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> I get it. If spatial audio needs hardware support on the playback

Does it? If you assume that 99% of the time I am looking at the screen and just do that doesn't it provide basically perfect audio? Until very wide-FOV screens become common place it doesn't seem like you need to know where I am looking, it is within a couple of degrees from the center of the screen.

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I'm not sure entirely, but IIRC it uses a chip to position the headphones spatially. Without the chip, the headphones wouldn't know which direction to set as "north" even with a gyroscope. Found link: https://locatify.com/blog/what-is-the-new-apple-u1-chip-and-...

The point is to make it sound like you're in a 5.1 home theater so if you turn your head you should hear different things.

My point is that this seems like a very very small loss.

Might be bigger than you think. Apparently people who use Realiser A16 have experienced the very same effect: once you fool the brains that speakers are stationary, you get a much more convincing effect about actually being in a studio.

But that device also has other tricks in its sleeve.

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