Voices. Why always so difficult to make out?

[Sonikku]

It seems like every single dvd and Starz program is made with the assumption you have a 5.1 surround sound system with a center speaker for dialogue. What do people do with 2.0 stereo do to get the characters words audible without having to raise/lower the volume every time there's a tremendous amount of bass and loud soundtracks?

 

[sdifox]

You should be able to set the output type of your cable/satellite box no?

 

[Phanuel]

Seems like a mixing issue in some piece of hardware on your end. I've never noticed an issue at my parents with their 2.0 system.

 

[purbeast0]

sounds like you might want to turn your bass down too.

 

[Oyeve]

I use auto-sound leveling on my TV for those bad sounding stations. My TV also has several sound modes including one for voice.

 

[SlickSnake]

Movies are no longer mixed with any consideration at all given for the archaic 2.0 stereo mixes. All you get now is the condensed version of 5.1-7.1 mixed down for 2.0 unless you are playing a movie made when 2.0 was the norm.

If the DVD player and TV are the only 2 things in your chain, then you also need to make sure the DVD player is defaulting to 2.0 sound, or you are losing out on the down mixed version which includes the center channel sound.

The solution is get a 5.1 surround system, then at least you can better regulate the center channel volume.

 

[Phanuel]

Most dvds still have a downmix 2.0 stereo channel in them. And if you have a decent receiver it should be able to take a 5.1 and make a phantom center channel and override the L and R channels with the phantom center.

 

[olds]

Setting on users end.

 

[LoveMachine]

Most dvds still have a downmix 2.0 stereo channel in them. And if you have a decent receiver it should be able to take a 5.1 and make a phantom center channel and override the L and R channels with the phantom center.

Yep. For example, DTS encoded 5.1 material still uses a "core" 2.0 channel audio stream, and adds the additional material on top of that. So if your receiver/player is only outputting 2.0, the extra stuff is stripped off and the core 2.0 is played. You aren't doing anything wrong. The primary fault often lies in the original mixing. In the theater, it's OK to have a large dynamic range, but home environment ain't a theater, and the low level dialogue gets washed out. My Onkyo AVR has Audessey DRC that helps considerably, but I usually end up having to turn down the bass (but not the LFE/Sub) to reduce muddiness on lower male voices.

 

[Gintaras]

Vocals/voices are mostly in mid frequencies...