are broken, feel free to join the Insider Preview. Just be aware, that you have to "work" your way up to the Alpha rings by being active and
filing good feedback. If you just join the Insider Preview, Beta is the highest Ring you can get to at first.

I figured it out, Spotify, Soundcloud etc don't output 5.1, your amp needs to upmix it. Make sure your Xbox output is Stereo uncompressed, then your amp can upmix it to 5.1.

The solution is to switch on spatial sound, Microsoft Sonic for Headphones (despite using speakers)

Another way to verify if your Atmos is working correctly, download the Insects demo/game called "Insects: An Xbox One X Enhanced Experience". If the "spatial sound" toggle is greyed out, then something is not set right in the Xbox settings. OR, you just
have to run the Dolby access app again as I mentioned in my previous post.

Once you change any Xbox settings, you have to quit the Insect app (I mean *really* quit through the Xbox menu button) and restart the Insect app to see if the changes helped. Once the spatial sound toggle becomes available, you can turn it on and off and
hear things like birds in the height speakers.