this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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Because they insist on mixing the audio in a shitty way so unless you want to fiddle with the audio-level every 5 seconds or have your eardrums shattered by action/suspense-scenes, you can't hear dialogue and need subs to understand what the fuck is going on...
Edit: and before people start saying "5.1 in stereo is the cause!1!!1!1", no forcing stereo does absolutely nothing to alleviate this.
The ‘problem’ is dynamic range. They mix movies with a large dynamic range because explosions and shit are a lot louder than spoken words. You are supposed to have your eardrums shattered during action scenes. That’s how it’s intended to be listened to.
Could they mix it differently? Sure, but that would mean that the people who want to watch it as intended can’t. There is also no reason to because you can simply adjust this during playback. Any half-decent A/V receiver will have an option for dynamic range compression. Just because you didn’t set up your surround sound system properly doesn’t mean the movie is badly mixed.
I don't have a surround system...I have 2.1 stereo, and even with dynamic range compression this is an issue. And it's not just explosions, things like suspenseful music is also loud as shit which is unnecessary.
I don't want eardrums shattered when watching a movie, nobody wants that, it's unpleasant and 100% unnecessary for watching at home.
They don’t mix for a 2.1 home setup, they mix for a (home) theater. You’re using a set-up meant to watch the news and maybe a soccer match to watch a movie and then complain that it’s a crappy experience. Yeah, no shit.
Cool, so you're not allowed a ~~good~~ passable movie experience if you don't invest a shitton of money for a home theater.
Quality audio doesn't have to cost a ton. You can get a quality budget Dolby ATMOS soundbar for less than $350.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hisense-5-1-2-ch-ax-series-dolby-atmos-soundbar-with-wireless-rear-satellite-speakers-wireless-subwoofer-black/6541474.p
https://www.rtings.com/soundbar/reviews/hisense/ax5125h
Buddy you can buy a 55” TV for less than that, it is utterly ridiculous to even entertain the idea that “less than $350” is a reasonable price for passable audio.
I'm sure that is a good price for the soundbar, but speaking for myself it's too big, I don't have the space for it, as I imagine many others do too. It isn't too cheap either, imo.
But that is really not the point. Not everyone is a giant movie geek, they just want to be able to understand what is being said.
Yes, of course, it's only natural to replace a 2.1 or 2.0 HiFi system with the scam that is Dolby Atmos...
Dolby Atmos does jack shit for quality audio; I say this as an audiophile. It is extremely controversial in HiFi, and not some gold standard. Additionally, the sound bar system you linked is just a facil approximation to what Atmos is, and far, far inferior to good passive stereo bookshelf speakers of the same price (I think Elac DB52s cost about $250, plus a $70 300W per channel fosi v3 amp will get you a fantastic setup. Later you could even add a $200 sub for the <60Hz range.)
Here's a Benn Jordan vid I found on the subject: https://youtu.be/5Dw3aKbw5Wo
The farthest I would ever go with surround/quadraphonic sound would be something like the Schiit Syn, which is now discontinued anyway. I have two ears: I only need to speakers. If the speakers are good and the track is well mixed, this will always lead to a better result than Dolby Atmos.
Movies like Interstellar are mixed with quiet dialogue for the dynamic range, like you say, and that can make speach difficult to understand. This is a questionable trend in movies led by Christopher Nolan but is absolutely not alleviated by Atmos.
I won't go into what I think of the trend, but I really want to emphasize that buying an overpriced consumer sound system with Atmos marketing on it will not solve the problem. Please do not invest you money into faux-HiFi! If you are going to spend that much money, spend it wisely, and don't pay attention to marketing.
There is a lot of text just to bitch to people that probably don't care about niche differences. We're talking about budget options here, not "audiophile" snake oil.
I also don't personally care about a random "audiophile" opinion, especially on a site like Lemmy. You have no credentials here, your opinion has no weight over anyone else's, that's why sites with testing and reviewing methodologies are most useful. From my experience most "audiophile" opinions usually are about as good as Monster cables were, pure overpriced snake oil. Especially when that audio opinion includes absolutely insane and anatomically inaccurate things like "I have two ears: I only need to speakers." You might as well be saying that Airpods are good enough because they're right there.
