Volume drops when listening to Apple Music

I had the same problem and think I may have found the reason behind it.

Without realising, my Apple Music had Sound Check enabled. In the past, Sound Check always seemed to have adjusted my tracks in the background before playback, but it now seems to do it actively, albeit with a second or two delay after starting to play a song.

I went to Music > Preferences, then selected the Playback menu. From there, uncheck the box next to Sound Check if it's enabled, and click OK to save your settings. After this - no more sudden volume drops a few seconds after starting playback!

I hope this helps!

(MacBook Pro 16" (2021), Monterey 12.2.1)

It's a simple fix.

1. Open Music on your mac.
2. In the top left corner in the tool bar, click music.
3. Click preferences, then go to the playback tab
4. Uncheck sound check.

This will make some songs louder than others.

Hope this helps!

Hi,

I had the same problem. For me the fix was turning off Sound Check. It tries to keep all the music on one sound level, but I guess it doesn't work fine.

To disable sound check, open the preferences panel of the Music app, go to the tab named Playback and disable Sound Check.

EDIT: I didn't see the other answers and can't delete this one.

Short Answer: Set your streaming rate to be Lossless or High Quality. Not sure why this works but it does, and I can recreate the problem when I do not choose these types of streaming rates.

Long Answer: Open up Music, go to the menu item Music -> Preferences (or press your Command key plus a comma ). Go to the Playback tab which can be found between the General and Files tabs. Check the "Lossless audio" checkbox. In the the Streaming dropdown you will notice three options you can select. Select either the 2nd or 3rd option, namely Lossless or Hi-Res to make the problem go away.

Hi all,

A little update on things. For reference, my 2017 MacBook 12" (i7, 16gb ram) is running MacOS 12.2.1.

I initially commented that I had luck changing the bitrates of streaming. That "fix" lasted for mere hours, if that, and not the Sound Check nor anything else had any effect.

I had been running sound from my external monitor to speakers via AUX out of a port on the monitor. The sound was delivered from the MacBook to the monitor through the HDMI, which comes through a USB-C dongle. I noticed that the volume differences were present during Apple Music, Apple TV, and Netflix (via Safari), so it wasn't an Apple Music setting. I also found it unusual that my MacBook handed over complete control of the audio signal to the monitor, which I am sure is a feature of that functionality, but it made me wonder if that lack of volume control on the MacBook's side contributed to the inconsistency of the audio being delivered over HDMI.

Considering the fact that I've had an outsize number of problems with HDCP compliance of HDCP-enabled external monitors in past versions of MacOS with this MacBook, I believe that the audio delivery via HDMI was the problem, on the MacBook's part. I currently have had my speakers directly connected to my MacBook's headphone jack port for the past two-ish days. I've had no problem since and every finger and toe my soul has is crossed that the current state of things doesn't change.

So, the fix is simply:

If your audio is currently running through a monitor's HDMI connection, use aux through the headphone jack instead. I do not know if audio through a Thunderbolt or USB-C hub has the same problem.

There's a fix that worked for me:

Navigate to Music > Playback > Sound Check;

Uncheck "Sound Check";

Restart the Music app.

Should be ok now :)

I had the same issue. This solved it: Music -> Preferences -> Playback -> disable "Sound Check".

Preferences > Playback tab > uncheck 'Sound Check' option > Ok

• Change Audio Qualtiy: FIXED! I set the Audio Quality to Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/48 kHz) for Streaming and Download

It fixed the problem, no more volume drops listening streaming playlists.

Thanks!

Did you guys try disabling the "Sound check" option?

It seems the volume dropping after 2 seconds isn't happening anymore with this disabled, although it's pretty annoying the difference in volume from song to song.

This has been consistent with my experience.

Changing Sound Check status did nothing. My preamp was off, EQ flat—that system was inactive.

I changed streaming to 24/48 lossless (already DLing at 24/192 due to being casual audiophile) and the volume jumped up and hasn't faltered since. This was/is while streaming from Apple Radio mix.

For reference, I'm using a 12" MacBook (2017) running Monterey 12.2.

One of the most annoying problems with Apple Music, and actually one of the main reasons why I am still not cancelling Spotify. I listen to music for hours on end during work, using Airpods Pro and running Apple Music on a 12.1 Monterey 2017 27" 5K iMac. Sound control and Dolby Atmos (which I think is no improvement at all by the way) are off.

What I have noticed is that:

1) I have NO issues when playing the low-end AAC 256 Kbps versions, regardless of whether I have the equalizer turned on or off, BUT

2) when playing either of the lossless formats, I have volume drops when the equalizer is ON, but NOT when the equalizer is off.

So it would seem the equalizer is causing problems. As it stands now, I am forced to play the AAC versions and tweak them with the equalizer, because the "raw" AAC versions frankly suck. Please please please get this fixed. It is annoying as ****.

Sounds like sound check is enabled in the "Riproduction" section of the preferences. Once removed the "verify volume" flag, I don't have the problem anymore.

This still exists and is still very annoying.

I've reported it via Apple feedback but it's been ignored.

Can someone from Apple please acknowledge they're aware and will fix?

For clarity, and this is for the 'sound check' brigade too:

• The problem is that the pre-amp volume level in equaliser kicks in after 5 seconds of playback
• If I disable equaliser then there is no volume drop
• If I change from track to track there is no volume change, only when starting a track from silence
• Sound check is NOT enabled
• This is for locally stored music

In my case, it was Sound Check.