Better speakers to help with TV sound levels?

[KRSogaard]

Over the last couple of years both my wife and i have been extremely annoyed by speak, music and effects levels in movies and tv shows. Where you have to turn up the volume so much to even be able to hear what they say and then when the action starts i wake the neighbors.

Current i have a Vizio sound bar, and i was thinking that upgrading to an actual sound system with good speakers would help, thinking they save something that can normalize the sound levels a bit.

But before i go out and invest in this, would this even help, do modern AV receivers such as AVR-X8500H even have a feature like this? 

 

[tkitch]

others are better versed than I am, but as far as I'm aware, normalization is annoyingly uncommon.  >.<

 

Which Vizio soundbar?  Ours has normalization

[IPD]

I think your best bet is to try a HPF with a low-setting.  I haven't a clue how to set it up--let alone how to work it with your specific setup.  But the idea is that you mute/restrict frequencies below a certain level.

 

I don't really know about equalization WRT receivers.  Even $100 car stereos have SOME form of customizable equalization.  I had assumed it was common for pretty much every standalone receiver.  if it is, then i'd just try tweaking it (as mentioned above) to attenuate lower frequencies and amp up frequencies around the human voice.

[KRSogaard]

On 1/7/2022 at 4:35 PM, IPD said:

I think your best bet is to try a HPF with a low-setting.  I haven't a clue how to set it up--let alone how to work it with your specific setup.  But the idea is that you mute/restrict frequencies below a certain level.

 

I don't really know about equalization WRT receivers.  Even $100 car stereos have SOME form of customizable equalization.  I had assumed it was common for pretty much every standalone receiver.  if it is, then i'd just try tweaking it (as mentioned above) to attenuate lower frequencies and amp up frequencies around the human voice.

What is a HPF? i have been searching google for that acronym but cant find anything related to audio.

[IPD]

HPF is a High Pass Filter. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-pass_filter

[tikker]

On 1/7/2022 at 3:23 AM, KRSogaard said:

But before i go out and invest in this, would this even help, do modern AV receivers such as AVR-X8500H even have a feature like this? 

Yeah this is put under things like Audyssey (in case of Denon) Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume.

[wseaton]

The problem you are dealing with is the level at which the common dialogue or center channel is mixed relative to effects channels. 

 

99% of home theater gear is designed to pretend you are watching Avengers in IMAX and not be subtle about it. If its loud and boomy at Best Buy it sells better. This of course isn't ideal for apartment dwellers. You are watching a movie late at night, the dialogue levels are fine, there's a fist fight and when the bad guy punches the cop it sounds like a house falling. You grab the remote to turn the sound down. When it's a dialogue scene again you can't hear it and have to turn it back up. Annoying as hell.

 

My friends and I are pretty techy audiophiles, and we gripe about the same problem. Oddly I have yet to hear of a piece of gear that can manage this. Soundbars and AV receivers want to reproduce car crashes and gun fight at the expense of dialogue. Dynamic compression doesn't help much because it makes dialogue murkier. Cutting bass off around 100hz helps a bit more, but the problem is balance of channels, not equalization.

 

If this were a conventional 5 channel set up with a center channel and a left and right you alleviate a lot of this by cranking up the middle level with your AV receiver and setting all speakers to small so bass is restricted.

 

 You need a way to increase the center channel level relative to the front surrounds - period. Most AV receivers can do this if you have three speakers up front. Some sound bars can emulate this because they are pretending to be a full surround system.

 

Yes, dedicated speakers vs a sound bar help a lot. The smaller the speaker the less frequencies are spread apart. JBL 140s, Emotiva, Elac, etc, all make budget bookshelf speakers for less than $300 a pair that make a $800 sound bar sound like the old window hangar at the drive in. My suggestion is to get a classic budget surround with three speakers up front I suggested left right and center and combine with a cheap AV receiver that can at least boost the center channel. Rear speakers aren't necessary, but having three distinct speakers up front help you balance out this problem a great deal.

[IPD]

My cheapo 5.1 comes with a volume knob on the sub--just like a lot of 2.1 setups do.  It's not flashy, but that's the most basic way of throttling the bass.

[tikker]

6 hours ago, wseaton said:

My friends and I are pretty techy audiophiles, and we gripe about the same problem. Oddly I have yet to hear of a piece of gear that can manage this. Soundbars and AV receivers want to reproduce car crashes and gun fight at the expense of dialogue. Dynamic compression doesn't help much because it makes dialogue murkier. Cutting bass off around 100hz helps a bit more, but the problem is balance of channels, not equalization.

That has more to do with how the sound is mixed in my experience than with the gear itself. I've seen movies where dialogue is perfectly audible. I have no real issue with those on any setup from 2.0 to 5.1.2. Then there are abominations like Tenet where even in the cinema you could hardly make out any word at all while everything else was a non-stop subwoofer fest. Unfortunately the average tends more to the latter than the former from my experiences.

6 hours ago, wseaton said:

If this were a conventional 5 channel set up with a center channel and a left and right you alleviate a lot of this by cranking up the middle level with your AV receiver and setting all speakers to small so bass is restricted.

Yeah turning up the center channel helps a lot. Audyssey's Dynamic Volume works rather well however, I must say, for the rare occasion that I use it. It of course won't fix poor sound mixing.

[King_PIN]

A decent receiver will give you the option of trimming up or down each individual speaker.  

In your case you would trim down the L/R and either leave the center speaker where it is or raise the level of the center speaker. 

It's the simplest way to help.  

You can also trim down the sub the same way. 

Oh and yes the Denon x8500h will do the same as this in my pic.  This is only a x4500h. 

That's a very expensive receiver.  Do you really need allthat it offers? 

Most people would be better served with something half that like the x4700h and even that's overkill.  

Spend less on the receiver and put it towards better speakers. IMO.