I recently purchased the Zidoo Z9X, the goal is to replace my plex server for movies. I need True-HD Audio. The player is fantastic, however the issue i noticed immediately was that playing movies that are not true-hd, most are just dolby digital plus, the movies are not as punchy as plex. Playing movies in plex you can feel the thump. In Zidoo it is much milder. I've noticed this with XBMC in the past also. What does plex do that makes it sound so good? It's not transcoding, its the same audio.
Likely an issue related to how you have set it up. Plex cannot be compared to this because Plex is objectively a poor solution. Self troubleshoot your setup.
If the audio is bit streamed to the decoder (amp/receiver etc), for the same file, it’s the same stream of 1s and 0s that spits out in the same order in both cases.
I just bought a Z9X as well and the sound output is definitely lower than Plex and I'm using bit streamed on both. For example in John Wick 4K Atmos with my Denon 4300x I had to turn up the MV to -5 to get the same volume that MV -10 gives me on Plex. I'll try and take some REW measurements this weekend to verify. I just got the Z9X on Wednesday and this was the first movie I demo'd and it was the first thing I noticed.
A bitstream is a bitstream is a bitstream. If one bitstream sounds different or "louder" than another bitstream for the same file then at least one of them isn't a bitstream.
Just make sure under audio, HDMI out is set to RAW. Set everything under Audio to RAW and you should not have any issues. RAW=Bitstream
this was also my experience - i have a decent 7.4.1 setup here at home and the sound is FAR less punchy - as one of the above posters described when I watch a movie through Zidoo versus Plex. I didn't even HAVE sound until i turned the "volume" up all the way on the Zidoo and even then it was just...flat sounding. I ended up returning the device since I had bought it off Amazon it was so underwhelming compared to watching Plex through my Shield like usual. I really wanted to like it but alas - it was not meant to be. I'd also be willing to try the uhd5000 model but I'm not buying it from anywhere but Amazon because I largely don't trust most companies return policies outside of Amazon.
If the volume control works then I'm not surprised! That means you're outputting LPCM stereo and not multichannel bitstream into your 7.4.1 setup!! Check Audio settings and set to either Auto or better, RAW.
Great Point! When I received my Zidoo Z2600 I believe the Audio default was LPCM and I changed it to RAW during setup. So if this wasn't changed during setup, that could be your issue. Good Luck!
