How can headphones play Dolby Atmos?

Submitted by Beneficial-Health101 t3_126p0ep in headphones

I guess it’s well known that for Dolby Atmos you need multiple speakers around the room, or speakers that project sound in more directions, like the Sonos Era 300. Headphones usually have on driver for each ear, the left and right channels, so they can play in stereo, but how is it possible for Dolby Atmos or 3D sound to come out of two drivers?

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nebkelly t1_jea1toh wrote

It is downmixed through wizardry into two channels.

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doho04 t1_jea7yh8 wrote

The same way a 3D game can be seen on your 2D screen. The most common method is Head Related Transfer Function, it simulates the speakers placed in a room and places a head in the middle of it. What the simulated head hears at it‘s simulated ears. For more info look up head related transfer function and binaural audio.

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coptician t1_jeaa99e wrote

The same way you hear in 3D while only having two ears, but reversed.

Your ears are shaped such that when a sound comes from a certain direction, your ears physically alter it in a way your brain can understand. That lets you hear a direction. (Left and right are done by relative volume in each ear as well).

Dolby atmos and similar techniques apply filters to the sound that make it behave similarly to what your ear does, and that fools your brain into thinking the sound came from a specific direction.

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blargh4 t1_jeabrcp wrote

Same way you hear dolby atmos with only 2 ears.

Though these surround sound virtualization algorithms aren’t super effective, from my experience. YMMV.

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Chastity23 t1_jeaj1gm wrote

It's called HRTF or psychoacoustics. Have fun Googling

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WittyUname t1_jean2pd wrote

No matter what you use to create the sound you are only sensing what happens at your two ears - so if headphones could faithfully recreate what you would hear from any number of speakers you could recreate the experience. HRTF and other computational methods try to do that with various levels of success

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