Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Rear Speaker Volume & Apple TV 4K

I have an issue with my rear speakers and was hoping for some advice. Whilst my speakers seem to be correctly balanced in system config, the rears are set to +8 for every input. This has worked well for many years. However, when watching Apple TV 4K the rear speakers are far too quiet.

I could go into system config and increase the volume of the rears by 8. For Apple TV, I’d increase the rears as needed. Where the other inputs are concerned, I’d change the rears from +8 to 0 so they remain correctly balanced.

Will this approach work or am I missing something? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

David

Not sure if you are using your UHD722 for Apple TV/VOD sources, but I would actually consider feeding bitstream SPDIF direct to your G68. You'll find that for lossy DD/DTS audio, this will give you a bit more "impact" and let the Meridian decoder do its job. The lossy codecs despite the upsampling, I find don't sound as good as a non-bitstream, decompressed to PCM and fed thru the HD621 or UHD722. It loses that forward sounding impact, sounds softer and the slight compression in bitstream gives it a little bit more "balls" like how the HD621/UHD722 sounds when playing a lossless DTS-MA or TrueHD source on Blu-ray/Kaleidescape or Apple 4k or whatever. So that will definitely make your rear surrounds more prominent sounding, guaranteed.

It also sounds like though your Apple 4K is taming or perhaps applying dynamic range compression when outputting as PCM 5.1. Have you tried this for all source material? Lossy and Lossless?

I would definitely give that a try. Use bitstream instead of LPCM and also try VOD providers like Netflix or Amazon or whoever else you subscribe to if you notice any differences based on material. Since our processors don't support DD+ 5.1 they send you, we can get the DD 5.1 version of that stream. The Meridian legacy DD decoder is the best out there and sounds as good if not better than a DD+ bitstream in a mass market A/V receiver.

Perhaps configure a second input. I don't own an Apple 4K, so not sure if they allow you to send both LPCM 5.1 via HDMI and bitstream on the Toslink output. But if they do that would be perfect so you can switch to the 722 for lossless sources, and watch in DD 5.1 or 2.0 for the lossy content if that turns out to be the culprit. If they don't, you could maybe change the output setting to bitstream as needed. I would be shocked if you still find the rears quiet on bitstream in that instance on the Apple 4K device. Unless it's just an issue with that particular device.

In my experience that has always worked the best. Although I use devices that let you send both simultaneous. For stuff like YouTube which is mostly all AAC (861 doesn't support that bitstream unlike G series), I find that sounds fine going through the UHD722 via ARC and doesn't sound softer like DD/DD+ converted to PCM does. But the sound quality in 2ch PCM sounds better direct to the processor via SPDIF then via UHD722 ARC -> SpeakerLink. The ARC input from my TV doesn't sound as good as direct, non-return channel HDMI Audio into the UHD722 on my end. Perhaps it's the crappy ethernet cable I use for Comms/SpeakerLink ARC, but I doubt it.

Lastly keep in mind that with 5.1 sources, Meridian is doing its trademark decorrelation and mid/side processing to derive the separate side/rear surround feeds from that source. That normally sounds amazing, but also depends how they mixed the program in question. If there's not a lot of common in phase stuff in the surrounds, probably not a ton the G68 will be able to feed the rear surrounds independently, hence them being quieter-- especially if playing as LPCM and not as bitstream with the replay gain/compression metadata. Material mixed in Dolby EX I like to engage the appropriate THX Surround EX mode we have on our processors to get the rear surround information properly decoded, rather than derived with the standard Cinema mode. Most 5.1 stuff isn't EX encoded though. So the normal Cinema mode is better for that or THX Ultra2. But stuff with EX, I get tons of awesome isolated rear surround activity directly behind me and is correct level and balanced.

The Apple TV with tvOS will only give you an option to do bitstream (DD 5.1), PCM Stereo or LPCM.
But only one at a time.

The new Apple TV's, 2015 and later, don't have an seperate Toslink output anymore.

I always use ours with LPCM, make sure you deselect "Recude Loud Sounds" within the tvOS settings.
I would recommend to switch that setting off.

Audio Mode I have set it to Auto, instead of 16 bit.

When using Apple Music for lossless music streaming, make sure you set Audio Quality to Lossless, and Sound check to Off.
I also prefer to set Dolby Atmos Off here, since it will give you a lossy Atmos track as far as I know, I prefer to give me a lossless PCM stereo stream instead.

Hope this info helps for you..

Thank you both for your suggestions. I'll certainly be spending some time on this over the next few days to see what changes I can make to improve matters where sound from the rear speakers is concerned!

I know this sounds like a cop out but I just connect my Apple TV to my TV and then use the TV output to my G65. Then whatever input to the TV is selected it is routed to the G65. Interestingly different sources or channels all result in different presets being automatically selected. This is also much easier for non tech users.

I recently discovered that the Apple TV defaults to a compressed form of audio. Simply swipe down on the remote when watching a program , a menu appears, select Audio and see what it says. Makes a huge difference.

Good luck

Neil