Two formats, and what each one needs
Every recording in Scenery exists as two files: a binaural stereo mix, and a Dolby Atmos mix. Which one you hear depends on your plan, your device, and one setting.
Binaural stereo — for headphones
This is the format that ships to everyone, on every platform, including anyone listening on the listen page or through a share link without an account.
Binaural is not “stereo but wider”. It is a recording technique and mix that preserves the cues your ears use to locate a sound — the tiny timing and level differences between your two ears, and the way your own head shadows sound coming from one side. Played back on headphones, that information reconstructs, and the railway announcement is genuinely above and behind you rather than somewhere inside your skull.
Any headphones. No setup, no compatible hardware, no setting to find.
Dolby Atmos — for phones, tablets, and speaker systems
Scenery serves Dolby Atmos as an E-AC-3 stream with Joint Object Coding, which is the format Dolby Atmos is distributed in. On iOS and Android, that stream is handed to the operating system, which decodes it and renders it to whatever you are actually listening on.
Dolby Atmos requires a Premium or Max plan. The free plan does not include any Atmos time — not a reduced amount, none. This is the one place we would rather be blunt than clever: if you sign up free to try Atmos, you will not get Atmos.
Dolby, Dolby Atmos, and the double-D symbol are registered trademarks of Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation.
What we send, and what your device does with it
The boundary is straightforward.
Scenery does not inspect your device. We do not probe your headphones, query your speakers, or test your browser's codec support. There is no “optimising for your setup” step, because there is no such step.
What happens is simpler. If you are entitled to Atmos and the recording has an Atmos mix, we send you the Atmos stream. Your operating system or browser decodes it. If that decode fails for any reason, Scenery switches to the binaural mix and keeps playing, and tells you it has done so.
That means the honest answer to “will I hear Atmos?” is: you will be sent Atmos, and your device decides. On iOS and Android that path is well-trodden. In a browser it depends on the browser, and we have not tested them all, so we are not going to name one.
If you own a Dolby Atmos speaker setup
A Dolby Atmos speaker setup can carry the shape of these places beyond headphones.
Many ambient recordings are mixed only for headphones. On a multi-speaker system, that leaves the recording in the front two channels while the rest of the room stays quiet.
Scenery's Atmos mixes are delivered to your system as an Atmos stream and rendered by it. The recordings were made in real places with real boundaries — a station concourse, a coastline with the sea on one side and a grove behind — which is material that a room-scale system has something to do with.
We describe this as delivery, not as driving your speakers. Your receiver, sound bar or TV does the rendering, and it will do it according to your own room configuration.
Everything else in the app
- Offline downloads (Premium and Max) — download recordings and play them without a connection. Downloads are the binaural mix. This works in the browser too, not just on the phone apps.
- Background playback (Premium and Max) — keeps playing when you switch apps or lock the screen. On the free plan, playback stops when Scenery is no longer in the foreground.
- Playlists — free plans get 3 playlists holding 3 recordings each. Premium raises that to 50 playlists with no per-playlist limit; Max removes the limit entirely.
- Five languages — the app ships in Traditional Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese.
- iOS, Android, and the web. There is no desktop application to install; on a computer, Scenery runs in the browser with a layout built for a large screen.
Questions people actually ask
Do I need special headphones?
No. Binaural works on any pair. Dolby Atmos needs a Premium or Max plan, and a device that can decode it — which on iPhone and Android is handled by the operating system.
Will Dolby Atmos work in my browser?
We send the Atmos stream to the browser and let it decode. Some browsers will, some will not, and we have not measured them all — so rather than name one, we will say what happens when it does not: the binaural mix plays instead, automatically.
Is there a free trial?
No. There is a free plan, which is different — it is permanent, and it does not include Dolby Atmos. Nothing is charged unless you choose a paid plan.
Can I listen without an account?
Yes. The listen page plays one full recording in binaural stereo, with no sign-up and no email. A free account adds the rest of the collection, still in binaural. Dolby Atmos needs a paid plan.
What is the daily limit actually counting?
Time spent playing audio, counted on our servers, resetting once a day in your own time zone. Free is 25 minutes of binaural a day. Premium is unlimited binaural plus 60 minutes of Dolby Atmos a day. Max removes the Atmos limit.
How many recordings are there?
Nineteen today, all made in Tainan, Taiwan. More are coming, and not only from Tainan. We publish the number rather than a vague word like “hundreds”, because it is 19.