As mentioned elsewhere: no problem with youtube videos (even with hard accents like scottish) but a world of pain for tv shows and movies. On the same TV.
Oh, and the youtube videos don't have the infamous mixing issues of "voices too low, explosions too high".
It's the source material, not the device. Stop accusing TV speakers, they are ok-tier.
So what about older films? Can you understand Die Hard on the same set? What about Lord of the Rings? That would help to determine whether it's newer films or your newer speakers that are the problem since millions of people have enjoyed those films with no problems.
Replying late, but yes, I have less trouble with older films. It is a mix of more articulate acting (worse on-set mics so actors spoke rather than mutter), and less over-the-top mixing.
For current movies, some of the most legible are "children" oriented movies: I watched the Dragons set and it was trouble-free.
Many tvs have special sound modes for old people that boost the vocal range significantly. Makes the overall audio sound like crap, so pretty close match for youtube audio.
You do realize that "voices too low, explosions too high" is because of the audio mixing in the movies and how it sounds on shitty integrated speakers right?
When you have a good setup those same movies sound incredible, Nolan films are a perfect example.
I understand it perfectly well, yes. It is an audio mixing made for theaters with sound isolation so that it's absolutely possible to hear the dialogue. I have no trouble understanding the dialogue with the volume tuned up to what I would have in a theater.
Yet I do live in a flat, in Paris, with neighbors on the same floor, on the floor above, and on the floor below. Thus I tune the volume to something that is acceptable in this context.
Or I should say, I spend the whole movie with the remote in my hand, tuning the volume up and down between voices and explosions.
Theatre mix is a bad home mix. It is valid for home cinema. Not for everyday living room.
Yes I could buy a receiver and manually EQ all channels and yadda yadda yadda. I live in an apartment. My 65" LG C2 TV is already ginormous by parisian flat standards. Ain't nobody got space for a dedicated receiver and speakers and whatnot. I tuned the audio, and some properly mixed movies actually sound great!
As an added bonus, I had troubles with "House of Guinness" recently both on my TV and with good headphones, where I also did the volume dance.
IMHO there's no care spent on the stereo mixes of current movies and TV shows. And to keep your example, Nolan shows are some of the most understandable and legible on my current setup :)
Another fact is, I have no trouble with YouTube videos in many languages and style, or with video games. You know, stuff that care about legibility in the home.
Soundbars are a good option, but spend some time reading reviews as there is a huge gap between the cheaper ones and good quality that will actually make a difference.
My brother has 2 of the apple speakers in stereo mode and they sound pretty good imo.
I have an eye-wateringly expensive 7.1 surround system in the living room, and a pair of full size HomePods either side of the TV in my studio. I prefer the audio from the HomePods.
I'm listening to a majority of video content in my stereo headphones on PC. They are good and quality of every source is good. Everything sounds fine except for some movie and some TV shows specifically. And those are atrocious in clarity.
Regarding internal speakers, I have listened to several cheap to medium TVs on internal speakers, and yes on some models the sound was bad. But it doesn't matter, because the most mangled frequencies are high and low, and that's not the voice ones. When I listen on the TV with meh internal speakers I can clearly understand without any distortion voices in the normal TV programming, in sports TV, in old TV shows and old movies. The only offenders again are some of he new content.
So no, it's not the internal speakers who are at fault, at all.
> Do you spend the effort of specifically selecting stereo tracks (or adjusting how it gets downmixed)?
Umm, isn't that literally a job description of a sound engineer, who on a big production probably makes more in a year than I will do in my whole lifetime?
Is spending a few hours one time to adjust levels on a track, which will run for likely millions of hours across the world such a big ask? I think no, because not every modern movie is illegible, some producers clearly spend a bit of effort to do just that what you wrote. But some just don't care.
> Umm, isn't that literally a job description of a sound engineer, who on a big production probably makes more in a year than I will do in my whole lifetime?
Well, if your setup is stereo then either selecting a stereo track is your job, or your job is to adjust the downmix that is done by your computer because you didn't select the stereo track.
I agree that providing a good stereo mix is the sound engineer's job, but nothing beyond that.
> I agree that providing a good stereo mix is the sound engineer's job, but nothing beyond that.
That's the whole point of this whole thread, no one asks for anything more or out of ordinary. Stereo tracks sometimes have unreasonably bad quality. Nolan even admitted he does this on purpose.
Do you realize that phones, tablets, laptops, most PCs don't have an option of "just add speakers"? You are technically correct, yes full Dolby Duper Atmo 9.2.4.8.100500 system is better. But people without them are not using their setups incorrectly, they have valid setups they have valid use case and they don't get basic level of quality which IS possible and WAS possible just a few years ago with proper channel mixing.
It is entirely the fault of people buying shitty plastic shovelware pc laptops that they ended up with laptops with dogshit speakers. You can buy laptops with good sounding speakers
If you are at an arm's length from a proper amplifier/speaker setup, why are you using a tiny screen to watch movies? (that was a rhetorical question)
Phone/tablet/laptop etc. in my top comment was not a technological limitation, like "oh no, we don't have a port or protocol to connect o speakers and so we can't use them". It was a logistical limitation. Like being physically in place without speakers or possibility to even buy them. Traveling, renting, having big family and only one set of speakers, and so on. Situations where you can't just pluck a Dolby setup from a thin air but do still watch movies.
Here is a datapoint - in the whole world around 1-2 *billion* headphones are sold, every single year. I would bet that at least a double digit percentage of those numbers had been used to watch a movie at least once. Proposing that all those people in all those situations bought themselves a surround speaker setup just to understand voice track in the movies is an inane take.
Dude, you are completely daft here, bringing some imaginary stuff like "morality" and "equity" into a technical discussion. The fact is that sound producers can easily fix stereo tracks to be legible and they actually did it for decades, before the recent hype came. And you are white knighting billionaires working for megacorps, for no discernible reason. What would happen to you personally if Nolans of the world would mix a better stereo track (which they already do anyway)? Your ego will be hurt? Or what? No one is "taking" precious Dolby Atmo from you. Better stereo tracks can exist in this world at the same time as theatrical surround tracks, surprise surprise.
They are notorious for bad vocal range audio.
I have a decent surround sound and had no issues at all.