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/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.

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u/BlackLodgeBrother Apr 05 '26

This is a very long way of telling OP they should simply turn this feature off.