2021 new gen Apple tv 4k Dolby Atmos Problems

[Robert D]

I'm also under the belief that the tvOS 15.1 update screwed up mine because I hadn't heard any issues until that last update. My theory is they are making changes to the OS that some brands just can't handle or adapt to yet with a software update. Also I experienced issues last night in my bedroom with a Sonos Beam. Audio during movie just disappeared all together for a few seconds multiple times. And that is on last Gen ATV4K with the update. So I now know its not a Marantz issue for sure and an Apple OS since on two separate Generations. I love Apple but, out of all of my Apple devices in my house; the TV is the most disappointing one for me.

Also I made some changes to my Marantz AV7703 within the Audio/Audyssey settings and so far I haven't heard the issue in my theater. I basically turned off all Audyssey items such as MultiEQ XT32 and Dynamic EQ. Anything that I thought would alter the signal coming in. Going to watch a few more things to confirm this resolved my issue and will reply here.

I have Sonos as well, but never used the Beam feature. Is that when you stream audio from another source like your pc to a room? So maybe you are using the audio from a source in another room with a tv in a a different room? I just use my Sonos to listen to music,

Interesting, and that does show its not a compatibility issue with Marantz.

Ive been using Napster for my music but it keeps dropping out on Sonos. Im going to drop them and sign up with Apple Music today I think. So many issues streaming content!

 

[Robert D]

That seems to reasonably directly corroborate TVOS 15 is the problem, though it might have been good to test 14 for a few days.

Edited to add: Downgrade tvOS 15 to tvOS 14 on Apple TV HD [Tutorial]

Nice link. Has anyone tried that yet? Wondering if it is too late to do it. The article does say " This tutorial is not applicable to Apple TV 4K at all. "

So it sounds like this wont work for us.

 

[user 49813]

Nice link. Has anyone tried that yet? Wondering if it is too late to do it. The article does say " This tutorial is not applicable to Apple TV 4K at all. "

So it sounds like this wont work for us.

Yeah I came across that while searching before upgrading. The method uses the USB-C port which the 4k units do not have. I would bet there is a way to do via a TFTP boot or similar, but nothing I've found.

Also to note, I read about people having white noise/popping/muting using Apple Music with Spatial Audio on iDevices, cars, etc., so makes me wonder if there is some shared library for Atmos used across devices, etc. that's mucked up. I'm also considering doing the 3-month trial for Apple Music since my Qobuz trial just expired (really wish Qobuz had more apps/integration, e.g. HEOS, AppleTV, etc.).

 

[JLasher22443]

I have Sonos as well, but never used the Beam feature. Is that when you stream audio from another source like your pc to a room? So maybe you are using the audio from a source in another room with a tv in a a different room? I just use my Sonos to listen to music,

Interesting, and that does show its not a compatibility issue with Marantz.

Ive been using Napster for my music but it keeps dropping out on Sonos. Im going to drop them and sign up with Apple Music today I think. So many issues streaming content!

No that is the name of the model soundbar by Sonos. Its called the Beam. In my opinion the best soundbar I've ever owned.

Sonos Beam

And it was while my wife and I were watching a Movie on the 4K AppleTV lying in bed. Basically the audio in the movie just disappeared and the room went silent for up to 5 seconds or more.

My music streaming is done with Roon and all of my Sonos devices are Roon Ready. Haven't had issues with music streaming an AppleTV 4K because I don't use it for that so I don't really have input. Only thing I use ATV4K for is TV and Movies. I've got around 150 movies probably in my Library on ATV4K. Shame if I move from it to say Kaleidescape for movie watching. 150 movies at say an average of $20 is a chunk of change to just throw away. And these constant hiccups from Apple is making me get closer and closer to other options like a Plex Server and/or Kaleidescape. Same way iTunes got me to stop buying CD's; Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon Music got me to drop iTunes; some company will get me to drop ATV as well within the next few years.

 

[msimanyi]

Nice link. Has anyone tried that yet? Wondering if it is too late to do it. The article does say " This tutorial is not applicable to Apple TV 4K at all. "

So it sounds like this wont work for us.

Sorry about my lousy reading comprehension. That link is totally useless for those of us with the AppleTV 4k versions. I edited my post with the link to clarify that.

 

[Robert D]

The family is watching Hamilton now in Dolby Vision and Atmos and its playing great. I guess I just got lucky somehow. Thats rare for me these days. Ever since my heart attack in 2008 it feels like my luck has changed for the worse!

That is streaming on Disney +

 

[user 49813]

My volume issue returned, too.
I’m also pretty disappointed with the AppleTV. I hoped this new model would come with higher quality audio, too, especially with the release of hi-res in Apple Music. Pretty amusing that the only way to take full advantage is with an iPhone/iPad and a usb dongle and DAC. I wish Apple would allow us a passthrough option disabling the PCM conversion and letting us send bitstream out. Apparently this was the case in an older version of tvOS, so the hardware should support it; I just found this out last night. That alone would likely resolve our issues.

