Poor sound quality in Music App on Macbook Pro

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Level 1

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Poor sound quality in Music App on Macbook Pro

I'm noticing some anomalies in the "Lossless Audio" for tracks. Whenever I have the Control selector as "Computer" (photo #1), the audio quality is absolutely horrendous; it almost sounds like it's coming through a landline telephone. If I select both "Computer" and "Living Room" (photo #2), the audio quality is drastically better; more mid and low ranges coming through.

Now the weird thing is, some of the tracks in my library have the "Lossless Audio" emblem when I play it (photo #3); which sounds night and day better if I only select "Computer". However, I go in to change the preferences (photo #4), and there is not much of a difference in sound quality (it just gets quieter) and the emblem disappears.

And randomly it will correct itself and sound just fine with the "High Resolution Lossless" Streaming and Downloading selected, but it's not 100% the case.

Posted on Dec 6, 2021 1:33 PM

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Answer 1

ryane77

Community Specialist

Dec 7, 2021 12:04 PM in response to k_grove

Hi there k_grove,

Thank you for posting in the Apple Support Communities. We understand you're running into some quality issues with lossless audio on your Mac. We have a few suggestions that might help in narrowing this behavior down.

To double-check, which exact macOS version are you using?

We see that Dolby Atmos is set to "Always On." What happens if you change that setting?

Also, to clarify, do you experience these same results with both streaming content and downloaded content, or just one type? That will help work out more about what could be happening.

Take care.

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Poor sound quality in Music App on Macbook Pro

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