Netflix announced today that it is bringing spatial audio to all devices. It will allow users without multichannel speakers to experience surround sound with stereo speakers only.
On non-Apple devices, the feature can use the standard stereo audio track and turn it into 3D spatial audio. To do this, Netflix has partnered with Sennheiser to incorporate the same 3D audio technology found on the Sennheiser Ambeo soundbar.
Spatial audio will work on any non-Apple device, such as smartphones, tablets, and televisions, as long as you access the stereo track. No special functions are required on the playback device, as all processing is done within the Netflix app.
Currently, only a limited amount of content is available in spatial audio. To find all supported content, you need to search for “spatial audio”. At the moment, the only content available is produced by Netflix.
To know if the content plays with spatial audio, you need to make sure there is no 5.1 or Dolby Atmos logo on the title screen. If you see these logos, it means that the device will play the surround sound track instead and the spatial audio will not be enabled. On most TVs, for example, the device will automatically play the surround sound track with no option to switch manually, so you won’t experience Netflix spatial audio but rather just the TV’s internal audio processing.
If this sounds unnecessarily complicated and counterintuitive, it is because it is. Fortunately, things are much simpler on Apple devices. Here, Netflix simply uses the built-in spatial audio feature found in iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS devices and works on all content with 5.1 or Dolby Atmos tracks. All you need is a recent device with spatial audio support and compatible Apple headphones, including AirPods 3, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, and some Beats models.
Spatial audio content is now available globally for all subscription levels and can be accessed by searching for “spatial audio”.
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