Head tracking and Recenter, explained

One of the nicest things about prostir zvuku is also one of the easiest things to miss at first: every sound is supposed to feel as if it belongs somewhere in the room. Rain may sit off to one side, a fire may stay just behind you, and birds may hover somewhere ahead. Once you notice that, head tracking starts to make sense, because it answers a very simple question: when you move, should the room move with you, or should it stay where it is?

Without head tracking, the whole scene is effectively attached to you. Turn left and the entire room turns left with you, fire and all. Turn right and it all comes along again. With head tracking on, the room stays put. Turn toward the window and the rain still feels like it is by the window. Look back toward the screen and the fire is still beside you. It is a small change in mechanics, but it makes a big difference in feel. The soundscape starts to behave more like a place than like audio being played inside your head.

What head tracking actually does

Under the hood, the idea is straightforward. Supported AirPods have motion sensors. With head tracking on, prostir zvuku reads that motion in real time and counter-rotates the sound field by the same amount you turn. The result is that, from your point of view, each layer keeps its place in space instead of swinging around with you.

It is also worth saying what does not happen. This is not one of those features where motion is sent off somewhere and turned into a profile of how you use the app. The motion is read, used to place the sound, and discarded. That is it.

What you need

Head tracking relies on the motion sensors built into certain AirPods, so it is a narrower feature than spatial playback itself. It works with:

• AirPods Pro (1st and 2nd generation)
• AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation
• AirPods Max

The important distinction is this: spatial audio itself does not need any of these models. The room still plays spatially through your Mac speakers, wired headphones, or other Bluetooth headphones. Supported AirPods simply add the live anchor that reacts to your movement. Everything else in the app works exactly the same without them.

Turning it on

Connect supported AirPods, then tap Head Tracking in the editor bar. Once motion starts streaming, the spatial-audio icon next to it lights up to show tracking is live. There is nothing to calibrate — move your head and you will hear the room hold its place.

The moment tracking starts, prostir zvuku takes the direction you are facing right then as forward. That becomes the center of the scene. Most of the time this is exactly what you want. You are looking at your screen, so the room quietly builds itself around the screen as the point of reference.

Recenter: resetting your forward

But of course, people do not sit perfectly still. You shift in your chair. You rotate away from the desk for a second. You move to the couch. You lie down. And once that happens, the room may still be anchored to where you used to be facing, which makes the whole thing feel slightly rotated or just a little off.

That is what Recenter is for. It fixes the room in one tap. The same spatial-audio icon next to Head Tracking also acts as the Recenter button: tap it and prostir zvuku throws away the old forward reference and takes wherever you are looking right now as the new center. The room settles back around you. If tracking is not currently streaming, Recenter does nothing, which is exactly what you would expect.

When to use it — a few examples

• You turned away and came back. You set up facing your monitor, swiveled to talk to someone, then turned back. A tap re-anchors the room to the screen.
• You changed seats. Moved from the desk to the couch? Recenter rebuilds the scene around your new spot.
• You lay down for sleep. You arranged the room sitting up, then lay back — now “forward” points at the ceiling. Tap Recenter while lying down and the room settles around you again.
• It drifted over a long session. If the scene starts to feel slightly rotated after a while, a quick Recenter straightens it out.

When tracking pauses

One practical detail that matters in real life: if your AirPods disconnect, playback does not collapse. The room keeps playing. Head tracking simply stops, and the sound returns to a fixed spatial mix. Your preference is remembered, so when you reconnect the same AirPods, tracking resumes on its own without you having to toggle everything again.

A few tips

• Recenter facing the direction you will spend most of your time looking — usually your screen.
• If you switch between sitting and lying down, just Recenter again after you settle into the new position.
• Head tracking is optional. If you prefer the scene to move with you, leave it off — the spatial mix still sounds great.

That is really the whole idea. Head tracking is not meant to be a flashy trick. It is a way of making the room feel more stable, more physical, and a little easier to believe in. And when it drifts out of place, Recenter is just your quick way of saying: no, the room is here.