Apple TV sound

[Johnloudb]

Awhile back I bought an Apple TV module for streaming movies and music. For movies the sound is just pathetic, much worse than even satellite TV sound. Keep in mind that I'm using a digital connection to our Benchmark DAC.

I haven't heard any complaints about sound quality and wondering is it really that bad or is it because of a slow connection or something else I missed?

We had a 1.4 megabit/sec DSL connection before and now have a 16 megabit/sec connection. Does the increased bandwidth allow a higher bit-rate streaming or does it just stay the same?

I'll try it again an see if I notice improvement.

[LoveDoctor]

Hi John, just to clarify, this is the newer Apple TV Gen2 (Small black square, not the older grey clunker with a hard drive), yes?

When streaming netflix movies and local media (music and movies) I generally find the audio quality of my ATV2 quite good with a 40mbps connection and wireless router. Netflix does bump down audio and video quality with slower connections like your original setup, rather than just buffering for ages to get a higher quality feed.

Does local media (music streamed through iTunes) sound acceptable?

[Johnloudb]

Yeah, it the Gen2 black square. Streaming internet radio sounded pretty good, a lot better than movie sound, which makes sense since they are streaming video and sound with movies.

Well, I'll give it try and see if it's better. I may go for an even faster internet connection for only 10 more a month.

Thanks for the input.

[LoveDoctor]

Oh, forgot to mention, Netflix (including most of there HD content) and SD iTunes videos are generally still stereo 2.0. Netflix is slowly adding 5.1, but it might be a while before there is significant content with the extra channels. I don't think it's compressed too much though.

[Johnloudb]

I tried it and is much, much better. Picture is better too. I've also upgrade to faster internet speed, but haven't evaluated that much yet. But, it's now very watchable. As for 5.1 sound I'd wish they wouldn't go that way, since I only use two channel. They should give people an option on there website, to match content with their system.

[JeremyG]

Surprising info on streaming from those sites. I have a first gen AppleTV (you know, the clunker that has a hard drive so you don't have to stream movies and therefore may not see this problem), and everything I've played on it we've done A/B comparisons and can't tell the difference from movie soundtracks (Dolby Digital only unfortunately) and music. If local movies/music sound fine than media from the 'net sounds like the culprit. We've tossed around the idea of upgrading for interweb streaming. This is not the first time I've seen or heard of less than optimum audio/video from streaming, though. Good thing I've kept the clunker. :W