[solved] Eden Audio Quality

It's most likely a XBMC Eden problem.
I googled some further and noticed others with the same problem.
I use XBMC for more than a year now and can't remember having the problem with XBMC Dharma... I guess some audio bug slipped into Eden...
If the developers (which I can't thank enough for an otherwise amazing program) can't or will not fix this, I guess the only option is to rollback to Dharma and check if I'm not imagining things... (And I was just getting used to that Aeon-skin)

If I roll back to Dharma and everything works well there, I will definitely let you know. I rather hope they’ll fix the problem in Eden…

Zokkel

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(2012-04-12 12:36)davzie Wrote:  Any XBMC developers have any idea why this might be happening and mainly on the Mac platform?

Oh, It's indeed a MAC problem...
Yesterday I ran XBMC on my desktop with WIndows 7, everything's fine there...

(2012-04-12 12:48)pecinko Wrote:  

(2012-03-22 12:53)Ned Scott Wrote:  XBMC audio runs a lot quieter than other applications on Mac OS X, which in turn requires the volume to be higher.

Hmm.. Can this be remedied somehow? I switched the other night to desktop to check a video file in iTunes and had almost awaken my family because volume was set per XBMC.

Try boosting your audio headroom with an advancedsettings file:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adv...ttings.xml
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adv...3Caudio.3E

Otherwise I don't think you have the same problem as stated in this thread...

I made a bug-report for this:
http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/12918

let's hope there's a genius out there with the solution!

I've noticed this as well on Eden final. It's like there's some sort of dynamic range compression enabled. I first noticed this in either Eden final or one of the release candidates, it definitely wasn't there before RCs started to appear.

Mac mini 2010 / Snow Leopard / HDMI output to amplifier

Got this on my Acer Revo, connected to TV then to Pioneer A300R Amp. Turning down the volume in XBMC to about -30db, seems to have reduced the distortion, still doesnt seem to sound as good as the last build though, and i really dont like having the volume so high on my amp. A real shame, as the eden build has fixed my wireless issues. I guess alot of people are using xbmc for mainly music listening, this could put them off. Im on XBMCBUNTU btw.

Sounds a bit like dynamic range compression. It's enabled by default, but should only affect ac3 and dts material. Take a look at the Audio section in advancedsettings.xml.

Download Add-on:XBMC Audio Mixer from the Add-on manager. You can boost the volume for Mac OS X using that.

(2012-04-13 06:05)Ned Scott Wrote:  Download Add-on:XBMC Audio Mixer from the Add-on manager. You can boost the volume for Mac OS X using that.

I'm very glad a pro has come to help us, but that's not our problem. That might be the solution for pecinko, but our audio volume in general is fine. Nothing wrong there. Also Davzie tried that option without succes.

It is the volume in a song itself. I looked it up and it think it might be that Dynamic Range Compression. (The description of DRC is indeed similar to the problem we have)
Like Jogee says, it should only affect ac3 and dts material and I'm talking about mp3-files. Anyway, tonight I will try putting that off in advancedsettings and see if it affects mp3 as well.

The only things that annoys me, is that everyone is saying the previous build doesn't have this problem... So it really should be fixable... sigh...
Sad to here Jmenorton has the same problem on XBMCBuntu, cause that was Davzie's next step to solve it...

Anyway, thanks to everyone that is trying to find a solution here... let's search further

For what it's worth, sound seems fine with usb output (zeppelin air).

Me again...

In my search of the meaning of DRC, I came across something called 'limiting'. Roughly said: an aggressive way of DRC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_ran...n#Limiting

Then I saw this in the advancedsettingsfile, audio section:

<limiterhold>0.025</limiterhold> <!-- default values for limiter/compressor -->
<limiterrelease>0.1</limiterrelease> <!-- default values for limiter/compressor -->

Can an expert tell me if this is relevant for our problem, and if so, how to put this limiter off... or what values to choose for a better experience