Optimum PS4 audio output settings

[Raniator]

Hi all,

I've looked around the interweb and this has been discussed elsewhere at length but no one seems to give a definitive answer so I thought I'd try here – always reliable advice in the past :clap:

So... I've got a PS4 connected to a Sony STR-DH800 via HDMI running through a Jamo S 526 HCS 5.1 speaker system.

My question is – what are the best audio output settings to use for games and for BluRay?

Any help and advice appreciated – let's get a definitive answer once and for all!

 

[professorhat]

Personally, I believe leaving as the default (i.e. Linear PCM) is the best setting. For games that come with an uncompressed PCM soundtrack (of which I believe most are), it seems crazy to have the PS4 encode this to either Dolby or DTS, then have your receiver decode it back to PCM - at best this would add some lag. For Blu-rays that come with an encoded Dolby TrueHD / DTS Master Audio soundtrack, the PS4 will decode these onboard and send to the AV receiver as PCM. Either way, you're then getting the best audio formats available to you.

 

[Raniator]

Thanks... that is what I've always reverted back to after testing the different options. I don't get the DTS Master light on the amp light up if I use LPCM but that won't affect sound quality so I don't really care about that.

Just wish they would fix the audio problems - Netflix doesn't output surround sound via LPCM so I have to change it to Bitstream DTS when I use that and back to LPCM when doing anything else... annoying!

 

[Glacialpath]

Thanks... that is what I've always reverted back to after testing the different options. I don't get the DTS Master light on the amp light up if I use LPCM but that won't affect sound quality so I don't really care about that.

Just wish they would fix the audio problems - Netflix doesn't output surround sound via LPCM so I have to change it to Bitstream DTS when I use that and back to LPCM when doing anything else... annoying!

When the PS4 is set to Linear PCM yes it is doing the decoding and that's why you only see PCM on your AVR. I've worked with PS3s since they were launched. There is no lag sending a PCM audio stream from a game for an AVR to decode.

Just because a game has PCM audio it works the same way an DTS HD-Master or Dolby TrueHD audio codec would from a BD movie. In my experience letting the AVR do what it is ment to do is the best way to go. The processing should be better and I found AVRs do a better job reproducing the audio.

Any consol or player has internal docoding only really for people without and AVR and have it connected directly to their TV. With the AVR doing all the work you won't have to keep changing the setting everytime you watch Netflix or play a game.

If a BD movie has a PCM soundtrack as the older ones do then PCM will shoe on your AVR even when the PS4 is set to Bitstream because that is the codec it is recieving.

Hope that explaines it all.