The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will be getting an upgrade that will allow users to enjoy games, music, and movies in better sound with external audio hardware.

Xbox spokesman Larry "MajorNelon" Hyrb tweeted that audio pass-through support will appear in the Xbox Insider Program preview build.

Pass-through allows for audio processing to be offloaded from the console to connected speakers or AV receivers, so if you own one of the best soundbars, this update will help the Xbox Series X make much better use of it.

Both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S support advanced sound formats like Dolby Atmos, but dedicated speakers typically have better audio processing capabilities than game consoles. Therefore, adding audio passthrough may visibly improve sound quality, especially for movie and music playback. [The previous generation Xbox One has supported audio passthrough since 2017, and it is unclear why the Xbox Series X generation simply did not launch with it. The Series X and Series S also chose not to include an optical connection, making it difficult to interface with low-end sound bars that do not have HDMI ports to use instead.

Still, progress is progress, and we hope that pass-through will soon appear in a regular Xbox software update; it will not affect players who only output Xbox sound through their TV's built-in speakers. It also may not make much difference to media that do not support special audio formats. However, if you have hardware that can use this feature, it may be worth using.