Apple TV 4K will finally gain support for audio passthrough, according to a report, meaning that it will be able to send the audio bitstream to an AV receiver or soundbar.
Earlier today after digging through the developer documentation for tvOS 26, we found references to a new AVAudioContentSource.passthrough API referencing audio passthrough support (in beta) for tvOS 26.
Also read: Apple unveils tvOS 26 with new Apple TV user interface
Throughout the day we have been trying to confirm the details with our sources, so far without luck, but now AppleInsider reports that Apple has confirmed support for audio passthrough. FlatpanelsHD is still trying to independently confirm details.
- "We've confirmed with Apple that that by enabling the new passthrough audio when it's available and supported by a streaming app, a high-quality audio stream could be left alone by the Apple TV. This allows for hardware after the Apple TV to process the audio, which could give a higher quality result to the listener," reports AppleInsider.
How will it work?
Today, Apple TV 4K decodes and processes all audio on-device, meaning that, for example, Dolby Atmos gets decoded to LPCM + metadata (Dolby MAT 2.0) and sent to the receiver or soundbar in uncompressed form.
With audio passthrough, a device will instead passthrough the untouched audio bitstream for decoding on the AV receiver or soundbar. Some users prefer this solution especially for local media or in bandwidth-constrained audio setups.
So far, details are scarce, but it sounds like developers will need to implement support on an app-by-app basis. For example, the developers of Infuse and Plex could add passthrough as an option via an app update.
Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA?
We have been digging through the first beta of tvOS 26 on Apple TV 4K (3rd Gen) but so far there are no options to enable audio passthrough.
There is currently no confirmation on whether it will enable media player apps on Apple TV 4K to passthrough Dolby Atmos in lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS:X in lossless DTS-HD MA. We will try to confirm the details before tvOS 26 is released. The Nvidia Shield already support passthrough for lossless audio.
The AVAudioContentSource.passthrough API will be available not only in tvOS 26 but also macOS Tahoe, iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and visionOS 18, according to Apple.
- Source: Apple, AppleInsider
