Sony brings head-tracking spatial audio to its 1000XM5 headphones

Sony is acting quickly to make sure owners of its WH-1000XM5 headphones don’t feel left behind after seeing the just-released WF-1000XM5 earbuds gain several new features. (Putting both of those products in the same sentence really hammers home the madness of Sony’s product names, eh?) The company has released a firmware update for the headphones that brings them to parity with the wireless earbuds by introducing support for head-tracking spatial audio. As with the buds, you’ll need a phone running Android 13 or later, and dynamic head tracking only works with compatible video apps.

Better still, Sony is no longer making WH-1000XM5 owners choose between multipoint and LDAC. Once you’ve installed the latest update, you can listen to higher-bitrate music from streaming services like Amazon Music and Apple Music while also maintaining a multipoint Bluetooth connection to two devices at the same time. Previously, LDAC was unavailable whenever multipoint was enabled via the Headphones Connect app. But now you can take advantage of both — just like you can with the WF-1000XM5.

Upon reading my review of Sony’s latest flagship earbuds, a fair number of people commented that they don’t see the value of dynamic head tracking and having audio shift around based on their head movements when watching video content. I think the feature can lend some immersion and added spaciousness to the right movie, but it’s nothing close to what I’d call essential. Plus, availability really hinges on what phone you’re using. Google Pixels and other devices support dynamic head tracking, but a Samsung Galaxy device won’t let you enable the feature since Samsung prefers its own ecosystem-exclusive implementation.

The freedom to use LDAC and multipoint simultaneously is a more meaningful addition for those of you who try to squeeze the highest audio quality from your headphones. So far, this firmware update is available only for the WH-1000XM5 headphones, so there’s no telling whether Sony will extend any of this functionality to the M4 or LinkBuds series.

To install the latest update, you’ll need the Sony Headphones Connect for either Android or iOS. Once your headphones are paired up and shown in the app, you’ll be able to download the new firmware.