So I’ve seen other threads in other areas talking about this - but no real answers. There is the volume boost but even then it seems like, and this is especially true for the smart TV Plex apps, it seems like Plex is SO DAMN QUIET compared to any other source. DVD/Cable/Antenna are all much much louder. This results in some much ruder than desired behavior when forgetting after watching a movie and then switching sources back to like cable TV which then BLARES SO LOUDLY YOUR JAW SHAKES.
This isn’t, or doesn’t seem to be limited to smart TV apps though. This happens with the web player as well, between playing video and using something like VLC or Movist.
So my question is - and having experienced this between two completely different media machine builds and smart TVs - can I fix this? Is there some obscure server setting only accessible in a text file somewhere I can go to boost audio? I love plex so much, but this has plagued me for ever. All the other conveniences make up for a lot of it, but… pls haaaalp. <3
I thought it was just me or that it was something I was doing while preparing my media.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Any suggestions/acknowledgement from support folk? Would love to hear just about -anything- back :-/
I commented about this a while back and didn’t get any response either.
I specifically remember it happening on the web client right when I switched to the 3.x branch. We can’t really use Plex web as a player anymore because of this.
OpenPHT seems to have the same problems with super quiet audio, but at least you can amplify the sound in the preferences.
Funny though, to get the same audio quality/fidelity that we have with a Netflix stream in chrome browser, we need to amplify OpenPHT to about +20db to get the same sound levels! Something is definitely wrong with that.
I’m sure people would like to help but it doesn’t seem a lot of them have encounter this problem and or solved it yet. Like my self I have over a thousand media files on Plex and no issues to my Samsung smart tv, roku, xbox 360s. So I’m unable to duplicate your problem. I hope some one can come to your assistance.
Strange. So when you play a file via the web controller, you don’t have the quiet sound problem?
The only times I’ve run into this issue is when trying to play multi-channel sound on a stereo system. i.e. 5.1 AAC on a computer that supports 5.1 speakers but only has stereo speakers attached. In these cases, Plex outputs the sound as is and the computer is responsible for outputting to the proper speakers. If the computer thinks there should be 5.1 speakers, it won’t downmix the channels to stereo so the 2 front speakers only get some of the sound. For this scenario, make sure your computer is properly configured for stereo sound.
This can also apply to other devices. I’ve seen this on a Fire TV device connected directly to a TV that can passthrough multi-channel sound, so it just ends up playing the front channels on the TV and the other channels don’t go anywhere. Again, setting the TV to explicitly use stereo should resolve the problem. Either the TV will do the downmix if it is capable, or it will signal PMS to transcode the audio to stereo.
If you are getting very quiet sound using 2-channel stereo audio in your file, we would need a sample to try and reproduce.
@Shadowbottle said:
it seems like Plex is SO DAMN QUIET compared to any other source. DVD/Cable/Antenna are all much much louder.
Thanks Shadowbottle for posting this question. I thought it was just me. I too notice this annoying audio disparity between Plex and EVERY other source. Antenna TV, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube etc. all play on my receiver at a “normal” volume of about 35. But in order to get the same level from any Plex source I have to crank my receiver up to about 50. I see this disparity across several different TVs, some with built-in speakers as well as external receivers.
I only see the problem with client playback (roku, samsung) not with web browser playback.
