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I am having this same issue. I recently got Apple TV 4K and the audio has been extremely low and lifeless like there is no depth to it. I just watched the Showtime Anytime app and I had to turn the volume on my tv up to 45. I then switched over to my Roku on the same TV, opened Showtime there and the exact same show only needed the TV volume at 16 and sounded rich and deep. I tried the fix here of changing the Audio setting to Stereo instead of Auto and it made no difference. What’s up with this?
 
i am very fortunate to have a high end home theatre (a lifelong hobby). I have a processor and two dedicated 7ch power amplifiers. All up I have around 5,000 watts RMS power output and very high efficiency speakers (98dB @ 1w/1m).

even with this relatively ridiculous system, I can confirm that many viewings of material from the original Apple TV 4K is low in volume and I have to turn my system close to “reference” level. That volume in my room is normally enough to warrant the neighbours to call the police. But with many shows and movies it’s normal listening volume.

I do experience vast variations in output level from show to show and app to app. Apple Music in stereo is loud as heck and applicable to the volume setting on my processor. Switch to spatial (Dolby atmos) and it’s substantially softer.

Disney+ requires +10dB in volume to reach the equivalent volume of a bluray and some shows on Apple TV iTunes movies. Even then, movie to movie volume is very inconsistent even from iTunes movies.

now, having worked in music mastering and engineering, I can attest to the fact that some studios and their mixing engineers just make different sounding mixes. Some are soft, some are loud constantly, and others are correctly dynamic with very loud segments coupled with gentle soft sections and room in the mix to breathe.

So you will always have to endure some degree of remote control hockey while you adjust loudness to suit the material.

However, on a more technical note, there could be something with the output voltage of the HDMI output on the Apple TV’s audio interface. The voltage simply could be too low. Or, the software could be sending a cold signal into the hardware. Only Apple knows.

I too would love if Apple could put some energy into tweaking this.
 
I’ve been struggling with this lifeless and compressed sounding audio on AppleTV for some time. I run a simple Yamaha 5.1 system with all, the correct settings, no night mode or other sound processing. All sounds are normal sourced from bluray player, etc.

Purchased the latest ATV and the sound is even worse than my aging ATV3. To compensate for low volumes I had made an increase of +2db in the volume trim of the specific input for the ATV3. For the latest ATV model the volume trim now sits at +4db, and I’m think of increasing it even more!

It still does not explain the lifeless sound from Netflix. Watching the title sequence to TrollHunters it is very apparent, sonorous cues from the orchestra or monsters growls, sounds that should be attention grabbing, sound like they are coming in muffled and from another room. I agree there should be some give in terms of different mixes from different content and different sources, but there should not be a night and day difference between sources.

Thanks,
Jay
 
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It's all about PCM. I believe that if we could get passthrough and proper DD+ (which is known to be louder) we'll be fine. I checked an Nvidia Shield, same content at the same level but it was way too low on the ATV. Shield has passthrough and shows DD+ in receiver.
 
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It's all about PCM. I believe that if we could get passthrough and proper DD+ (which is known to be louder) we'll be fine. I checked an Nvidia Shield, same content at the same level but it was way too low on the ATV. Shield has passthrough and shows DD+ in receiver.

yeah ok. So what does the Apple TV 4K do at the moment? My AV processor detects Dolby Atmos when it’s an Atmos track or my processor switches to Dolby surround (Dolby digital etc) when it’s not Atmos.

Wouldn’t that suggest the Apple TV is sending PCM to be decoded externally?
 
I've been a long time user of Apple TV / Airplay/2 and from my experience, low volume output from the ATV has always been an issue for me. If I Airplay to / from Apple TV, I have to crank up the volume on my Denon receiver. If I Airplay directly to my Denon from a phone or computer, its as if the house is coming down using the same volume settings. The Denon offers a volume gain adjustment on digital inputs, so I've adjusted that up 4db.
 
I´ve been having low volume/muffled sounds issues with tvOS 15.5.1 and a pair of original homepods... very frustrating.
 
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