I’m experiencing an issue where the audio volume in Plex is much lower compared to the system’s default Windows sound level.
To hear content properly in Plex, I have to increase the volume significantly. However, when another system sound comes in (for example, a new email notification), it becomes extremely loud.
Is anyone else experiencing this issue?
Is there a known fix or setting to balance Plex audio levels with the system volume?
Windows has a volume mixer which allows you to balance the sound levels of the various apps with each other. Google it to find out how to invoke it.
If that is not enough, follow these hints:
All settings are already set to maximum.
Even in the Windows Volume Mixer, both Chrome and Edge are set to 100%. Resetting the browsers did not resolve the issue.
I also checked the Plex player while a movie is playing, and the in-player volume is set to maximum as well.
It feels as if the Plex volume bar is set to maximum, but in reality the actual audio output is only around 20% and is very quiet.
To compensate, I have to increase the system volume significantly. As a result, when another system sound occurs (for example a new email notification), it becomes extremely loud.
I only experience this issue when using Plex in a browser. This happens in both Chrome and Edge, both running the latest versions. I am also running the latest Plex version on a Synology NAS.
I do not experience this issue when watching Plex on LG TVs.
It would be helpful if Plex allowed additional volume boosting beyond the current maximum in the player when used in a web browser.
This seems to be related to the Plex web player itself, as I do not experience this behavior with any other software on the same system.
Hopefully this issue will be taken seriously and picked up by the Plex developers, as I find it hard to believe that I am the only person experiencing this problem worldwide.
Finding the right balance of loudness between apps does not necessarily mean setting everything to 100%.
Think about lowering the volume of all the other apps, particularly those of system “blings” and “beeps”.
I’ve already mentioned possible reasons for this above.
I have the exact same issue with the web player being far too quiet. The difference in volume between opening the original file on my computer, and streaming the video to that same computer via plex is enormous.
Opening the original file, I have my preamp at around 30-40%, but while streaming via the web player I have to turn it all the way up to approximately 80% else all the voices are incomprehensible mumbles.
This should not be an issue of it being a 5.1 surround track given the original file plays audio at the proper volume.
Exactly, great to hear that I’m not alone in experiencing this.
My best guess is that this started several versions ago, after upgrading the Plex software on the Synology multiple times. Because I was watching Plex on a TV about 99% of the time, it didn’t really stand out back then. Now that I’m increasingly using a web browser for playback, the issue has become very noticeable and quite annoying.
Tweaking audio driver settings does not solve the problem. This really seems to be related to how the Plex web player handles audio when streaming content in a browser, rather than a system or hardware issue.
Hopefully the Plex development team will take a look at this and fix it in a future release.
I didn’t. It has always been an issue for people who had 5.1 or eveen 7.1 audio on their files and were trying to play it on devices which either
Just to let you know: on my MacBook using Safari, I experience the same symptoms as on my Windows PC. The sound is very quiet, and the behavior is identical on both systems.
When attempting to play 5.1/7.1 audio in Plex/Web, Plex MUST transcode the audio. This is because most browsers do NOT support 5.1/7.1 audio.
During the transcode, the front center channel and the rear L&R channels are discarded.
The front center channel usually contains the majority of the voice data and discarding that channel means most of the voice data and it’s volume is lost.
The front left and right channels (used for stereo) normally only contain small samples of the voice data and that usually means the sound volume of the voice data is reduced, giving low playback volume levels in stereo mode.
The only good way around this is to add a properly down mixed stereo audio track to your video file, specifically for playback in Plex/Web and on devices that do NOT support 5.1/7.1 audio.
Plex will normally select the stereo track during playback in Plex/Web automatically, although there may be instances where you will need to manually select the stereo audio track, for one reason or another.
I am also experiencing this issue with some of my movies playing in a web-browser on Windows.
Really? That seems like a rather weird decision to downmix audio. I can play the same file via other streaming solutions in the same browser and the mix will be plenty loud, just as it is supposed to be.
I cannot confirm this. For me a movie with separate 5.1 and 2.0 audio plays the exact same quiet audio on both tracks on Plex web, that are more than double the loudness with other players. My PC has a default stereo output, with no option for 5.1 or 7.1.
#Edit: I tested some more files. While the “double the loudness” is not consistent, the files played via Plex are consistently playing at less volume output.
Not weird at all. Stereo is comprised of the front left and right channels ONLY. It can be no other way.
ffmpeg, to my knowledge, does NOT sample other channels when down mixing the audio.
Other streaming solutions are NOT Plex.
If this is true, then you have a problem with your browser settings, PC settings or the file does NOT contain proper audio volume data.
Try re-encoding the file using Handbrake. That will sometimes correct the audio volume data within the file so that Plex Web is able to play it correctly.
In Plex Settings > Plex Web > Player try enabling/disabling the Normalize Multi-channel Audio option, don’t forget to click on Save Changes after changing it.
Normalised audio will sometimes have a slightly lower overall volume level, but generally, not to the extent that you are reporting.
That is not true. There are default mixdown matrices from surround to stereo built-in, but you can also supply your own (for instance to raise the center channel further).
If the Center channel (which carries most of the dialogue) is too low, it is usually not caused by mixdown to stereo.
But rather by the opposite: the player operating under the assumption that it’s playing out to a surround speaker setup, when it actually is not. So the physical stereo speakers are only getting the signals which are intended for the Front Left and Front Right speaker of a surround setup – which don’t carry dialogue (and if they do, only very quietly, often with lots of reverb).
So, that situation must be analysed from the opposite end: why is the player (or the server) not mixing down to stereo?
Which often boils down to a misconfiguration of the player (in the case of the Plex Web app, the audio portion of the operating system.
And in the case of embedded systems (i.e. your player set top boxes and player “sticks”), usually by the operating system of the player device not correctly reporting the number of available speakers back to the player. Some of these players have a way to configure that in their settings, others unfortunately don’t.
This improved the sound volume for me, thanks!
You need to Show Advanced to see this option, btw.
