Volume drops when listening to Apple Music

Did some more testing, this issue seems isolated to my personal station on apple music. From what I can tell it doesn't play tracks from my files on the HDD it finds the same tracks in apple music and streams them. I tried many other stations and single song searches and while they play slightly lower than files in my library, they are no where near as attenuated as my personal station. Any ideas why my personal station would be attenuated?

Same, it was only my personal, now it’s all stations. It’s around a 40% drop in volume. I am using an audio interface most of the time, but I tested just using laptop speakers MBP 16” and it does the same thing.

Today is the first day I have full volume using an apple music station. I changed no settings or hardware config. I am on Big Sur 11.2.3, haven't updated to 11.4 yet. Is this working for anyone else? Personal station is still about 16% low, measured on my presonus Monitor station. , which is calibrated.

Yes, but then I don't take advantage of all the quality I want. I signed the service with the promise of high quality. But if you have to lower the quality in order to be able to listen satisfactorily, it doesn't make sense anymore.

Just like here. I am very disappointed with this, I have a high-fidelity sound system, and this low sound quality is unbearable. Those who value sound quality should rethink using Apple. I'm returning to Spotify and Tidal.

Thanks a lot!

A lot of chats with support, 3 calls with expert...reinstall Monterey, Boot in Safe mode, use a different account...very disappointing support "expert" quality by apple.

With your suggestion I finally stop to get irritated and frustrated.

Have a Nice day!

Hi everyone,

This thread has been getting a bit of attention by point-farmers, I thought I'd just review the main points as we seem to be going in circles.

• This issue relates to a playback volume bug in the music app.
• It is not related to the Sound Check, EQ, Crossfade, Sound Enhancer, Dolby Atmos/Spatial Audio nor Siri features
• The problem exists across the music app on both iOS-based platforms and macOS
• The current work around is to use Apple Lossless Audio, no other workarounds currently exist.

Please endeavour to read the full thread prior to repeating "solutions" - this is not a Sound Check thread.

I've been having the same issue with Big Sur as well. The problem doesn't occur with Spotify. Just Apple Music. It's so annoying I stopped using Apple Music. Have you found any fixes? I keep hoping a software update will address the issue, but still no luck

I'm experiencing the same issue, looks like it's been an issue for far too long.

My macOS is up to date running on a 2021 MacBook Pro Max. The Apple Music application is a very clunky ball of frustration, the interface is a confusing mess that is a mish-mash resulting in a poor user experience.

It would be great if Apple would at the very least make sure the audio output works as expected.

Here's hoping Apple will fix this mess sooner than later. Apple used to be passionate about the user experience and music, but that is no longer the case. Sad but true.

Frustrated.

Update from last reply comment.

inhave unchecked sound check and turned off EQ. Still music plays super low in car, and on headphones (apple AirPods 3 and wired apple headphones. Why is the output on Apple Music so low no matter where or how you listen to the music. But if I listen to other apps on my phone music is louder and on car play same thing.

Lossless Audio is absolutely not the solution for the ~30% volume reduction in the first five seconds. Nor is Sound Check. This is a continued frustration. And let's keep this on topic. This discussion is around volume reduction in the first five seconds of a song on a Mac, not car, not iPhone, etc.

I concur with your entire reply.

Also, would like to add about the Apple Music app: the little tracker button to slide back and forth during the song to choose which part of the song you want to listen to, i.e., if you wanted to back it up a little bit. The tracker button is about .0001cm small. You can barely grab ahold of it. Why is it so small? Everything is small. I just went and looked at my settings and everything is set to the largest. Also, the icon to go back in the Apple Music is really small and hard to find as well. Windows 11 is amazing just saying!

Agree, the tiny tracker button is yet another step downward as compared with iTunes. For many months after upgrading my old Mac to Big Sur, I used iTunes because I could not stand this behavior in Music. But my new Mac is Apple Silicon so I have no choice.

I have the same problem. It's not "Sound Check." That was the first thing I looked at and it was never enabled.

I have the same problem. Only w/ radio stations. And if I stop and start the music, the volume gets progressively quieter and quieter each time. I'm running Big Sur as well.