I agree. The article mentions bits going around their head, or in the front-right. I hear things on the left, and things on the right. And stuff that appears on the opposite side of where the article mentions them. I’m listening on Spotify, maybe all that stuff is stripped out?

Are you sure you don't have your left/right channels swapped? You don't know how many PCs I've run into with their speakers wired up backwards...

I don't know about Madonna, but the experience I had listening to this song for the first time with headphones on is what I would guess to be a similar experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeTVvhuco4g

Sure, it's christian rock, but from South Africa so it has a different vibe from what you may have previously experienced.

They got the intro synth to swirl around your head and it's a vibe, and the song itself is decent.

I don't get swirls, it feels like they just swap channels quickly (10Hz+) and that is annoying, tbh.

This is the first time I've ever really noticed a difference between the upload and the CD. The CD Audio glides around your head like a halo, on the YT vid it jitters.

Listened to it on a recent 16" macbook - sounds incredible. Better than most music I would typically introduce to it.

> Just listened to Vogue on my headphones ...

There's been plenty of discussion, throughout the decades, on that subject.

My take: Qsound is something very specific and it is meant to work with actual speakers, not headphones.

Your anecdotical experience supports my take on the subject.

That makes sense, given the description of how it works, but the article distinctly mentions getting this effect from gaming headphones so...

Anyway, I went and tried again with just my laptop (based on the person above effusing about it). Again, for me, I'm not hearing anything special, and nothing "3D" about the sounds, other than some left-right shifts. And I guess the music is in front of me, since that's where my laptop is ;)

I can hear it distinctly from most of the tracks in the song, especially the voice tracks and some of the sporadic synths. Listening wired on decent headphones if it makes any difference. There's a clear spacial separation that isn't just this thing panned slightly left and that thing panned slightly right.

The spatial audio tricks that Q-Sound does are intended to be used with one stereo pair of speakers, and do not work with headphones at all.