I just watched Underworld Evolution on blu-ray with PCM 5.1 and then i watched the first movie on DVD with DD 5.1. For some reason the DVD sound was twice as loud and the voices were more audible than that of the PCM track. I know that the PCM should be lossless but why is DD louder and more distinct when it comes to voices. I have a BDP-S550 bluray player hooked to an Onkyo HTS-6100 system that is set to Direct for the audio from my bluray player. I have the bluray player settings set to bit stream output to the receiver for decoding, it shows on the receiver when I have PCM, DTrue or DTS MA but the DD is still louder. I have to set volume at 30 for DD but 45 for True or MA?

That's been my experience with HD-DVD and BluRay. The dynamic range is usually much greater on the HD audio codecs. It's also at a lower volume. You simply have to turn up the volume if you want to match the DD volume levels. As for clarity, I have not listened to a DD track that was better in clarity than a lossless track.