airpods pro 2 - spatial audio not available mac m1 pro

short description: spatial-audio config appears to be corrupted on mac m1 pro, causing it to be 'always-ON' but the airpods config-panel shows "Spatial Audio Not Available".

Hardware Affected: MacbookPro M1 Pro, iPhone SE 3, Airpods Pro 2 (just purchased)

Symptoms: spatial-audio appears to be ALWAYS-ON on the M1 & airpodspro-2 yet the config panel claims it is not available

Apple-Recommended-Fixes: all failed since the procedures ASSUME that the config-panel (i.e. the Control-Center AirpodsPro-2 configuration panel) provides controls - but in fact it shows the incorrect status as "greys out" (disabled) controls for spatial-audio. i.e. the spatial-audio controls are not functional

Associated odd behavior: some of the 'how-to' procedures show a very specific airpods icon in the menu bar - this does NOT appear in the MBP menu bar, but a set of standard headphones does. Not sure if this is important but it could indicate an improper/mismatched config plugin is installed.

Troubleshooting: worked with Apple tech support, who confirmed the anomalous configuration behavior - none of the suggested remediation steps fixed the problem.

Current Status: spatial-audio (or what the system is proffering as spatial-audio is always-on - the auto-installed config panel displays the wrong status and BLOCKS disabling spatial-audio) - can't turn it off since the config-panel status is wrong.

Comments to Apple Software Architects:

• some of these new features are certainly fun/interesting, but as in this case, as a musician I do not like spatial-audio and would likely never use it. In general, it is sometimes VERY difficult to disable features that the designers think are really clever. I recommend that, at least for professionals, it should be a lot easier to disable non-pro features - defaulting to MUST-USE-THIS-COOL-FEATURE config is not always welcome.