(Audio) Understanding dialog in movies

[memoryleak]

Hello Community!

 

On my TV, I can barely understand the dialogues; music and background noises are very loud and overshadow the dialogues, which are most important to me. Even when I increase the volume, it gets louder, but the dialogues still remain hardly understandable for me. A brief research suggested that I might solve the problem with a soundbar - is that right, and if so -  can you recommend a soundbar for me? Audio quality is not so important to me; I'm more concerned with understanding the actors when they speak. Ideally, it would be a single bar and not a system with multiple components due to lack of space.

[OddOod]

What device are you using?
You might be able to fix it by adjusting the EQ. I use a windows PC for watching stuff and use the Loudness Equalization feature on the playback properties which does limit the highest volume I can get out of my speakers, but it levels out a bad audio mix.

 

[Motifator]

This is probably due to a crap audio setup such as internal monitor speakers and EQ'ing them will, as was said, only be a half-butted solution... sadly.

Soundbars are not a good choice, you probably want a pair of decent but small studio monitors. Think 3 inches or so, that might do. Just don't buy the sucky stuff though cause there are speakers out there even in the powered monitor section, when it comes to small... that still suck. Learned it the hard way personally.

[circeseye]

1 hour ago, Motifator said:

Soundbars are not a good choice, you probably want a pair of decent but small studio monitors. Think 3 inches or so, that might do. Just don't buy the sucky stuff though cause there are speakers out there even in the powered monitor section, when it comes to small... that still suck. Learned it the hard way personally.

i partially disagree. a decent sound bar will help. we bought a couple cheap tvs for the bedrooms. the sound was horrid. hollow voices hard to understand over other sound in the show. got this and was very pleasantly surprised at how good it sounded.

[Motifator]

At $200 I can ensure you anybody can come up with a speaker system that will blow that soundbar out of the water in every way so... no, not really. Soundbars are a waste of money IMHO.

[saintlouisbagels]

12 hours ago, Motifator said:

At $200 I can ensure you anybody can come up with a speaker system that will blow that soundbar out of the water in every way so... no, not really. Soundbars are a waste of money IMHO.

Soundbars are not a waste of money and you completely ignore the OP's needs.

They fulfill exactly what multi-component systems inherently cannot fulfill: they're a single unit, single cable, neat and tidy solution and take up minimal space.

 

I love my 2.1 setup and I also love my Sonos Beam gen 2. If I had to choose just one, I would keep the Sonos Beam because I like having extra space.

 

@memoryleak you can just pick up any Vizio, Samsung, Sony soundbar since this is purely for listening listening to dialogue.

Modern television and films are mixed with a very audio high dynamic range which does not translate well to home sound, so having a center channel is essentially required if you don't have an excellent stereo setup.

[memoryleak]

On 5/9/2024 at 4:48 PM, OddOod said:

What device are you using?
You might be able to fix it by adjusting the EQ. I use a windows PC for watching stuff and use the Loudness Equalization feature on the playback properties which does limit the highest volume I can get out of my speakers, but it levels out a bad audio mix.

 

I'm using a LG TV, pretty old one.

[Omon_Ra]

On 5/9/2024 at 1:51 PM, Motifator said:

At $200 I can ensure you anybody can come up with a speaker system that will blow that soundbar out of the water in every way so... no, not really. Soundbars are a waste of money IMHO.

OP isn't looking for studio-accurate immersive sound...just a simple, one-piece device so they can understand dialogue. And a soundbar is exactly what OP should go with. Get off the high horse..

 

On 5/10/2024 at 3:23 PM, memoryleak said:

I'm using a LG TV, pretty old one.

The issue with almost every single flat panel TV is there is so little room for speakers, and then on top of that 99% of the time those speakers are aimed straight down rather than at the viewer. Add in the fact that most people have the TV on a stand on a piece of furniture, and the sound bounces all over the place making it even more difficult to hear. I will say some of the super cheap soundbars are literally TV speakers shoved in a different box, BUT just the fact that they are aimed straight at you versus down helps a ton.

 

You'll want to check your TV to see if it has ARC, an optical/SPDIF, or only RCA (or even 1/8") audio outputs. If it's pretty old, it's likely it only has optical/SPDIF or RCA outputs. You'll be able to tell easily; if any of your HDMI ports have 'ARC' next the input name, use that. If none of the HDMI's have ARC listed, you'll need to go with optical. If you snap a pic of your HDMI inputs and the back connections, it'll be easy to identify if you aren't sure.

[memoryleak]

Thanks @saintlouisbagels and @Omon_Ra - I think you are both on point. I'll be checking the ports and based on that go with a soundbar in my budget range with the best reviews.