Poor TV sound

[Chuckanut]

Below is an interesting article that explains why many of us have to turn on the subtitles in order to understand the dialog on TV shows and movies.
It's not necessarily our ears, or even the heavy accent of some of the actors on British TV. It's the way the sound was recorded and played back by the TV.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cant-h...ot-you-probably-11669400315?mod=hp_lead_pos11

Since it's behind a paywall here are a few quotes.

Muddled audio is the top reason why more people are watching video with on-screen text, according to a May survey commissioned by language-teaching app Preply. As more video-production studios embrace advanced audio formats for at-home content, not every device can keep up. Plenty of viewers can’t keep up, either.

But your TV is just one of the culprits.

The professionals have advanced audio capabilities at their disposal, but they might not translate clearly on devices that aren’t built to support state-of-the-art audio, Mr. Nevens said. For this reason, a movie designed to sound great in a giant theater might not sound the same on your smartphone—or your TV.

In recent years, directors have gravitated toward making their films and TV shows look and sound as though the events are larger than life, even if that means viewers might struggle to make out the dialogue, said David Bondelevitch, who teaches recording arts at the University of Colorado Denver and works as a sound designer on documentaries and other projects.

That flat-screen TV with downward-facing speakers? Place it on a bare table or stand to give the sound something to bounce off, rather than hanging it on a wall.

If you are planning to buy a soundbar, make sure it has at least three channels, or speakers, Mr. Bondelevitch said. The center channel will help dialogue sound clearer.

 

[38Chevy454]

A soundbar is the solution. I think the biggest problem is that TVs now are so slim, the speakers are too small and not able to make good sound. In addition to the factors listed quoted in the article.

 

[eytonxav]

DW and I have difficulty understanding dialog especially from many movies. I must say that my new Samsung S95 TV is producing much better sound and clearer dialog vs our 2015 Samsung.

 

[skipro33]

Even with sophisticated sound bars and multi-speaker systems, I also find that speech is overpowered by the music or background sounds. For example, every evening I watch NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. The first few minutes of lead-in has such overpowering "music", that I can't understand a single word he's saying.
Shows like The Voice or America's Got Talent has me wondering what the heck the judges are listening to because the contestant sounds like crap to me with muddy lyrics, overpowering music track, etc. I used to work as an audio sound engineer for touring live concerts and know how to set up and mix the audio for different venues and I'm sure it's not the engineers at fault.
And it's not just regular TV, but the movie theaters as well. I recently got my DVD of Top Gun Maverick and I'm amazed to read the closed caption dialog and finally understand some of what had been confusing to me during the theater presentation. The audio wasn't any better on the DVD regarding dialog, but the surround sound experience in my own media room sure was improved. It's very immersive.

 

[Jerry1]

I have a Bose TV Speaker - basically, a small sound bar. It has a function/button to enhance speech. It works pretty good to put the speech into the forefront.

 

[Beldar]

We usually turn on Closed Captioning when the reporters from Scotland start talking on BBC news. Unpossible for us.


_B

 

[djsander]

As skipro33 mentioned it’s the loud music and background noise. Then the characters try to be realistic by whispering so no one including us can hear them. One article I read said they pay so much for music especially well known songs they turn it up. I’ve got a sound bar yet sometimes the characters seem to mumble and are incoherent. I know it’s them and not the equipment. One TV show the first season they blared out the background music so much you could hardly hear the dialog.

 

[Aerides]

Tenet and Dune come to mind. Dune had lots of whispering; Tenet seemed to deliberately include mumbling and messy sound, a frequent choice of the director.

 

[Sunset]

TV's with the speakers on the back don't help with the sound.

We just watched Wednesday and it seemed like the speech was speeded up, everybody talked really fast so it wasn't clear at times. We replayed parts to hear what was said.

Not like those old Westerns where everyone talked... very ... slowly...

 

[Sue J]

Glad to see this topic, I thought I was the only one!

For 2 of our TVs we have added the soundbar which really helps. For the living room TV we have the sound coming through a regular amplifier and a nice set of speakers. But for some shows, particularly where there are accents, I will still put on the closed captioning.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Even with sophisticated sound bars and multi-speaker systems, I also find that speech is overpowered by the music or background sounds. For example, every evening I watch NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. The first few minutes of lead-in has such overpowering "music", that I can't understand a single word he's saying.

Shows like The Voice or America's Got Talent has me wondering what the heck the judges are listening to because the contestant sounds like crap to me with muddy lyrics, overpowering music track, etc.

Ah yes, NBC Network TV crap audio. NBC sounds lousy on any system--TV, TV with soundbar, TV with AVR and 5 channel stereo. It just sucks. Near as I can tell NBC forces 5.1 Dolby sound onto any device. I have a 3.1 stereo system and I routinely set my AVR to either 2 channel or all-channel. This removes NBC's sounds processing and allows me to hear the dialog a bit more clearly.

It's the only network or streaming channel my system has a problem presenting clearly.

 

[Music Lover]

I've watched TV through a pair of good speakers for almost 40 years, from RCA cables out of the back of the VCR to a receiver to HDMI cables today. But in the last few years the dialogue has become too quiet to be heard over the "background" music. I'm wondering now if I'll have to buy a center speaker so the dialogue can be turned up.

