It looks like Apple will finally support four HomePods in Dolby Atmos surround sound with Apple TV 4K — and it'd be a pretty good price compared to Sony's equivalent system

Two speakers good, four speakers better

News By Carrie Marshall Published 8 September 2026

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• Apple code reveals four-speaker home theater setup using HomePod 2
• Could be a serious rival to Sony's Bravia Theater Quad or similar rival setups
• Perhaps we'll hear more at the September Apple Event

If you've gone all-in on Apple for your home theater setup you'll know the joys of using HomePods as speakers — and the frustration that you can't add a second pair into the mix to add rear surround channels. It looks like that's about to change.

MacRumors reports that code in the latest beta of Apple's audioOS 27 refers to four-speaker surround sound, with front-left, front-right, rear-left and rear-right speakers.

The code makes references to automatic room calibration, speaker position mapping, timing adjustments, bass management, EQ, dialog enhancement and separate processing modes for movies and music.

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Apple could do incredible things with four speakers: my iPad Pro's four-speaker setup regularly astounds me with its ability to make sound come from nowhere, and when we tested HomePod 2 as TV speakers, we were seriously impressed with their scale and spatial positioning.

I'm excited by the possibilities here, not least because cabling up a wired surround system for my TV setup was an enormous pain in the backside.

Could Apple's surround be superior to Sony?

The most obvious rival to a four-speaker HomePod setup is the Sony Bravia Theater Quad, which is also a quad-speaker setup. We've heard that in action and it's really impressive, but it's also really expensive with a launch price of $2,499 / £2,499 (roughly AU$3,883), and a street price that's still around $2,000 / £2,000.

By comparison, four second-generation HomePods will set you back $1,396 / £1,396 / AU$2,196) — though you'll also need the $199 / £199 / AU$299 Apple TV 4K (2022) of course.

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