cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/mrlovenstein/p/1660117/volume

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/nonpolitical_comics/p/1657114/mr-lovenstein-volume

[Mr Lovenstein] Volume


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[–] 87 points 1 week ago (2 children)

(insert lengthy explanation and complaint about compression and audio mixing here)

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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Thanks. I was wondering why this always seems to be the case. Sounds like I need to either stop watching Christopher Nolan movies or upgrade my audio system.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    I chose upgrading my system. Full home theatre. I still get the mumble dialogue effect. It's just how things are now

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    Mumble dialog is intentional, directors want movie and show dialog to sound natural, which often involves under-enunciation. I have a great home theater setup and while it fixes the vast majority of issues, I still don't watch anything without subtitles

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  • [+] -42 points 1 week ago (9 children)

    You can usually skip all of it by telling people to get an actual sound system and not using built in TV speakers

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  • [–] 54 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Not really, it's still a problem. Better/more speakers don't magically fix mumble dialogue mixed way below the action volume.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Most of the time, voice is on a specific channel, and you can just turn up that channel, or turn down the others. It's like turning down the base in an equaliser, you can hear the other stuff better. So it does actually fix it…

    That's why on Blu Ray cases, you see for example, "Dolby Digital 5.1"; it means there's 5.1 different audio tracks you can play with. That's the way it was mixed and intended to be listened to. Just ignore the .1 for now, it's not super important. You can buy a single 5.1 sound bar for pretty cheap that does the job. You don't really need 5 whole separate speakers.

    Most TVs have speakers in the back, so you're actually listening to an echo of the sound, which muffles it a lot. If you only have a 1 speaker system, your TV also smooshes them all together as best as it can, which is sometimes badly.

    I simplified a lot but hopefully this strikes a balance of not too complicated of an answer, while also not upsetting the smart people who know the details.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 week ago* (1 child)

    You're talking to a guy who built a full 7.2.4 channel Dolby Atmos system in his basement. Full room within a room acoustic isolation. Basically as good as you can go. Full in room treatment for reflection control. About as flat in room response as you can go.

    I say again. Better speakers and system only helps a little. The center channel that audio is mixed to can be raised individually some yes but even then music or other sound effects are panned across and you'll get your ears blown out.

    You can't magically fix mumble dialogue in system.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Yeah, but that unfortunately is asking someone to spend some decent money. It’s a problem that could definitely be fixed in softw- Oh no. Don’t get me started… Nice try.

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  • [+] -8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    The AppleTV 4k box has actually implemented some very effective menu options to deal with this on shitty speakers. Commence downvoting me for using an Apple product.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    I had a full atmos theater setup at my last place, Revel Concerta 2 speakers all around. Absolutely still had this problem with some movies. It helped, but not as much as you would think, even with higher grade compression.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Then you just get a movie theater situation where you have to wear earplugs. This is a consequence of terrible audio mixing where the assumption is that audiences like loud as fuck sounds that they can ~fEEL~ and the only real fix to it is to un-terrible the mix by compressing it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago

    I got to try haptic headphones recently. Gimmicky but made me smile when the bass kicked in and I could feel it through the haptic feedback. It seemed louder without making the rest muddy and without making me yell WHAT? after a couple songs.

    Not audiophile quality, it was immersive at least. I want to try them with a movie.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    Fuck that, use vlc and turn on volume normalization in the audio settings, or turn the volume down to barely audible and use subtitles if you're doing some weird "paid service" to play your video files.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    My new TV and its speakers sound a lottttt better than my old TV and soundbar.

    I had two basic options. Thin and light TV with a new soundbar. Or 'chunky' TV with decent speakers, and the option of soundbar going forwards.
    I went the chunky route and, at the moment, I hear no need for a soundbar. It's passed the Christopher Nolan test with ease.
    Both Interstellar and Tenet were watched with no issues at all.

    But, generally, yeah TV speakers are tinny rubbish.

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