I’m constantly having to turn the volume up and down depending on the what the scene is. It’s not just me either. A lot of people I know have resorted to just turning on the closed captioning so they can hear what they’re saying. I don’t remember this being an issue before.
In: 2005
Did you try changing your sound preset to voice?
It’s the worst!
I have to watch movies with headphones on because the action scenes blow up out of nowhere and shake the house; but without having it turned way up i wouldn’t be able to hear any of the dialogue.
I can’t put on subtitles because I’m usually knitting while watching
If you can believe it, I think some of those movies are intended to be like that because it is the director’s choice, I think it was Christopher Nolan who is famous for this. For some other movies, i think its because the sound is put in during post editing and that’s the best they can do.
A lot of good discussion is here:
https://www.axiomaudio.com/blog/home-theater-sound
– ambient noise
– absolute sound level
– sound system capabilities
– distance to speakers
– environment
– sound mastering
To deal with this often users employ dynamic range compression algorithms
Turn dynamic sound off of your tv/speakers/playback device; or if you have the option, make sure it’s set to voice. That should help level out it out.
Poor mixing choices, or just stylistic choices.
Movie and high end productions have different audio feeds opposed to just recording all the sounds from one. There are people who’s job it is to balance the levels where explosions and impacts are forceful but dialogue has the right levels.
Some directors, like Nolan, have had criticism that the dialogue isn’t as clear as other movies. Some speculated that it’s a choice since in real life things aren’t always crisp and clear.
Others cited that more advanced sound recording has led to more factors to play with that can go wrong.
This was more of a problem with older movies. Sound was “finished” for theaters. Sounds can be pushed through different channels for more dramatic effect which can make the theater experience more enjoyable. Trouble is when these movies were put on streaming as technology advanced, they didn’t translate well. If you can find a streaming copy of Meet Joe Black, check it out and you’ll see just how bad it can be.
Movies are still made for theaters first and foremost believe it or not, but they are more prepared for streaming, and for people like me who watch it through our shitty basic TV speakers. That said, there are still audio choices made that are enjoyable on proper home speaker systems, and those do not always translate to basic speakers very well.
Commercials are almost always louder because THEY WANT YOU TO HEAR ABOUT THE PRODUCT THEY’RE SELLING YOU.
Also people are human, and people make mistakes. There are people sitting in a sound booth trying to figure out this experience, and they are capable of getting it wrong from your or my perspective.
But yes I share your frustration
EDIT: On a somewhat related note, check out this ELI5 that’s also up on the boards right now: [Why do some speakers suck?](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/x6qny4/eli5_why_do_high_quality_speakers_sound_better/)
It’s just the way they’re mixed and it’s annoying, 100% agree. Entirely just an intentional style choice. I thought it was going to be a passing fad but it’s still going strong after a decade. Pretty sure it’s directors wanting their action to have more impact so they just make the music and explosions etc louder instead of making the effort to get us caring about the characters and story. I get around it by running a compressor. Depending what im watching on- either a separate piece of hardware, built in to the receiver, or just software (a browser plugin called Audio Channel is pretty handy when I’m using a computer. It has a “limiter” that’s actually a compressor. And it’s free).
I haven’t really seen this explained from a technical standpoint, so here goes. Someone correct me if any of this is wrong.
Most movies are mixed in a higher-quality format that has lots of different channels of sound. Left, right, center, surrounds, top surrounds, subwoofer, etc. Most dialogue is placed heavily in the center channel so that it can be right in your face.
If you’re watching on a TV, or even certain types of sound bars that can’t decode the available audio format, then the sound is getting “down mixed” to 2-channel stereo – left/right. The dialogue is then washed out and lost in the mix. There are some TV’s that do a “dialogue boost” or similar, but YMMV with that.
The best solution is to look at a nicer sound bar that will handle most high-quality audio streams – DTS, TrueHD, Atmos, etc. Let it run the configuration setup where it measures your room, etc. Even better would be to invest in a basic 5.1 system, but you’re looking at a pretty decent chunk of change to do that, along with a lot of added complexity.
While I had a career in audio, it was not on the film side. However, I believe this is because the sound if mixed for a theater settings where it’s much easier to hear the dynamics and it makes the loud sounds jump out at you more. But at home, it can have the opposite effect. You end up setting the volume based on the loud stuff, but then the dialog is harder to hear.
I suspect it may also make a big difference if you have a surround speaker system. In that setting, the dialog has it’s own dedicated middle speaker as opposed to being folded down into a basic stereo left/right of everything combined.
Personally I wish TVs had an option to compress the dynamic range as an option. Especially with how TV commercials get so loud these days.
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