 

[Robert D]

My volume issue returned, too.
I’m also pretty disappointed with the AppleTV. I hoped this new model would come with higher quality audio, too, especially with the release of hi-res in Apple Music. Pretty amusing that the only way to take full advantage is with an iPhone/iPad and a usb dongle and DAC. I wish Apple would allow us a passthrough option disabling the PCM conversion and letting us send bitstream out. Apparently this was the case in an older version of tvOS, so the hardware should support it; I just found this out last night. That alone would likely resolve our issues.

I started my 3 month free trial of Apple tv yesterday. Sounds great, and the Dolby Atmos music sounds good. It has lossless too, but the bit rate isn't as high as some.

My Sonos app on my android phone isn't able to add Apple music to Sonos, so I had to use my daughter's phone. Major pain in the ass. It's a known bug that Apple hasn't fixed!

Also can't form a family group with pc or Android. Only Apple devices! It's ridiculous. I'm lucky both my daughters have I phones. Had to use BOTH of their phones to invite everyone to join the family group so we can share a membership Took me all night to figure it out. Wore me out.

Still today I have to take Apple music off Sonos and add it again. Right now it's linked to my daughter instead of me! The whole thing is a mess.

If the sound wasn't good I would have dropped it on day 1. It never dropped a song either, while Napster is like crap now and can't play a single song without dropping.

I pray my Apple tv continues to work.

Apple has a long going strategy of trying to make it so their customers feel the need to buy all Apple so things work smooth.

 

[JLasher22443]

That's great news Robert. Have you updated it to the latest software also? And what about trying Netflix Dolby movies like El Camino?

 

[user 49813]

I started my 3 month free trial of Apple tv yesterday. Sounds great, and the Dolby Atmos music sounds good. It has lossless too, but the bit rate isn't as high as some.

My Sonos app on my android phone isn't able to add Apple music to Sonos, so I had to use my daughter's phone. Major pain in the ass. It's a known bug that Apple hasn't fixed!

Also can't form a family group with pc or Android. Only Apple devices! It's ridiculous. I'm lucky both my daughters have I phones. Had to use BOTH of their phones to invite everyone to join the family group so we can share a membership Took me all night to figure it out. Wore me out.

Still today I have to take Apple music off Sonos and add it again. Right now it's linked to my daughter instead of me! The whole thing is a mess.

If the sound wasn't good I would have dropped it on day 1. It never dropped a song either, while Napster is like crap now and can't play a single song without dropping.

I pray my Apple tv continues to work.

Apple has a long going strategy of trying to make it so their customers feel the need to buy all Apple so things work smooth.

On the line with 2nd level Apple Support now for last 45 min; called to report the persistence in the issue, just so they could record it an maybe get sent to engineering. The rep escalated to level 2 and he just had me replicate the issue while running some diags and had me upload them. Also uploaded the full quality videos I took of each of the issues. Maybe this will finally get some traction. Keep you posted if anything else happens before I hang up. Fingers crossed!

 

[msimanyi]

Thanks for taking one for the team and calling Apple Support on this.

 

[Robert D]

That's great news Robert. Have you updated it to the latest software also? And what about trying Netflix Dolby movies like El Camino?

So far so good. Ive been running the update since it came out and no Atmos problems, or any problems for that matter. Im counting my blessings!

 

[Robert D]

On the line with 2nd level Apple Support now for last 45 min; called to report the persistence in the issue, just so they could record it an maybe get sent to engineering. The rep escalated to level 2 and he just had me replicate the issue while running some diags and had me upload them. Also uploaded the full quality videos I took of each of the issues. Maybe this will finally get some traction. Keep you posted if anything else happens before I hang up. Fingers crossed!

Thank you for taking the time! WOW, thats a great thing you did. It may end up helping us all some day. They need that data. I never got that far. They were going to escalate my case if my new replacement unit was messed up, but the problem never happened again once I had it up and running.

Sometimes, with so many companies, it feels like we are the beta testers for them! Id like to get paid please!

 

[user 49813]

Hey guys, just thought I'd post an update, even though there isn't really any news. I was scheduled to have a call with the Apple support rep Wednesday afternoon. Guy had been really helpful and interested in the issue, and even entertained all my other comments and questions and was really engaged. Anyway, he was a no-show on Wednesday, and hasn't replied back to a few emails I've sent. Could be he's really busy I guess, but how annoying; is it intentional?! lol Hopefully I'll hear something this week and will be able to report back some good news. I did see there is a tvOS 15.2 beta 4 released last week; let's hope they've finally addressed it in this release!

 

[Robert D]

Hey guys, just thought I'd post an update, even though there isn't really any news. I was scheduled to have a call with the Apple support rep Wednesday afternoon. Guy had been really helpful and interested in the issue, and even entertained all my other comments and questions and was really engaged. Anyway, he was a no-show on Wednesday, and hasn't replied back to a few emails I've sent. Could be he's really busy I guess, but how annoying; is it intentional?! lol Hopefully I'll hear something this week and will be able to report back some good news. I did see there is a tvOS 15.2 beta 4 released last week; let's hope they've finally addressed it in this release!

