Low volume when using Amazon Prime video on Apple TV

By LarryMac, 7 March, 2021

Forum
tvOS and Apple TV Apps

I have the Apple TV 4th Generation. I have 5 subscriptions, but the audio for Amazon Prime Video is lower than the other 4 apps. I called Amazon disability but they had no solution. Amazon transferred me to Apple Tech but they don't help with 3rd party apps. Can anyone please tell me why the Prime Video audio on Apple TV is so low?

Thanks
Larry

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Comments

By Cobbler on Tuesday, March 9, 2021 - 01:13

I'm not experiencing this myself, but will use your post as an excuse to complain about the Prime video app insisting on using its own TTS when it detects that VoiceOver is enabled. I just don't understand the point of the app having its own TTS. I started a movie last night, and it was at least 30 seconds before that darn TTS stopped speaking the contents of the last screen that had been present before playback started.

Mini rant over šŸ˜‰

But, just possibly the fact that the app is using its own TTS is a factor in why you are experiencing a different volume level?

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 9, 2021 - 01:13

its an amazon problem. if you haven't changed the volume setting they must be limiting it somehow. not something you can fix you would have to talk to the developer for that app and yell at him/her.

is the 4th gen the 4k version? if not you have an old apple tv and most likely not getting the newest version of apps. in fact im not even sure anything but the apple tv 4k will run tvos. also as apple sells its own streaming service i'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that apple isn't terribly worried the volume is messed up with prime.

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 9, 2021 - 01:13

ok so you have the version before the 4k that first introduced tvos. im not sure if apple is still supporting that as its pretty old itself. i used to have one but afaik apple has stopped doing updates for it. im not going to say buy a new apple tv just to see if its fixed but that would be the way to do it.

also check out the roku stick a lot cheaper then apple and since you don't do anything fancy would be fine. however roku and amazon had a big fight a few years back and for a long time did not sell roku devices. so im not sure if your experience would be any better.

amazon fire stick is pretty cheap and on prime day and black friday always gets huge discounts. if it still sounds low to you on that you need to check your hearing.

that reminds me of a joke. a guy goes to the doctor and says dr im having these silents farts all the time there really bad but their silent whats going on? the dr says well first off sir your going deaf.

By Roxann Pollard on Friday, April 9, 2021 - 01:13

I own the Roku streaming player, I forget the version, but it was the top of the line when I purchased about a year ago. Although the functionality of the player works fine, the voice in it is not tolerable. It is slow and very muddy sounding to me. I wouldn't recommend this as an alternative to try and fix the low volume issue, in the Amazon Vidio app.

By glassheart on Friday, April 9, 2021 - 01:13

I agree. The roku is an absolutely utter piece of a joke when it comes to accessibility. I have one, and hate the thing! If I ever find the drawer where I put it, I'd be willing to send it to someone in the US for nothing more than a small fee to cover shipping. That is how much I hate the thing!

As for the issue at hand, I don't see that on either the 4th gen or the 4K/5th gen Apple TV's I have.

By LarryMac on Friday, April 9, 2021 - 01:13

I have 5 streaming services and Prime has the low volume. The other 4 have a normal volume. If anyone has had this occur let me know?

Do you have more than 1 streaming service? Are all the streaming services have the same audio? Do you use the track pad to navagate your apple TV?

By sonofdiabetesdad on Friday, April 9, 2021 - 01:13

there cheap which is usually why i recommend them. i have a really old roku player thats no longer supported but it still works fine. i have no experience with their newer stuff however and maybe their quality has gone down.

i never noticed this with my 4th gen apple tv when i still used it and haven't noticed it on the 4k. if you have a receiver hooked up to your tv(you use external speakers) some receivers and some fancier tv's have a loudness setting that tries to balance the audio if there is an issue.

in most receivers ive seen as well as tv's its usually called loudness or something to do with speech intelligibility.

speaking of external speakers you may try and get a cheapo 2:1 or even 2:0 system for your tv. with that you will have a separate left, right and center channel and center is where the voice comes from. using your receiver you can turn up the volume just on the center channel.

Also as of right now(4/9/21) the fire tv stick is $39 on amazon. that would be the easiest solution. you can also check out chinese companies that make streaming players. theres a company called xiaomi where the ceo thinks hes a clone of Steve Jobs its pretty funny actually. they make a box called the mi box s. you can get it in the US but you may have to shop around. Walmart does sell them in some stores. also hisense i think does android tv as well.

if your in the market for a new tv sony and hisense use android tv which is what amazon uses. tcl another chinese company uses roku's software for its streaming apps.

By nskein on Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - 01:13

I am also having same issue with prime and HBO
The HBO Now and Prime Video apps on my apple tv have extremely low sound, and I need to turn the TV up from the usual 10 up to 20. However, everything else plays at normal volume (and would be deafening on volume 20). I haven't been able to figure out a solution and I was hoping to get some help here.

I'm not sure if this is an app thing or an audio setup thing; audio standards/setups often confuse me with all the interacting parts. Here is my setup:

Vizio e-series tv (circa 2014)

Vizio 5.1 soundbar w/ satellite speakers and subwoofer (sb4051-c0) - hooked up to TV via HDMI

Apple TV 4 - hooked up to TV via HDMI - audio setting is "best quality"

Any ideas?

By pinkeye on Sunday, October 9, 2022 - 01:13

I have the sound bar hooked through the HDMI CEC port on the Vizio and the AppleTV4K is new. On PS4 I donā€™t have the volume issue but voices are sooo low on AppleTV Amazon and HBO Max.

I went into TV settings and made sure everything was good there - audio out set to Bitstream. Surround Sound enabled. Volume Leveling Off (my soundbar has 3 levels of Voice Adjust and a night/quiet mode so I donā€™t need this). TV Speakers Off. Analog Audio Out is Fixed but I donā€™t think that matters.

For AppleTV, the Settings->Video and Audio-> Audio Formate allows you to change the format and explicitly set it to ā€œDolby 5.1ā€ instead of automatic. AppleTV says itā€™s PCM otherwise, which is a more raw type stream I suppose, but seems less compatible with the vizio. Once I switched to Dolby 5.1 on AppleTV my audio is more normal but still a little low. Put the sound bar on Voice Adjust level 3 and it made it better. There is a specific remote button for voice adjust for most sound bars, but ymmv.

I keep volume on 26 for everything else and was having to go to 48+ for AppleTV. Now Iā€™m back down in the 30s.

Hope this helps.