[User 318656]

Please help me understand.
I just purchased a new Denon 4200 to replace an older yamaha avr.
I installed everything and the sound I was dissapointed at first. I used Kodi to play music. set audio to wasapi denon passthrough. Removed all possible sound enhancements and I didn't like the sound. Played same music through Jriver media player and my smile came back. Also using pass-through.
My question ( and I don't want to start a thread on which is better) If I am using passthrough on both Kodi and Jriver shouldn't the AVR do all the processing? Therefore shouldn't both softwares sound the same?

[Jogee]

You didn't specify what type of audio files you were testing with. Passthrough only applies to AC3, DTS, and (I think) EAC3 encoded formats. Everything else is converted to PCM.

[User 318656]

Mostly MP3 but tried a few DTS music files.

[trihy]

I dont like audio quality on avr too. Not sure why, but some movies sound really low with kodi. Music is also mud. Much brighter or clearer on potplayer or kmplayer.

I just use 5.1 on kodi setting. Can´t use passthrough, cause if I select that, when the avr is off and sound goes to tv, kodi hangs playing movies.

[nickr]

That's likely because your TV has different capabilities to your AVR. When you change your putput device, you have to change kodi's settings.

Or just do what most people do, leave your AVR on!!

[snarfo]

Interesting. The audio quality on my avr (a Sony STR-DN840) with passthrough is great--- as long as I'm using WASAPI. If I use DirectSound it sounds low/muffled/muddy/terrible.

[jjd-uk]

No such thing as passthrough for mp3 files so perhaps your settings are wrong, but without a screenshot of your settings or a debug log_file (wiki) I'm not sure how you expect anyone to know.

[trihy]

That's likely because your TV has different capabilities to your AVR. When you change your putput device, you have to change kodi's settings.

Or just do what most people do, leave your AVR on!!

Yes, thats why. When I turn on my pc with TV only, kodi crash or skips audio if passthrough is on.

But, kmplayer works fine, wmp fine, vlc fine, potplayer fine. Only kodi crash. Not sure if those players do passthrough anyway.

Dont know about the benefits of passthrough when using hdmi out to avr, so, it s ok for me. I think it s only for dd and dts but not for dd true hd or dts master audio.

About the muddy audio, hope it can be fixed. It happens mostly with multichannel audio.

Didnt know about WASAPI, what are the differences selecting directsound or wasapi?

[nickr]

WASAPI works better.

[trihy]

And wasapi works on all windows devices?

Why not setting as default on kodi? I ll try later and report back, hope it works fine.

[jjd-uk]

There is no muddy audio if your settings are correct.

[trihy]

It´s pretty simple, fresh kodi install, set 5.1 on audio settings, play a DD movie and compare with potplayer. Is day and night.

Not sure about other settings that can be wrong.

[nickr]

Passthrough is applicable to DTS-MA and TrueHD.

[trihy]

Well, tested wasapi, sound is definitely better than directsound.

Also tried to passthrough most formats, works fine too.

If I select "wasapi" on main and "wasapi denon" on passthrough, when avr is off (tv doesnt support most passthrough formats, kodi seems to works and output audio) Sometimes dont, but I think this can be worked.

On the other hand, tried to passthrough with potplayer, and when avr is off, I got no sound because of unsupported formats on tv. So, kudos to kodi on this one

Wonder if we can have a way to disable passthrough when certain output is present. Or make kodi remember different audio config for ie "wasapi samsung" and "wasapi denon" and make one preferred over the other when is present.