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Can a TV be used as a serious Audiophile source with an AVR?

litemotiv

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Sorry to hijack again, but if memory serves right I have one ARC hdmi input. Could using that (for the Firestick4K) change anything?

The ARC option only applies to HDMI-to-HDMI connections, so with your Topping that wouldn't be an option to use.
 
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Kustomize

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Okay sorry for silo many posts. I figured it out!!!

The YouTube App for TV is TRASH. The Phone app provides much better sound.

I just tried the same test but with Spotify.

TV - Hdmi won hands down with Spotify playing. I checked through bluetooth and directly from TV aswell. I guess YouTube TV app is the culprit.
 

litemotiv

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I guess YouTube TV app is the culprit.

Your Youtube TV app might be set to a lower bitrate by default, there is a context menu called something like "Stats for nerds" where you can check the actual bitrate that is playing.
 
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Kustomize

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Your Youtube TV app might be set to a lower bitrate by default, there is a context menu called something like "Stats for nerds" where you can check the actual bitrate that is playing.
I just checked.

The first is my TV’s stats.

The second are the phones YouTube app

Both playing same video, both through 1080p

On the TV app, it doesn’t mention anything for audio…
ED0E71E7-9AB1-4774-893E-480EBE7133D4.jpeg
CFC99E22-4457-4542-BE08-0D8CFDC09407.png
 

litemotiv

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@Kustomize they appear to be using different codecs, MP4 on the iPhone and VP9 on TV, so that will be difficult to compare. The version on TV will probably use a different audio codec like Opus or AAC, and it will likely be a different bitrate than on the phone...
 
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Kustomize

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@Kustomize they appear to be using different codecs, MP4 on the iPhone and VP9 on TV, so that will be difficult to compare. The version on TV will probably use a different audio codec like Opus or AAC, and it will likely be a different bitrate than on the phone...
Thankyou for that.

Atleast now I know what was causing it! Its the Youtube TV APP!!!!


Thanks for all the help!!
 

litemotiv

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Atleast now I know what was causing it! Its the Youtube TV APP!!!!

There is a chance that the quality will vary by video, nowadays Youtube is encouraging uploaders to provide a FLAC stream for audio, but if the video is older or the uploader chose to upload an MP4 with an Mpeg audio stream, it could be reconverted for use in VP9 containers. Since the iPhone uses the Mpeg stream by default you would then get the original unconverted audio there, which would be better quality, but a lesser quality version on TV.

You can try listening to a few new music videos from major artists that will probably have uploaded a FLAC version as an original, it's possible they will sound better!
 

krabapple

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I just checked.

The first is my TV’s stats.

The second are the phones YouTube app

Both playing same video, both through 1080p

On the TV app, it doesn’t mention anything for audio…

Yes, it does. The TV audio is using an Opus codec in that screenshot

I am guessing that you used Samsung Smart Hub to install the Spotify and the plain Youtube apps (not Youtube TV)? Are your apps up to date? The Youtube app should be up to date if your TV is from 2013 or after. (if not: push Smart TV on your remote. In Apps click on More Apps. In Options you'll get the new updates.)

Audio should not be uniformly bad from the Youtube app available on smart TVs. (I watch/listen to videos on mine almost every day, over a good 5.1 sound system with a Denon AVR and TCL TV connected via ARC HDMI, Behringer monitors) It can certainly vary by content -- that's a function of what audio quality the creator achieved when they created the video.
 
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Kustomize

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Yes, it does. The TV audio is using an Opus codec in that screenshot

I am guessing that you used Samsung Smart Hub to install the Spotify and the plain Youtube apps (not Youtube TV)? Are your apps up to date? The Youtube app should be up to date if your TV is from 2013 or after. (if not: push Smart TV on your remote. In Apps click on More Apps. In Options you'll get the new updates.)

Audio should not be uniformly bad from the Youtube app available on smart TVs. (I watch/listen to videos on mine almost every day, over a good 5.1 sound system with a Denon AVR and TCL TV connected via ARC HDMI, Behringer monitors) It can certainly vary by content -- that's a function of what audio quality the creator achieved when they created the video.
Yes. I have the Youtube app, not youtube TV. Everything is updated. My TV is a 65” 8500 samsung series so its pretty new (2020).

I dont get bad sound, but when I compare it, there’s a clear difference!
 

krabapple

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Does changing the level on your phone change the output level you hear? If so then it's not the app.
 

raindance

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Honestly the quality you'll get is set by the player that is streaming the audio. Who knows what that's doing, it's part of the TV software... In the case of Roku, for example, the Roku Spotify player in my TCL TV doesn't sound as good for Spotify as the built-in renderer in my Marantz receiver. It is good enough for casual listening though, provided you remember to disable any dynamic range control in the receiver (such as Audyssey dynamic volume). And make sure you don't use that so-called Enhancer feature at all.
 
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Kustomize

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Does changing the level on your phone change the output level you hear? If so then it's not the app.
When I stream music off my phone and connect it through bluetooth, it does change the level I hear. What does that mean? Sorry i am a little bad with all this. I don’t use Roku. My samsung TV has Spotify and Youtube installed. I just use those
 

voodooless

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Yes the internal DAC does this in most cases, the same chip that would also playback audio through the speakers. Only in rare cases will there be a separate DSP to handle this, but i don't think this is very common in consumer models.
Most likely it’s just done in software by the OS running the TV’s apps. Usually 48 kHz sampling is standard for generic TV audio, so that is chosen as the default sample rate. a DAC does not have this functionality anyway.

I wouldn’t trust the quality of the resampling very much. There are to many crappy implementation out there and audio definitely is not a priority in most TV’s.
 

litemotiv

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Most likely it’s just done in software by the OS running the TV’s apps. Usually 48 kHz sampling is standard for generic TV audio, so that is chosen as the default sample rate. a DAC does not have this functionality anyway.

Yes with DAC i mainly meant the default audio chipset and/or it's software, as opposed to a dedicated DSP board. DAC being used as a broad term, since in a literal sense that portion of the chipset only decodes the audio for output ofcourse.

I wouldn’t trust the quality of the resampling very much. There are to many crappy implementation out there and audio definitely is not a priority in most TV’s.

Yes agree...
 
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Kustomize

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I went to General / Audio in my Denon AVR. It shows input as PCM. Doesn’t this mean my TV is doing all the work instead of my AVR?
 

litemotiv

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I went to General / Audio in my Denon AVR. It shows input as PCM. Doesn’t this mean my TV is doing all the work instead of my AVR?

It's possible that the original source is also PCM, then that will be sent to the AVR as well. If you watch something with Dolby Digital or similar on Netflix, does it then also say PCM? If yes then the TV is doing the resampling, if it says Bitstream or something similar then the TV is just passing through the original source.
 
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Kustomize

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So I played a movie on Netflix, and the mode on my AVR changed. Then i went to check the same information spot and found this
 

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litemotiv

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So I played a movie on Netflix, and the mode on my AVR changed. Then i went to check the same information spot and found this

Great that means that everything works as intended. Some sources such as Youtube will stream PCM so that is what the AVR also receives. The status screen from your AVR displays the current (or last) type of stream that it received from the TV.
 
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