YouTube is the most popular video streaming platform in the world. Millions of people use it daily to consume their favorite content.
However, having such a large user base also means that even minor issues can end up affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
YouTube users report lower audio levels or quality
According to reports, many YouTube users experience lower audio levels or quality on music videos on the platform (1,2,3,4,5).
This affects their experience as the sound is muffled specifically when the voice of the videos is playing.
YouTube recently changed the “Volume/Normalized” setting to “DRC” (Dynamic Range Compression), which seems to be the cause of this issue.
@TeamYouTube is there a way to change DRC for clips? Some settings were changed or reverted to DRC 3 days ago and I can’t find a way to revert them. It makes music videos look horrible.
Source
When I upload my song to YouTube my song volume is a bit lower than the original export, I don’t know why maybe because it has to do with my setting needed for YouTube standards or whatever it is, but I noticed that most famous artists have a pretty loud volume on their song on Youtube. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Let me know as soon as possible. Thanks.
Source
Interestingly, the lower audio quality issue only occurs when users are logged into their YouTube accounts. When they try the same video clip while logged out of their account, the issue is not present.
Various troubleshooting methods such as logging out and back in to the account, uninstalling and reinstalling Google Chrome, and adjusting various Windows sound settings also don’t work.
Potential workaround
Unfortunately, the YouTube team has not officially acknowledged this issue. But in the meantime, there is a potential workaround which is to use YouTube in incognito mode.
Of course, this is in addition to playing music videos when offline, which isn’t the most ideal solution but is still useful for now.
We’ll keep an eye on it and update this article if and when YouTube recognizes the issue and fixes it for good.
To note: We have more stories like this in our dedicated YouTube section, so be sure to follow them too.
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