There's a 30-day free trial for Dolby Atmos so you can see (or hear, rather) which one sounds better with your setup. I watched trailers from the Movies & TV app and could hear the difference between spatial sound and no spatial sound, but I couldn't discern any difference between Windows Sonic and Dolby Atmos. I tried out both Dolby Atmos and Windows Sonic on a Windows 10 PC with a pair of gaming headphones. Windows Sonic is free and already on board your PC if you are running Creators Update or later. Dolby Atmos costs $14.99 to enable, a fee which you can pay via the Dolby Access app. For headphones, I suggest you give Windows Sonic a whirl. You have only one choice - Dolby Atmos - if you have a sweet surround-sound speaker system hooked up to your PC via a receiver that supports Atmos. It's called Windows Sonic for Headphones. Microsoft has its own flavor of spatial sound, but it works only with headphones. Does my PC support it?Īs long as you updated to Windows 10 Creators Update last spring, it does. Dolby Atmos adds height to the surround-sound equation, which creates a smoother, more realistic surround sound experience as sounds are passed from place to place around you.ĭolby Atmos can be set up on a PC to be used with headphones or, a less likely scenario, external speakers and an AV receiver that supports Atmos. Instead of using channel (rear-left speaker, for example), it assigns sounds to a place (rear-left corner, 8-feet high). What is Dolby Atmos?ĭolby Atmos is Dolby's spatial sound technology.

It makes movies and games more immersive. Have you read about Dolby Atmos and like the sound of bringing 3D surround sound - spatial sound, they're calling it - to your home theater but have yet to invest in a new receiver and speaker system? If you are curious to try Dolby Atmos - or Microsoft's equivalent spatial sound technology - you can check it out with just your laptop and a decent pair of headphones.

3d surround sound headphones