I’ve been using Plex (as a Plex Pass subscriber) for many years now and in general I’m very happy with it. However, the one thing that I find very frustrating is the very low volume level compared to ALL the other apps/services I use. When using the Plex app on my Android TV or Apple TV I can keep increasing the volume on my external speakers enough for it not to be an issue (I just need to remember to turn it back down again). However, on my iPhone/iPad I can’t do that, it maxes out way before it’s loud enough. On my daily commute on the train I often can’t hear a thing and have to rely on the subtitles…
I’ve read plenty of threads on here and Reddit of people complaining about this issue, but nothing really solves the problem. And it’s not good enough to say it’s down to the way the source audio is encoded when clearly other apps don’t have this problem - I can take the same video file and play it through VLC and the audio is far louder.
Quite simply, the solution is for Plex to add an audio boost feature to the iOS app, similar to what Infuse and PlayerExtreme have. In fact, on my iPhone I’m now using Infuse app instead of the Plex app for this very reason - I can set the audio boost to 400%, sit back, and actually hear things. Bliss!
So come on Plex, are you ever going to add this feature that many many many people have been asking for for years. Surely it’s possible, it can’t be that hard - Infuse and PlayerExtreme can do it.
I don’t mind paying for premium membership. I really don’t. In fact, I think the subscription is quite cheap per year. But why can’t we have a simple problem addressed once and for all.
When playing back on an iPad, quite often the volume is too low. There used to be a volume boost a few versions back on the iPad now that has disappeared. Not that it worked all that well. Is it still there?
Please give us a volume boost feature on the iPad and on the Apple TV that works. Please. Playing most movies through my Apple TV with low volume is a pathetic experience.
Yes, the excuse for the low volume is wearing thin Plex engineers. Any movie played on the same iPad using VLC sounds excellent. And VLC has a great volume boost option.
I think that if this is not fixed in the near future, it will be time to drop my premium subscription and look elsewhere. Again, I would not mind paying extra for the subscription if things got done and most importantly, we could actually write to technical support rather than expecting our answers on these forums.
The Audio Boost Option is still there. But its hidden and is only shown when you are transcoding your media. It does not show when you are direct streaming or Direct playing your media.
Regardless though, it does not actually work. I tested it today with an 4Mbps H264 AC3 5.1 media file being transcoded down to 1.5Mbps. When audio boost is set to “None”, “Large” or “Huge” it makes no difference. The audio stays the same level.
My main issues with this is that you used to be able to set the Audio Boost level in the player befor epalying a file or forcing a transcode. This would also take effect if you were Sync’ing the file to your device, so when offline the audio boosted track would have been sync’d aswell. I typically only consume media on my iPhone or iPad that is sync’ed when out and about, as Mobile Data plans in the UK are very expensive and data signals are wildly spotty on my commute route.
But now the audio boost featuer seems to be sepcific to the session you are transcoding is and doesn’t apply to Sync’d content at all.
Luckily I have wired headphones with noise isolation (not noise cancellation as they tend to be expensive) which help on flights. But sometimes on my day to day commute my AirPods let in too much noise to able to hear what characters are saying in TV Episodes or Movies.
Plex, please go back to the days when you could enable this globally on your client and it would work for Streamed, Transcoded ans Sync’d content.
Yes you’re right, this has been noticed elsewhere many times - the current ‘volume boost’ feature doesn’t seem to be properly understood, and even when it is it doesn’t really appear to work.
My advice, simply use Infuse app (or similar) on your iOS device for playing media on the go - whack up the volume boost to 400% and, even with the most un-noise isolating headphones (Apple Earpods I’m looking at you), you can hear that sweet audio as clear as day. You can link Infuse up to your plex server with a few clicks, and download a movie in a matter of minutes (I think it literally downloads the original file format, it doesn’t transcode it it’s too fast). It doesn’t sync your play position across devices unfortunately, but that’s a small trade-off as far as I’m concerned.
What’s great in Plex is great and I love it, but when it comes to actually listening to users and ‘fixing’ stuff, hm…
I am no engineer so I can’t really comment on how hard it is to integrate a volume amplifier. Some may say that Infuse can’t be compared to Plex but then what would you make out of Amplifiers that exist in the jailbreak domain which do volume amplification SYSTEM wide?
Anyway I still hope for Plex to eventually release a volume amplifier for iOS users. In the meantime more power to jailbreak users!!
What’s the excuse?
I just spent about half an hour googling around to find the setting after a ridiculous 6 hour plane ride pressing my headphones into my ears. Plex docs say “Multi-Channel Audio Boost” under Playback Settings, but confusingly the setting doesn’t actually exist for anything I play (eg. downloaded media).