I think it's important for customers to let others know about failures in a company's customer service. Hopefully he or someone else follows up with you. For now, it's as if you never had arranged an appointment for a phone call?

I'm really not so sure it's an error with the ios. Mine works great so far and I'm running the latest. Complicated issue to be sure. I was thinking it's an issue working with Marantz receivers, but now my Apple tv 4k works fine with mine

 

[user 49813]

Also I made some changes to my Marantz AV7703 within the Audio/Audyssey settings and so far I haven't heard the issue in my theater. I basically turned off all Audyssey items such as MultiEQ XT32 and Dynamic EQ. Anything that I thought would alter the signal coming in. Going to watch a few more things to confirm this resolved my issue and will reply here.

I meant to reply to this earlier, but forgot. Did the problem ever return after disabling Audyssey? That was a great idea! I know Audyssey will downsample everything to 48kHz (I believe) so maybe there is a glitch in there somehow, or maybe in combination with Apple's LPCM reencoding that XT32 doesn't like. That could explain it. But, must be something done in tvOS >= 15 and/or gen2 h/w since prior versions don't seem affected. I might play with disabling Audyssey today. I've disabled Atmos in the ATV just so I can watch content because the issue has become so pervasive, and everything I've wanted to watch has both Atmos and Vision.

 

[JLasher22443]

I meant to reply to this earlier, but forgot. Did the problem ever return after disabling Audyssey? That was a great idea! I know Audyssey will downsample everything to 48kHz (I believe) so maybe there is a glitch in there somehow, or maybe in combination with Apple's LPCM reencoding that XT32 doesn't like. That could explain it. But, must be something done in tvOS >= 15 and/or gen2 h/w since prior versions don't seem affected. I might play with disabling Audyssey today. I've disabled Atmos in the ATV just so I can watch content because the issue has become so pervasive, and everything I've wanted to watch has both Atmos and Vision.

So I've watched a few movies and a few of my normal shows and have not heard the issue since turning everything off. I'll check and see if mine has updated to the latest 15.2 and if it has I'll test again with everything back on and give results.

 

[user 49813]

That's great news! However, I'll be bummed if I have to disabled Audyssey full time, but def going to give it a shot. Also, I think 15.2 is just in beta for now, but if you have access to it, I'm all ears to see if it changes anything. I considered signing up for the betas, but I think I read that you're stuck with it until the official release comes out; so, no backing out if a beta version has an annoying bug, you live with it until it's fixed.

 

[JonFo]

BTW- I recently performed a bunch of tests trying to find a set of baseline settings for the most accurate Atmos rendering. Since I have two Atmos systems with speakers and two headphone systems (Smyth A16 and the Apple AirPods Max), I was able to compare renderings across them. The A16 is very accurate, and since it does not have Audyssey, a more direct reflection of the source encoding.

Pre-requisite: Have run the guided setup that uses the Mic to determine levels and distances for the speakers. Ideally, a room correction measurement is also performed, following the guidelines "Official" Audyssey thread Part II

AVR/Preamp settings
Note: these must be reviewed/set while actually playing an Atmos track from the desired source, as some options are hidden if the current audio stream does not support them.
These settings are for the common Denon & Marantz processors, other manufacturers and other DRC systems might call these different terms or have additional elements that might need adjusting.
In general, the idea is run with as few level-altering options as possible.

In Audio->Surround Parameters
- Loudness Management: Off

In Audio->Audyssey

• MultEQ XT32: ON (if a calibration was run at setup)
• Dynamic EQ: OFF (this messes with relative levels and messes with positioning, turn it off)
• Dynamic Volume: OFF
• LFC: OFF
• Target option is to taste, but generally ‘reference’ is what is used to mix movies

In Options->Channel Level adjust

• Set all channels to zero (assuming the calibration at setup is correct).
• Subwoofer tweaks of a couple of dB are fine

In Options->Dialog Enhancer
- Set to OFF

This should deliver the greatest fidelity with regards to positional accuracy and 3D soundfield.

Note that this is a baseline geared towards optimizing positional rendering, you will likely wind up tweaking from there. But I found that even a 1dB level change on overheads would subtly 'move' object renderings. Atmos depends on timing and level matching to recreate the sound at the specified locations, and the +3dB that DynamicEQ can apply to rears and top-rears totally warps the image.

 

[Robert D]

I meant to reply to this earlier, but forgot. Did the problem ever return after disabling Audyssey? That was a great idea! I know Audyssey will downsample everything to 48kHz (I believe) so maybe there is a glitch in there somehow, or maybe in combination with Apple's LPCM reencoding that XT32 doesn't like. That could explain it. But, must be something done in tvOS >= 15 and/or gen2 h/w since prior versions don't seem affected. I might play with disabling Audyssey today. I've disabled Atmos in the ATV just so I can watch content because the issue has become so pervasive, and everything I've wanted to watch has both Atmos and Vision.

I watch Atmos with Audyssey on my Marantz 8000 series receiver and it's fine now with my new device.