A little bit of background first. I have long been using an ATV (and subsequently ATV4K ) for all my streaming needs. Despite some minor limitations, the convenience aspect has been more than enough for me to use multiple units across the house.
Recently, Someone insisted that the AQ on streaming is noticeably better on the xbox (series S/X) . Even with a straight passthrough of the audio stream to the AVR.
Normally I wouldn‘t be inclined to believe this claim but said individual was insistent so I gave it a shot.
Both devices set to simply passthrough the audio to the AVR, I tested a couple of atmos encoded videos on netflix.
And what would I know, the xbox stream was noticeably more surround-ey (for the lack of a better word)
e.g. In a dialog that’s happening in a club (Altered Carbon Season 1 , episode 1 , around the 40:00 min mark) The ATV seemed to present the dialogues clearly while the xbox was doing a better job at recreating the background club music through the height speakers.
Intrigued by the results, I checked the audio information section on the AVR and noticed that the ATV stream shows a -31db offset (see screenshots)
So now on to the questions:
1) A straight forward digital passthrough should technically have resulted in the exact same audio ideally. Why would there be a difference ?
2) What is this -31db offset on the ATV . While there was a level difference between the two that I tried to match by my ears but it was certainly not a 31db difference
(ATV is connected directly to AVR while xbox is routed via eARC.. I am presuming that should not make a difference)
Recently, Someone insisted that the AQ on streaming is noticeably better on the xbox (series S/X) . Even with a straight passthrough of the audio stream to the AVR.
Normally I wouldn‘t be inclined to believe this claim but said individual was insistent so I gave it a shot.
Both devices set to simply passthrough the audio to the AVR, I tested a couple of atmos encoded videos on netflix.
And what would I know, the xbox stream was noticeably more surround-ey (for the lack of a better word)
e.g. In a dialog that’s happening in a club (Altered Carbon Season 1 , episode 1 , around the 40:00 min mark) The ATV seemed to present the dialogues clearly while the xbox was doing a better job at recreating the background club music through the height speakers.
Intrigued by the results, I checked the audio information section on the AVR and noticed that the ATV stream shows a -31db offset (see screenshots)
So now on to the questions:
1) A straight forward digital passthrough should technically have resulted in the exact same audio ideally. Why would there be a difference ?
2) What is this -31db offset on the ATV . While there was a level difference between the two that I tried to match by my ears but it was certainly not a 31db difference
(ATV is connected directly to AVR while xbox is routed via eARC.. I am presuming that should not make a difference)