It's not just you. It's Hollywood, baby!

 

A couple hundred messages responded to his video agreeing that if watching at home, then when you turn up volume to hear the spoken words, then the background music and sound effects blow out the speakers. It is not your hearing that is at fault.

EDIT: And this does not happen with older movies.

Edited April 1, 20251 yr by Fielder

I haven't watched that video yet, but to me it seems it's a general tendency indeed. Not only for theatre movies, but also in many videos on Youtube.

It's as if the sounds and musics are nice, but people are speaking with a pillow on their face while swimming underwater...

A few days ago my brother watched "Interstellar" on TV.... I asked him to lower the volume because there was some loud music and the walls were trembling... then suddenly some small whispering from the actors... This is ridiculous.

 

 

Hollywood is dead to me.  I have not seen a movie in a theater in well over a decade and when I try to watch one on TV, between not being able to hear the dialogue and plots that don't interest me, I usually turn off the TV and listen to music.

3 hours ago, stans said:

Hollywood is dead to me.  I have not seen a movie in a theater in well over a decade and when I try to watch one on TV, between not being able to hear the dialogue and plots that don't interest me, I usually turn off the TV and listen to music.

Same “hear”.

 

If you have a newer TV and Netflix or other service, you can adjust for the loud music covering dialog
by turning off any "Surround Sound" and just using Stereo sound.  Make the adjustment on the TV and/or
any service like Netflix, Prime, or such!

Most folks don't have the Surround sound speakers set up and are just using the TV speakers or a Sound-
bar.

I agree completely.  It is hard to understand what the characters are saying due to the overly loud music or sound effects, which should be in the background.

Modern TVs can compensate for some of this, but it still needs to be fixed at the production level.

Dave

For anyone of you planning a MSFS Youtube channel, make an extremely loud jet roar with metal music intro. And then speak softly.

This has been a movie issue for many years now. The only solution that works is keeping the volume medium and turning on Closed Caption. We never miss any words now.

• Check your TV's audio settings:

  • Many TVs have presets for different types of viewing (sports, talk, movie, etc.). 
     
  • Some allow you to adjust dynamic range and emphasize different parts of the audio. 
     
  • Try different modes, such as turning surround off or going with simple stereo or mono. 
     
  • Some even have options for emphasizing dialogue. 
     
  • Explore the internal audio menus and try different settings. 
     
• Adjust audio settings on your source device:

  • If you're using a cable box, satellite receiver, or digital receiver, check its audio settings as well. 
     
  • These devices may have options to emphasize different parts of the audio range. 

  I still want to emphasize:  Turn off any 5.1 Surround Sound settings if you don't have that
  sort of speaker system.  Use Stereo Setting!

  Like Bob mentions in the next post...Voices come from the rear speakers in a Surround
  System.  If you don't have those speakers set up, then the voices mix with the front speakers
  which handle the music and effects.

  

   

   

I've found that having a large center channel speaker with the gain on it turned up helps a lot--a lot of the voice dialogue seems to be mixed at a higher level to the center channel.

Using synthetic surround like Yamaha's "7-channel enhancer" mixes the channels carrying the environmental effects with the speech, resulting in masking speech to some degree.

It's ironic that nowadays there are so many options for TV sound that basically allow you to recreate what it's like to listen to programs as if you were at a movie theater, which is the experience I'd like to avoid 😜.

Around 30 years ago, I took my mother to the Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Baily circus just for old times' sake.  I was shocked by how loud the music that was pumped into the arena was, just a constant bombardment of sound.  It seems like everything is like that nowadays.  NBA games now have loud music while the game is underway, as if the action on the court either isn't entertaining enough or the fans are too dumb to realize that something exciting is happening.  Several years ago, I saw a game on TV between the Warriors and the Knicks at Madison Square Garden where they purposely didn't play all that music.  I really enjoyed that, you could actually here the action on the court better, the squeaks of their sneakers as they made cuts and the thumps of the ball when dribbled.  Yet afterwards the players complained about the lack of all that loud music during play.  Noise pollution is really off the charts.

I went to the Cinema a couple of weeks ago first time in a VERY LONG TIME. My friend invited me out and paid for the tickets. We went to see Beyone Led Zeppelin in an IMAX Cinema. Was never really big into Led Zep but I like their story. This in IMAX with all the sound engineering I will admit was the coolest thing I ever seen on a big screen, and the fact it was a Documentary made it even better, need more stuff like this in IMAX

 

5 hours ago, Matthew Kane said:

Led Zeppelin

Back in the 1960s I had a childhood neighborhood friend named Charlie. He was a nice guy, but not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.  He always thought that the name of that band was “Ed Zeppelin”.

I have an old TV set that doesn't even connect to the internet let alone audio tweaks.  But since I watch mostly old movies on TCM and old series like Lawe and Order, Columbo and Gunsmoke I seldom  notice what you are talking about.  And I still need captions...even with my hearing aids.  When something comes on with blaring sound effects I just turn to another channel.

Noel