Pioneer Sphera adds Dolby Atmos to the car you already own

I fully believe that once someone hears Dolby Atmos music in their car, they won’t want anything else. The sonic envelopment turns your car cabin into an immersive, engaging experience. Every time I hear a demo — be it in a Rivian, Cadillac, or Mercedes — it leaves me energized and excited. But up to this point, Dolby Atmos has only been available in luxury vehicles that have a whole array of speakers.

Pioneer is changing that with the Sphera, an aftermarket in-dash receiver with a 10.1-inch capacitive screen that enables Dolby Atmos playback in Apple CarPlay. And it works with as few as four speakers installed in your car, creating the Atmos environment with virtualization.

The Pioneer Sphera head unit fits in a single-DIN or double-DIN slot in your car’s dash. Once installed, initial setup involves placing an included mic at the driver’s headrest and leaving the car for about five minutes to allow Pioneer’s processing to calibrate the system to your car’s interior. Once complete, you can select your listening sweet spot on the screen as driver, passenger, or the whole cabin. I heard the Sphera in action in a 2017 Toyota Highlander with four speakers and a sub. For the demo, the stock speakers had been replaced with Pioneer A-Series speakers that cost around $100 each.

Pioneer’s virtualization does an impressive job properly filling the cabin using just four speakers. While listening to the opening of “Money” from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, the cash register sounds were placed in their appropriate positions throughout the cabin, and when the full band came in, the interior felt bigger than it was. Similarly, the oohs and aahs in the chorus of “Rocket Man” blossomed and surrounded Elton John’s vocals.

The placement didn’t have quite the same specificity you can get with more than four speakers, but that doesn’t take away from the experience in a significant way. The Sphera still delivers a rich and full sonic landscape that properly fills the space within a car’s cabin. Pioneer’s Sphera will be available in the spring for $1,300. That’s not an insignificant amount, but if you’ve been aching for Atmos in your car, it’s a lot more economical than ponying up for a luxury vehicle.