There’s an audio feature buried quite deep in Windows 11 you might not have come across before: spatial audio. It relies to some extent on the hardware you have hooked up to your PC, but it’s designed to create a more immersive, three-dimensional soundscape for any audio playing on your system—whether you’re watching movies or playing games.
You can try out spatial sound with any pair of headphones, though it can also function with soundbars and multi-speaker setups. There are a few different types of spatial sound to be aware of, and a quick web search for the speakers or headphones you have (or want to buy) alongside “spatial sound” should give you some more pointers. Here’s more about how it works, and how to enable it on your system.
How spatial sound works
Credit: Dolby
Spatial sound aims to make your audio more immersive. Even if you’re only using stereo speakers or stereo headphones, it will attempt to mimic surround sound effects with a variety of audio tricks—so you might be able to hear sounds in a game coming from behind you, for example.
Changing the pitch is one of the tricks spatial sound uses, for instance, as it helps to indicate distance. The technology can support up to 33 different channels at once, which gives programs and games a lot of scope when it comes to isolating and positioning different bits of audio.
The spatial sound option all Windows users have is called Windows Sonic. This built-in option only works with headphones, but it should work with any pair of them, to a greater or lesser extent. The quality and capabilities of your headphones will most likely make a difference, so your results with spatial sound may vary.
You can also use Dolby Atmos spatial sound for headphones and speakers that support the standard. The catch is, this isn’t free: You need to download and install Dolby Access, which will cost you a one-time fee of $15. There is a free trial at least, so you can at least test it out with your system before parting with your money. You can find out more about Dolby’s implementation here.
The results you get from spatial sound are also going to vary depending on the sound card in your computer and the applications you’re using to play the audio. Movies, games, and music mixed for 7.1 audio channels will sound best with spatial audio enabled, and you may need to do some trial and error to make the most of the feature.
How to enable spatial sound
Credit: Lifehacker
I’ll cover the process of enabling Windows Sonic spatial sound here—as that’s the version available to everyone—but the steps are largely the same if you’ve got Dolby Atmos set up on your system. Open up Settings from the Start menu in Windows, then head to System and Sound.
You’ll see the audio devices set up on your computer, and you’ll want to click the small arrow to the right of your headphones (or the audio device that your headphones are plugged into). Windows Sonic only works with headphones, but any kind of wired or wireless connection should do.
On the next screen, open up the drop-down menu next to Spatial sound, then choose Windows Sonic for Headphones from the list. The change should be noticeable immediately, so you can assess how well it works for your own particular hardware setup and the audio source you’re listening to.
We’d recommend trying spatial sound out with a few different types of content—loading up a Blu-ray or streaming a movie is a good option to try, for example. You can continue to toggle spatial sound on and off through the Windows Settings panel to check the difference it’s making inside your headphones.
There’s another way to turn on spatial sound that you might find more convenient: Click the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the taskbar, then the arrow next to the volume slider, and you’ll see the spatial sound options again, alongside various other Windows sound settings.
