@MrLovenstein@mastodon.social (toot)
Subtitles are great for this, but also investing in actual speakers instead of a soundbar or the tv’s speakers.
If the movie has multiple sound channels beyond left/right, then dialogue is usually one of those channels and can come from a specific speaker, making it less muddied than when mixed with other sounds.
If the movie doesn’t have multiple channels, the speakers might still help a little just by being better quality.
There are a ton of reasons why audio mixes for movies are fraught with quality issues during home viewing, and “people have crappy equipment” is the weakest and lest-compelling of them.
An interesting read. Yeah, it’s complicated.
I think sound has been a bit under-appreciated compared to visual effects/quality in recent years.
It is definitely under-appreciated. A lot of people don’t care, or don’t know what they’re missing. Some people get intimidated with the technical aspects of the setup. So even people that want a better experience are shy about it. Then they see lies on the sound bar box and think that’s a great solution. Sound bars are better than TV speakers, but they’re not a replacement for a real surround sound system.
What’s wrong with sound bars? I don’t want my whole living room redesigned with speakers everywhere, I just want stereo and each frequency to sound decent.
No amount of software will make speakers in front of you sound like they’re behind you. Plus there’s not really much distance between the speakers in the sound bar, so even the main speakers are very center focused. Lastly, they’re small speakers. You can create a lot of sound with small speakers, but it will never fill a room like large speakers, they just can’t push enough air. I can hear my big floor standing speakers at reasonable volume throughout the house. I’d have to turn smaller speakers up to painful levels to hear them in the other room.
I’m intrigued by this - do you mean that the smaller speakers sound unpleasant at the same volume you need to hear it in the other room, or that a literal higher volume is required? The latter goes against how I thought sound worked!
I do not understand where this comes from. I do not want sound behind me. Thats also why I stare at a flat screen in front of me. To each their own, but there should be the option to have a decent nighttime stereo mix.
but also investing in actual speakers instead of a soundbar or the tv’s speakers.
NO God Dammit, just NO. It’s completely unreasonable to expect a full multi speaker 5.1 or better surround system on every fucking TV so people can comfortably hear the dialogue! There’s absolutely no reason that a quality soundbar can’t provide a decent audio experience. NONE.
You’re really passionate about this, so change your audio setting to stereo and you’ll notice an improvement. A 5.1 system isn’t required, but it dramatically improves your viewing experience. You can get an affordable used system in a lot of places. I suggest checking the thrift store. In some areas the thrift stores are just a garbage dump, but if you check the nice areas periodically then you can build a great 5.1 system over time for just a couple hundred dollars or less. I’ve seen Polk audio subs for $10, Klipsch floor standing speakers for $20, Yamaha home theater amps for $10, and a bunch of other great deals. Half my system is from the thrift store, but it was all from there until not too long ago.
