Dolby Atmos Available in Cadillac OPTIQ

[LennonCobain]

Yet another manufacturer supporting Dolby Atmos.
https://professional.dolby.com/music/dolby-atmos-for-cars/general-motors/#gref

 

[pat bateman]

Patiently waiting for Atmos in my Tesla ever since this incorrect article couple years back. All Model 3's (and presumably others) have overhead speakers, it would be perfect.

 

[Franck]

I went to test drive an Optic and a lyric, and I could not get the dealer to demonstrate it.
I test drove a Lucid and Atmos was on Tidal, and only a few tracks were in Atmos. I tried many tracks that I know were released in Atmos.
As most cars have an android computer, do you need a Tidal subscription for Atmos?
Anyone has experience with any of the cars?

 

[dabl]

I went to test drive an Optic and a lyric, and I could not get the dealer to demonstrate it.
I test drove a Lucid and Atmos was on Tidal, and only a few tracks were in Atmos. I tried many tracks that I know were released in Atmos.
As most cars have an android computer, do you need a Tidal subscription for Atmos?
Anyone has experience with any of the cars?

Interesting. Yes, for Tidal you would definitely need to have a paid subscription to demo Atmos and I could easily see how this could get overlooked and/or a dealership wouldn't care enough to do that. Assuming the dealer would let you fool with the app it would be possible (in theory) to use a personal account to login for demo purposes and then reset it. But that would be a lot of fooling around to do all that.

Based on past history I suspect iOS Carplay has no mechanism to send Atmos but possibly Android Auto might? I'm sure it's been discussed somewhere.

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/topic/us/en/2025/mar/0310-optiq.html

 

[Franck]

https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/topic/us/en/2025/mar/0310-optiq.html

"Amazon Music in Dolby Atmos is accessible to Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers through Cadillac’s native infotainment system. "
The optiq does not support car play (Apple or Google), it is an android based system.

 

[dabl]

"Amazon Music in Dolby Atmos is accessible to Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers through Cadillac’s native infotainment system. "
The optiq does not support car play (Apple or Google), it is an android based system.

Ugh, a solution in search of a problem. Why re-invent the wheel?

 

[Franck]

Ugh, a solution in search of a problem. Why re-invent the wheel?

I’m not sure if an iPhone can send an atmos signal via car play. This would need to be the equivalent of HDMI pass through on MacOs, so the atmos signal can be decoded by something else for the right speaker setup.
Is there such technology/standard ATMOS over USB/Bluetooth ?

 

[dabl]

I’m not sure if an iPhone can send an atmos signal via car play. This would need to be the equivalent of HDMI pass through on MacOs, so the atmos signal can be decoded by something else for the right speaker setup.
Is there such technology/standard ATMOS over USB/Bluetooth ?

You're absolutely right, I hadn't thought of that and overlooked that little detail. For now my guess is a native solution is the only way to do Atmos in a car.

 

[ProgRules]

I have a friend who just got a new Mercedes with Atmos and you can access Apple Music from the head unit. Couldn't figure out how to find Atmos tracks when I drove with him, but I told him to search on his ATV at home and make playlists with Atmos albums so he could access them that way. But I keep asking and he hasn't done that yet.

But even upmixed that system sounds awesome. I can't wait to hear it play some real Atmos.

 

[pat bateman]

These data plans for these Atmos equipped vehicles are expensive. Streamed Atmos being 768 kbps, which is 8X more than typical in car 2 channel streaming (96 kbps). Volvo is $220/year. Cadillac is $500/year.

 

[dabl]

These data plans for these Atmos equipped vehicles are expensive. Streamed Atmos being 768 kbps, which is 8X more than typical in car 2 channel streaming (96 kbps). Volvo is $220/year. Cadillac is $500/year.

Wow, interesting. Yeah seems like that's going to be a hard sell for a lot of people. The target audience seems to be people with money to burn.

 

[Franck]

Wow, interesting. Yeah seems like that's going to be a hard sell for a lot of people. The target audience seems to be people with money to burn.

yes they don't want you to own things they want you to lease the car... the Supercruise is included for 3 years only...
I have a data plan with my phone, why do I need another one?

 

[Charly Mann]

I was told by my local Cadillac dealer is that you could hook a USB-C SSD Drive into the OPTIQ system with 5.1 flac files and it would play them in surround. I may test this out in person - however the exterior look and interior quality make this car look very cheap compared with the 2024 and 2025 LINCOLN NAUTILUS. I have a Black Label edition of the Lincoln and inexplicably it plays real surround on some of the 5.1 FLAC tracks I have on a USB-C drive - but most come out as stereo.

 

[DrKlahn]

I drive an Equinox EV (platform mate to the Optiq), while this doesn't have Atmos it does have the same Android Automotive system. The system has the ability to use a hotspot on your phone after the included 3 year data plan runs out, so you don't have to buy a separate data plan if you don't want to. Apple Music would likely have no issues playing Atmos if Apple decides to make a native app for it.

As for why they ditched CarPlay/Android Auto (not the same as Android Automotive). Mainly it's for the integration with the vehicle systems, which is very nice. The other concern was I guess sandboxing CarPlay was difficult.