SPATIAL AUDIO & ATMOS HEADPHONES

A new generation of surround sound headphones means your home cinema audio dreams don’t have to be put on hold just because everyone else has gone to bed

BEYERDYNAMIC DT 1770 PRO

These studio-grade headphones from Beyerdynamic don’t actually support surround sound playback in the way the others in this section do. We’ve included them, though, because their uncompromising construction together with Beyerdynamic’s sound-stage-building Tesla headphone technology (named after Nikola, not Elon Musk’s cars) delivers detailed, well constructed film sound stages.

£359, beyerdynamic.com

JVC EXOFIELD XP-EXT1

This is the only current headphone solution that provides an external receiver for extracting sound from HDMI sources like Blu-ray players and Apple TVs. These extracted mixes are then sent wirelessly to the Exofield headphones, where JVC’s ‘out-of-head localisation sound field processing’ makes them sound like they’re coming from an external multichannel speaker array rather than cans on your ears.

£999, jvc.com

CREATIVE SXFI THEATER

Creative’s award-winning Super X-Fi headphone tech creates a ‘holographic’ movie experience, complete with accurately placed positional cues and heavy bass, that really can sound uncannily like an external surround sound speaker system. It can even personalise its audio profile by taking photos of you. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi latency are practically zero, too, and it ships with a detachable mic so it can double up as a gaming headset.

£149.99, creative.com

APPLE AIRPODS MAX

As well as sounding as good with music as they really should at this price, Apple’s debut over-ear headphones carry a spatial audio feature that delivers a remarkably compelling, accurate, detailed and dynamic virtual surround sound experience from 5.1, 7.1 and even Dolby Atmos sources. This system can even track your head position so that the 3D soundstage is always positioned correctly relative to the screen.

From £459, apple.com

SONY WH-1000XM4

Sony’s flagship headphones are at their spellbinding, immersive best when playing music mixed for the brand’s 360 Reality Audio format. However, while they might not be configured specifically for Dolby Atmos and surround sound movie and TV soundtracks, the work that’s gone into making them so engrossing with 360 Reality Audio also seems to help them deliver a gorgeously large, detailed and three-dimensional soundstage with the home cinema side of things.

£249, sony.co.uk

BANG & OLUFSEN BEOPLAY PORTAL

Having been designed in collaboration with Xbox, it’s no surprise that the ultra-comfortable, beautifully designed Beoplay Portals are optimised for gaming. However, their essentially instant response time and ability to deliver an outstandingly immersive, powerful and ultra-detailed 360-degree sound stage from surround sound mixes – including Dolby Atmos – makes them an outstanding partner to films and TV shows, too.

£449, bang-olufsen.com