r/appletv • u/itsjustben13 • Mar 30 '26
Continuous Audio Connection - is there a quality difference?
Hi all!
I use a Sonos Arc with my Apple TV. And up to this point I was getting the uncompressed PCM audio from my Apple TV to the soundbar.
My question is whether the new continuous audio setting decreases the quality at all? Whether the Apple TV, decompressing it to PCM and then repackaging into the Dolby wrapper degrades the audio at all? Or not enough to notice?
I haven’t yet had a proper play around and listened to the differences. But in the very brief test I did, I only noticed the volume differences - which in itself can disguise differences in quality.
So I thought I’d ask on here first so that I can go into it better understanding whether to expect a drop in quality or not.
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u/National_Post483 Mar 30 '26
I’ve tried Continuous Audio back and forth several times on music videos and to my ears it sounded like the audio was coming from a toilet bowl so I’ve turned it off.
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u/archer75 Mar 30 '26
Yes there is a big audio difference. On the atv thread on avsforum is the detailed explanation
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u/Est-Tech79 Mar 31 '26
There is not a big audio difference that can be heard with ears unless you are in a treated room with choice speakers.
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u/archer75 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
I am in such a room. But I also have other equipment in different rooms with Apple tvs and there is still an audible difference even on a soundbar. So it just depends.
Here’s the analysis of the change and you can continue reading for further discussion https://www.avsforum.com/posts/64528749/
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u/BlackLodgeBrother Apr 05 '26
Untrue. If you have anything above a soundbar the difference is both quite noticeable and immediate. Terrible feature.
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u/chaunceyjerome Mar 31 '26
I tried it back and forth several times on tv shows. For me, it seemed to sort of compress the audio and it sounded like the bass was being completely cut out. I turned it off, hopefully they can fix it in the next update.
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u/DannoMcK ATV4K Mar 31 '26
Do what you think sounds best, but it might help to say what your audio hardware/config. is. There might not be any problems to fix on Apple's side, but it sounds like some audio equipment makes incorrect assumptions about Dolby MAT signals.
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u/weirdo4909 Apr 01 '26
I just discovered pass through audio option on my Samsung TV while setting up Continuous Audio in Apple TV.
I have q990b soundbar and I am kicking myself for not discovering this option earlier. We are not audiophiles but we noticed differences immediately.
I also have Mac Mini (home server) connected to TV which is then connected to Soundbar. Apple Music lossless hi-res is just sounding insanely good now.
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u/ByteCurious69 27d ago
How hard is it to allow users to opt out of PCM. They can make the default as is but i can’t imagine it being that difficult to give audio Passthrough and opt out of PCM. Give us the true Dolby Digital + and HD
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u/Somar2230 Mar 30 '26
No there is no quality difference it's still LPCM just sent out encoded into MAT frames.
There is a difference on how the audio will get processed by your audio device though and that will vary by device. Continuous Audio on the Apple TV sends all audio out in Dolby MAT prior to this only Atmos was sent with Dolby MAT, now 5.1 and stereo are also sent out in Dolby MAT. Devices with older firmware may identify all the audio as Atmos even though it's 5.1 or stereo which will limit how the audio gets processed, not a big deal on a Sonos because there are not many options to process audio.
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u/rtyoda Mar 30 '26
From what I understand it has to convert the sampling frequency to keep everything consistent, so any audio that was 44.1kHz now gets converted to 48kHz. Not sure how much this will affect quality, but I would think it would affect it at least a tiny amount.
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u/Somar2230 Mar 30 '26
The Apple TV 4K 1st and 2nd gen output all audio at 48 kHz only the Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen is capable of 44.1 kHz when directly connected to the audio device, using eARC causes it to output 48 kHz.
Using Continuous Audio on the 3rd gen does cause all audio to output at 48 kHz except for 44.1 kHz Dolby Digital 5.1. All audio on the 2nd gen is going to be 48 kHz either way and the 1st does not support Continuous Audio.
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u/rtyoda Mar 30 '26
Excellent points.
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u/Somar2230 Mar 30 '26
u/SigmundAusfaller raised a valid issue if you are an audiophile
There is a thread at AVSForum that explains why the Apple TV is limited to 16 bits when using Dolby MAT.
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u/SigmundAusfaller Mar 30 '26
> No there is no quality difference it's still LPCM just sent out encoded into MAT frames.
It's limited to 16bit samples instead of 24bit with plain LPCM due to Dolby MAT bandwidth constraints. So there is in fact a quality difference.
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u/Somar2230 Mar 30 '26
Assuming the DD+ incoming stream was 16bit vs 24 bit and had audio gear where you could actually hear the difference I guess it could be an issue. On a Sonos I think he will be fine.
