Can I pay someone for help? Just 1 puzzling issue left (Volume related)

I posted this on another thread, but posting here as well to get some attention going on this topic. I'm surprised this issue still remains without much being done about it despite it being a 3 year old problem for me.

First, just a note on the headphone to 3.5 mm jack issue. Depending on your headphones, this could be because the sound card on the mac mini/any non external system is limited in how much power it can pump out anmd thus heavy duty headphones probably will be lacking in volume without a DAC in the middle to provide amplification.

I initially had a 2008 mac mini, c2d, and temporarily connected it to my rotel integrated amp with floor standing B&W speakers with a simple 3.5 mm wire to stereo in on my receiver (red and black) and there was obviously a lack of fidelity and volume from my system. This is obviously because the mini's sound system does not have enough energy to power this.

I then got a USB DAC, connected via usb to mini, and then connected to mac mini. in itunes, mplayer, vlc, etc volume on avi's, mkv's, etc was perfect. Infact having it half way on vlc, and maybe 1/10th of the way up on my receiver was sufficient volume. I now have a mac mini 2010 c2d and the same issue is there,

Playing through xbmc though is not at the same level of volume. my receiver now has to be almost at 3/10 or 4/10 to be sufficient volume, on some files i've even had to take it to more than half way. This is not restricted to only some files, as alot of times i will just play the file in vlc to be able to play it normally, and all of them play fine in vlc.

Now i cant abe this on any scientific evidence but i think this has something to do with downmixing the 5.1 channel track to 2/2.1 channels. As i recall, my mp3's do sound better through xbmc than mkv's do, and also simple avi files (600-700 mb for a movie) i think have sufficient volume. It is always the mkv's, which most have 5.1 channel sound, that have issues.

I used plex for a little while in addition to xbmc, and i remember initially plex sounded even lower than xbmc, but at some point with a major update, the volume then got louder than xbmc on the same files. So it is a software issue or the codecs xbmc uses. i only use xbmc now, but could test if someone wants.

In addition, volume boost on downmix is not a solution. It seems it only aritifically inreases the volume and does not resolve the data stream correctly (again, non scientific layman explanation, i am not an engineer nor a programmer) since turning that on makes my speakers crackle, even in low vsound scenes, and if it suddenly gets into a loud screen it is unbearable. And like i mentioned, this is neither a DAC, receiver, or speakers issue, as i can have my speakers up at half way in vlc (and half way on my speakers is deafeningly loud) without ANY distortion or crackling, on mkv's, mp3's or any other files, unless the file itself is low quality.

I hope we can get someone to look at this issue as this poses a major issue in enjoying my movies, especially the non action non loud ones which can be very difficult to hear.

if someone needs logs etc I will be happy to provide jsut have to guide me exactly which bits and where to get them.

so i was looking around in the windows forum and found this thread:
It seems this was an issue on windows as well at some point but got fixed. Could it be that the change did not carry over to mac, if thats possible? or that even the mac volume was boosted with this 2008/2009 fix, but its still too low?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...ion&page=4

Interesting, i'm convinced it's software-based in XBMC itself, so that strengthens my theory

nmirza Wrote:so i was looking around in the windows forum and found this thread:
It seems this was an issue on windows as well at some point but got fixed. Could it be that the change did not carry over to mac, if thats possible? or that even the mac volume was boosted with this 2008/2009 fix, but its still too low?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...ion&page=4

I'm on windows and have the exact same issue as you have described, and I'm running the latest 10.1 release. I've also noticed that the volume boost on downmixing setting causes a cracking sound. My PC is connected to a Panasonic receiver via optical SPDIF.

I need to check the audio and subtitle settings mentioned in an earlier post as this is about the only thing I haven't done, but I doubt it will make a huge difference because I'm going from barely audible in xbmc to extremely loud in vlc player.

I'm inclined to agree with your theory. Very frustrating :confused2:

Just noticed this thread and am actually having exactly the same issue. I would go so far that the audio level in non-XBMC application is not only twice, but 5 times louder. If I forget to turn it down after quitting XBMC, the Mac control "beep" is warning the neigbours that I am around ;-)

Running XBMC Dharma on a Core2Duo Mini using the microphone jack to connect with my amplifier. Same story when using the Mini internal speakers though...

Any idea? There must be thousands of XBMC Mac Mini users around... Is it only us few who are facing this?

Turn down the volume on system sounds.

This isn't a "problem" XBMC is a different application than those other players. It handles audio differently. That's all. If you want to make it louder then go to XBMC's Programs add-ons and increase the over-all volume with Audio Mixer. If maxing that out isn't enough then use a 3rd party utility to hijack audio from different apps and give it a boost there (I can't recall any of the top of my head, but they do exist. Give it a search on macupdate.com)

Ned Scott Wrote:Turn down the volume on system sounds.

This isn't a "problem" XBMC is a different application than those other players. It handles audio differently. That's all. If you want to make it louder then go to XBMC's Programs add-ons and increase the over-all volume with Audio Mixer. If maxing that out isn't enough then use a 3rd party utility to hijack audio from different apps and give it a boost there (I can't recall any of the top of my head, but they do exist. Give it a search on macupdate.com)

I am quite sure that this is related to some bug. Let me clarify again (numbers are illustrative):

Mac OSX system sound 100 (good to hear)
Quicktime/Itunes 100 (same as system sound)
VLAN player 100 (same as system sound)
XBMC (at maximum vol) 10-20 (whispering, barely hearable)

I can look for some tool to increase, but it still feels that there is something wrong here. We are not talking about small differences. Also, I was running XBMC on Linux and Windows before and this was never an issue. You may have some smaller differences (+-20%) and also differences between movies (again +- 20%), but with the Mini this is huge (going either from normal sound to not hearable; or from waking up the neigbours to being normal).

Shouldn't this forum be packed with Mac Mini users and is everyone impacted? Even all OSX users?

I have Zotac Zbox AD02 - and exactly same issue. Running win7 64bit and XBMC connected by analog cable to my amp - volume is way to low in comparison with any other software... ( (I wanted something with low power consumption, but my amp has to be at least at 6/10 to hear something and it eats more than 250w at max.)

Ive jumped off this boat

Bought a newer shape Mac Mini that does true HDMI, the sound is fine now over digital/HDMI straight to TV

This issue is definitely real, I'm experiencing it on my Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard. Max volume on XBMC 10.1 is a lot quieter than on other video players like QuickTime, EyeTV, Boxee or Plex.

Unfortunately it can't be fixed with Audio Mixer like Ned suggested, all that allows you to do is set the output volume to max. That is the same max volume you can set with the remote during a video so it's just as quiet.

Very annoying bug, ruins the great experience I was otherwise having with XBMC