If you asked me where I’d heard the best Dolby Atmos experience I’ve ever had, you’d probably guess my answer would be some super expensive home theatre set-up. But what if I told you it was in a car? Pink Floyd’s Money started playing, and everything else just… vanished. And I realised I was sitting inside one of the best Dolby Atmos setups I’ve ever heard at CES 2026.
I was in the all-electric Cadillac Escalade IQ, the new flagbearer of GM’s future fleet. It’s plush, massive, and about as subtle as a bull in a china shop – but that’s not why I was there. I was there for the sound. Tracks were streaming in Dolby Atmos from Apple Music over wireless CarPlay. Atmos was in full swing, and it didn’t sound like a wireless compromise at all.
- Read more: What is Dolby Atmos? The immersive audio tech explained
I started in the rear seat – plenty of legroom and the place to just sit and listen as a passenger. First up was Pink Floyd’s Money, and while the usual surround tricks were all there (cash registers pinging past your ears and bass circling you) the real kicker was how stable everything felt. Not loud, not boomy, just placed. Intentional, well… because it is.
Then came Golden from Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters flick, which might as well have been mixed for this cabin. It sounds better in this car than in my Atmos system at home. The layering was incredible. I could pick out instruments, and voices in particular, by direction, not just frequency. Even with the car full of glass, leather, and people the vocal never floated off.
When Elton John’s Rocketman played, I actually turned my head, as if I were looking for where the music was coming from. In tracks like Money, you’re immersed from the start. But in others, there’s almost a build to it, which I like. The spatial realisation just sort of arrives mid-song.
Technically speaking, Dolby Atmos in cars is different from your living room setup. It’s not just about tossing more speakers at the problem. Atmos treats sound as objects in a 3D space, with each one tagged to appear somewhere specific – above, behind, in the centre, and so on. Then it’s up to the car’s system to render that intent within its very un-home-theatre environment. That means working around reflective glass, asymmetrical seats, and the acoustic nightmare that is road noise.
Whether you’re a passenger trying to enjoy some music or your driving somewhere, you can appreciate every moment of each track. You sort of forget the car is doing all that processing in the background. That’s probably the most Dolby thing about it – you only notice how incredible it sounds. And then you don’t want to get out of the car.
- Related: Best spatial audio albums 2025: hear the music surround you
