Speaking of which, the outside of the right ear cup has four physical buttons, one for power/sleep and the rest for selecting different inputs. This feature comes in super handy, because with the press of a button, I was able to easily switch among my iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Setup with the Dolby Dimension app took about 10 seconds for each, and it's nice to be able to pair the headphones with more than one device and seamlessly map the shortcuts. You can use the application to turn Virtualization and Head Tracking on or off as well, or if you want to adjust the active noise cancelling and use features like Lifemix.

Of course, even though Dolby has designed these to be used in your home, there's nothing keeping you from traveling with them. I loved using the Dimension during my commute on the subway: Vocals sound crisp, and they're not too bass heavy, though there's enough oomph to enjoy my Wu-Tang or Lil Wayne tracks.

One thing I did notice is I usually couldn't go above 60 or 70 percent on the volume levels; otherwise I felt as if I was about to blow out my eardrum. In other words, they're dramatically louder than other headphones. When you need to tweak the volume, you have to swipe the headphone's touch controls, a process that can be a bit cumbersome until you realize the trick is to start from the edge of the ear cup, not the center. But it's fairly simple once you figure it out: Swipe up and down for volume, side to side to skip tracks and tap to play or pause. I do wish there was a way to avoid using the touch controls, since you can accidentally activate the wrong command sometimes.

There's a lot to like about the Dimension, without a doubt. But if there's anything that's going to scare people off, it's the $599 price tag. Heck, you can buy a high-end Atmos soundbar for that much. Still, Dolby's hope is that there are enough people out there who want ant immersive, theater-like experience in a standalone headset -- without a base station. The company is also adamant that it can make the Dimension even better with time, via firmware updates and improvements to its companion app.

We'll have a final verdict on the Dimension when our review goes up next week. If you don't want to wait until then, though, you can order the new headphones now from Dolby's site.