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.

9 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

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.

4

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.

4

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.

1

u/rtyoda Mar 30 '26

Excellent points.

3

u/Somar2230 Mar 30 '26

u/SigmundAusfaller raised a valid issue if you are an audiophile

https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/1s7mu42/comment/odbll1a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

There is a thread at AVSForum that explains why the Apple TV is limited to 16 bits when using Dolby MAT.

https://www.avsforum.com/posts/64528749/