And actually, already with just 2 physical channels on Apple AirPods line of products, you already know it can reproduce amazingly convincing front/rear and circular effects.
While "amazingly convincing" is certainly ear of the beholder, if it genuinely was amazing- that is, close to the real thing of having actual speakers to the "rear & circular," all of the cinemas in the world would quite happily switch to 2 HPs down front vs. the relatively enormous spend to install & maintain speakers placed all over the theater. You won't find one professional theater leaning on 2 HPs or any soundbar down front, even with such speakers promoted as ATMOS/SPATIAL in their marketing.
Audio trickery is better than nothing, but our ears have millions of years of evolutionary learning to help us zoom in on the source of a sound. Step outside, find a sound like a bird chirping and, through evolutionary magic, you'll soon locate the exact position of the bird. Rotate your body to face the other way and you'll readily HEAR that the bird is now behind you. Rotate 90º and you'll readily hear that the bird is now beside you.
No amount of algorithmic trickery can compensate for where sound originates. If one wants great home theater audio, copy the professionals (the cinemas) and get yourself speakers positioned all around you. If you want true ATMOS, get a few speakers placed above you too (again, just like professional ATMOS cinemas). No kind of single speaker or two down front is going to be close to that. Our ears can easily tell.
Now if we switch from some definition of "amazingly convincing" to "good enough," that might work for some people... certainly sounding much better than the cheap crap speakers typically built into a TV. But if you want theater-quality sound, there's no getting that from only a speaker or two up front. Sound intended to originate "back there" needs to actually come from back there. Sound intended to originate from "up there" needs to come from up there. Theater deep bass needs a sub of sufficient physical size to produce deep bass. Crisp & clear dialogue needs an actual
center channel speaker vs. a faux one created by audio trickery.
If one can go to the one-time trouble to run speaker wires for at least a 5.1 setup, do it and you'll get fantastic sound from a good Receiver and quality dumb speakers... BETTER than you can get from 2 HPs and/or any soundbar.
If one can't run speaker wires for whatever reason, the wireless setup like
Arc + twin 300s as surrounds + sub for (more) bass can be a superior alternative to only 2 HPs or any other dual speakers-up-front setup.
If one can't appreciate any speakers not made by Apple, HPs are the only option... and then you are limited to stereo regardless of marketing tags like ATMOS on the box. They are audibly superior to TV speakers but you are asking far more than you should of only 2 speakers in a home theater world that embraced 5+ speakers + sub way back in the 1990s.
Minimal target for great sound should include LEFT, CENTER & RIGHT speakers up front and at least 2 surround LEFT & RIGHT speakers... plus optional SUB if you want deep bass for the big booms in many movies.
Minimal target for true ATMOS is going to be those 5 speakers + SUB and at least a speaker(s) overhead.
We Apple people so desperately want a stereo pair of HPs to be as good as such setups but they are not. The original intent of them was to play MUSIC, in which stereo is "good enough" for most listeners. Apple opted to take easy money from people who wanted to make them TV speakers too... but there's not even a rumor of Apple doing any more than providing HP
stereo setups. The long spun hope by Apple fans that maybe Apple would evolve 2 HP minis to become "surround" speakers would- if they ever actually did it- still be only a 4.0 system in 202X/203X vs. at least a 5.1 system that existed as early as the 1990s.
Home theater audio has long since evolved well beyond only stereo. If anyone could easily compare faux surround or ATMOS setups with real surround or ATMOS setups in their own home, they would absolutely hear a HUGE difference in quality of sound. Again, you won't find any professional theater leaning on the much cheaper options of only a soundbar or 2 HPs down front. Why is that? And in that answer, you know the way to a much improved home theater option in your home.
None of this is a knock on HPs or Soundbars at all. Either
IS "amazingly" superior to crap TV speakers. But there's a much greater "amazingly" if you replicate what you can observe in any professional cinema before the lights go down (go early next time and look around) within your personal cinema. "Think different"... "
Hear different!"