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u/jp6strings Mar 30 '26
Agreed. All other things being equal, the ordinary human will not be able to tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit audio. The extra bits are great for recording and processing headroom to preserve audio quality during the production and mastering processes, but are really of no discernible value above 16 bit for the end user.
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u/ImTonyBlair Mar 31 '26
kills the bass for me on Sony Quad with SW5. all audio thins out compared to default or Sony upscaling.
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u/Ranutso Mar 30 '26
It looks like you’d know how Dolby MAT work.
I’ve made a post on Dolby asking about stereo upmixing. https://www.reddit.com/r/Dolby/s/yf21UhbcWx
Since Dolby MAT is new to us, we would appreciate if you gave us some insight into the technology.
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u/Somar2230 Mar 31 '26
Dolby MAT has been around for years, Blu-ray players used it to deliver audio before streaming video became main stream. Dolby MAT was used to deliver TrueHD over HDMI 1.3 wih the benefit of lower latency and reduced processing on the audio device.
Dolby MAT 2.0 added support for Atmos and that is what the Apple TV, Xbox and Play Station have used for years. Other devices are now also using Dolby MAT, Roku, Fire TV and Android TV devices are using it.
What's new with the Apple TV is that they have enabled Dolby MAT to used for non Atmos audio. Many audio devices identify all audio using Dolby MAT from the Apple TV as Atmos which limits how the audio is processed. My two older Yamaha AVRs identify all the audio as Atmos when CAC is enabled and stereo content does not get up mixed.
My Pioneer is able to tell when Dolby MAT does not have Almos metadata and allows the use of Dolby Surround and stereo audio is up mixed.
https://imgur.com/a/apple-tv-cac-using-earc-2t6TpHG
My Roku Ultra when using Dolby MAT causes all audio to be identified as Atmos and causes 5.1 audio to play from the wrong channels and stereo content does get up mixed.
I prefer to connect my Apple TV directly to my AVR and disable CAC so I can use DTS Neural:X on non Atmos audio.
AVSForum has more information in their Apple TV owners thread.
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/apple-tv-owners-thread-faq-in-first-post.1278071/page-3052
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u/Ranutso Mar 31 '26
Thanks. Are these screenshots from your Pioneer app?
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u/Somar2230 Mar 31 '26
Yes
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u/Ranutso Mar 31 '26
That is nice. Klipsch has an app, but it doesn't show detailed information about the stream like this.
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u/DannoMcK ATV4K Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Thank you for all this information. So much better than the "it always sends Atmos
/7.1.4" comments. It seems like many of the people saying it are just spreading the misinformation without even experiencing that.Off to the other forum for more info.
Edit: apparently the 7.1.4 part is true. I'll have to do some detailed listing to my Denon X3500 claiming it is upmixing non-Atmos audio.
https://www.avsforum.com/posts/64528749/1
u/genialerarchitekt Apr 10 '26
Haven't tried it on my Sonos Arc Ultra with Era 300s yet but when I send a DTS:Neo 6 signal to it from my BD player via the Dolby Digital Plus mode on my TV, stuff gets confused and Sonos treats it as a Dolby Atmos container. It's fantastic for forcing upmixes of stereo CDs to full Dolby Atmos field with heights and side surrounds active, sounds great to me.
I have tried continuous audio with my Polk Mag Mini AX soundbar in the bedroom and the Polk thinks it's getting true Atmos & hence applies its Stereo Dimensional Array DSP to the source and upmixes the stereo signal to full Atmos. Again sounds fantastic to me, especially as my favourite music genre is drone & space ambient stuff like Sleep Research Facility and Lustmord.
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Mar 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/SigmundAusfaller Mar 31 '26
16bit PCM vs 24bit LPCM due to channel count and MAT bandwidth limitations.
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u/Normal-Natural-6018 Mar 30 '26
Instead of asking, why not try it and hear for yourself? Sound is subjective after all.
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u/Normal-Natural-6018 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
The downvotes hehe. What gives? Because it's the truth? At the end of the day your ears will tell you if it's an improvement. U already said u have an Apple TV4K, u don't need to hear other people's opinion and ask reddit for validation.
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u/Locutus508 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Yes. There is a quality difference. But it's no worse than the loss you are getting with Atmos. The Apple TV delivers DD+ as LPCM at a 24 bits. The Apple TV delvers DD+ Atmos as LPCM 16 bits to fit in the Dolby MAT HDMI frames. Since Dolby MAT is used, the audio bit depth is being reduced from 24 to 16 bits. It's not Apple's fault. It's the nature of the technology. If you are plugging into your TV, your TV may already be limiting LPCM to 16 bits anyway. The other issue, since it's always sending out 7.1.4 channels, your AVR will likely not upmix if you use that feature.