 

[Music Lover]

Ah yes, NBC Network TV crap audio. NBC sounds lousy on any system--TV, TV with soundbar, TV with AVR and 5 channel stereo. It just sucks. Near as I can tell NBC forces 5.1 Dolby sound onto any device. I have a 3.1 stereo system and I routinely set my AVR to either 2 channel or all-channel. This removes NBC's sounds processing and allows me to hear the dialog a bit more clearly.

It's the only network or streaming channel my system has a problem presenting clearly.

I've also found that keeping the receiver on 2 channel stereo gives the best results.

 

[COcheesehead]

A quality sound bar - tuned to your space - makes a huge difference.

 

[ERD50]

I've watched TV through a pair of good speakers for almost 40 years, from RCA cables out of the back of the VCR to a receiver to HDMI cables today. But in the last few years the dialogue has become too quiet to be heard over the "background" music. I'm wondering now if I'll have to buy a center speaker so the dialogue can be turned up.

My 5.1 receiver has a calibration routine and microphone. I've been thinking about putting a towel over the center speaker for the calibration, to fool it into boosting the volume and highs a bit.

Someday.

-ERD50

 

[old medic]

Glad to see this topic, I thought I was the only one!

Same here...Its amazed me on how much stuff in movies I have missed before after starting using CC... and on movies Ive seen many times.
Our main TV has a sound bar, but the bedroom doesn't have room for one.
And at times I find myself backing up to re-read since what I heard and read don't match...

 

[DrRoy]

For our big screen, we put the sound through the 5 channel surround system.

 

[JoeWras]

We live in a busy world that can't stand quiet and escape.

It has come to TV and the movies.

Have you noticed that even the graphics make sound on many news and TV shows? When they post the graphic, they frequently run some sort of background sound with it.

Just too much density.

I'm a David Lynch fan and he was one of the new age directors who loved dense sound. He personally helps mix every project he directs. He still manages to get the dialog up above his crazy sound mixes though. Nolan, however, loves to bury dialog. He's the new new age.

 

[audreyh1]

We play sound through our audio system, we don’t use the TV speakers. Main room has surround system. Even bedroom has stereo with woofer.

But many shows today are recorded with background noise or music too high and/or muddled dialog. It seems to be a thing.

Regardless, we’ve used captions for >10 years. It started with the Brit shows and varied strong accents. Then we discovered that we could understand even the American shows much better! So they’ve stayed.

 

[zinger1457]

My 5.1 receiver has a calibration routine and microphone. I've been thinking about putting a towel over the center speaker for the calibration, to fool it into boosting the volume and highs a bit.

Someday.

-ERD50

I have a 7.1 surround system and do a similar calibration with my Denon receiver using Audyssey, you can always go in afterwards and manually adjust the levels up or down for each channel. When I run the calibration the center channel level is usually set at around -4db which seems to work OK for my setup. IMO having a quality center channel speaker makes a big difference when it comes to dialogue clarity.
There are other controls that can be activated in the receiver to limit volume level changes that sometimes occur, especially when going to commercials. Agree with the article comment that the audio source sometimes might be beyond what some speaker systems or soundbars can handle resulting in poor sound.

 

[Dreamer]

Count me as another person that has CC on both TVs. My 44 yr old son came over to watch the Ohio State football fiasco yesterday and asked why we were using it.

 

[ERD50]

I have a 7.1 surround system and do a similar calibration with my Denon receiver using Audyssey, you can always go in afterwards and manually adjust the levels up or down for each channel. When I run the calibration the center channel level is usually set at around -4db which seems to work OK for my setup. IMO having a quality center channel speaker makes a big difference when it comes to dialogue clarity.
There are other controls that can be activated in the receiver to limit volume level changes that sometimes occur, especially when going to commercials. Agree with the article comment that the audio source sometimes might be beyond what some speaker systems or soundbars can handle resulting in poor sound.

I'll have to read the manual (SONY STR-DH590) to see if I can tweak it after a calibration, IIRC, tweaking was only for manual mode? Even if I can tweak the volume, pretty sure I could not individually tweak the response, and a little trial and error with a towel to dull the sound a bit (which would then be boosted during calibration) might help with dialog.

-ERD50

 

[Music Lover]

Agree with the article comment that the audio source sometimes might be beyond what some speaker systems or soundbars can handle resulting in poor sound.

I have very good speakers but the dialogue is still too quiet, so it's not the fault of inferior equipment.

 

[teetee]

Tenet and Dune come to mind. Dune had lots of whispering; Tenet seemed to deliberately include mumbling and messy sound, a frequent choice of the director.

All of Chris Nolan's films (including Tenet) have stupidly loud bass background sound (more of a noise than the music from my perspective) and wash out any conversation you may want to hear.

He should be more confident of his directing skills and stop using the cheap sound tactic to create the emersive experience. It is the reason I never watched his movies more than once even when I really need to, in order to understand what tenet story is about.

 

[FIYes]

Excessive background noise is a real problem. One of our televisions is very bad at this. There are broadcast shows that I simply can’t watch on one of the televisions. I have repeatedly tinkered with settings, but it is still a problem.