I do trust the opinion of places like Rtings where there's s defined testing methodology and direct comparisons can be taken from those. While the system I posted is definitely a generic mid-range system, it's what they recommended for a budget soundbar system, it's $350 all in. You provided anecdotal opinion and an alternative that's twice as expensive for a pair of bookshelf speakers (actually more, the MSRP of those speakers is $370 alone, plus the amp and the Sub). From a company that markets their products as the "Best Audiophile Speakers" no less. That screams of Monster cable type scam shit, even if it isn't, that's the type of snake oil marketing that drives people away now. And in an product industry where snake oil products are a dime a dozen, that's the opposite of what the serious companies usually try to do.
You have a setup that’s not suitable for watching movies and you’re trying to blame it on the movie. How is that reasonable? The content you’re trying to watch simply was never meant to be watched in that way. I’m not sure what you expect here.
Even if they did a different mix, that still wouldn’t give the intended experience of the movie, it would be at best a watered down version. You simply cannot optimize for two very different things. If they wanted it to be viewed on a TV they would have made a very different movie to begin with. There are plenty of made-for-TV movies that do exactly that.
You expect that something that was made to be shown on a huge screen, in a dark room with a high end sound system somehow magically would work on your living room TV with stereo sound. I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation.
In other words, movies are not intended to be played back at devices that aren't connected to theater-grade audio hardware.
Of course this requires the question of why movies are even released on Blu-Ray, DVD, or streaming services at all instead of just using the existing distribution system for movie theaters. Everyone who doesn't run an IMAX setup at home is too poor to watch movies.
Not just audio hardware, also a big screen, darkened room, etc.
Because there is a demand for them and they like making money?
If you’re ever in the Netherlands, go visit the Rijksmuseum and see De Nachtwacht by Rembrandt van Rijn. It’s absolutely enormous (363 by 437cm). Just look at it for a while, marvel at the details. Then go visit the gift shop and buy the 50x70cm poster.
Go home, stick the poster on your wall. Do you get the same sense of awe as you did from the full size painting? Can you even make out all the intricate details that make it so compelling? No, you can’t. It doesn’t work in that small format in your living room.
Is this Rembrandt’s fault? No, of course not. He painted it at the size it meant to be viewed at. He didn’t take into account that people would be making small posters off it almost 400 years later. Worse, if he had made the painting so that it would look good on a small poster, would that painting also have had the same impact in its full size? I’d say it wouldn’t have.
Rembrandt also made much smaller paintings, if you want a Rembrandt in your living room you’d be better off getting a reproduction of those. Does this mean that the gift shop shouldn’t be selling small posters of ‘De Nachtwacht’? There clearly is a demand for them.
Same goes for movies. They didn’t set out to make a movie to view at home, they set out to make a movie to be viewed in the theater. Could they have made on that worked at home. Sure, but then it wouldn’t have worked in the theater. Should they not sell them on BluRay when there is clearly a demand for them? There are plenty of people who do have a nice setup at home that does the movie justice.
No, you can go to the theater or watch made-for-TV movies. The fact that blockbuster movies are made for the theater doesn’t prevent anyone from making TV movies, and they do make them. Just not that particular movie.
The problem is that you didn’t actually want to see that movie, you wanted a similar but different movie, one that would have worked on a regular living room TV. But that’s not the movie they decided to make. You bought the small Rembrandt poster and now you’re complaining that you can’t see the details and the painting kind of sucks because of it.
By that measure, most movie theaters also shouldn't be showing movies – very few of them have the precise setup a given movie was mastered for. If the movie was made with IMAX laser projection in mind, it should only be down in theaters with such projectors even if this excludes 95% of theaters. Likewise for rumble seats. Or theaters with Atmos sound systems if the movie was made with DTS-X in mind.
Of course this leads to the conclusion that it's financially unwise to release movies at all because any movie will only ever be able to be shown in very few theaters and will not recoup its production costs.
Or, you know, you release it for multiple projection and sound setups and accept that there is a close enough level of fidelity for a given use case. Which leads us back to actually properly mixing it for the home release because the people who have IMAX laser 3D projectors and 12,000 W sound systems are not going to be using Blu-Ray in the first place.
That’s what calibration is for. You master using a reference display and whatever you use in the theater should be calibrated to the same specs.
Why would that be a problem? DTS:X is more flexible with speaker layout than Atmos. If you have a theater with a speaker layout for Atmos it should be no issue to use them with a DTS:X processor.
How do you go from “Atmos and DTS:X in a theater are close enough to give a similar experience” to “we should mix it for a bunch of crappy 2.0 TV speakers” ?
If you mix it for such an inferior setup, nothing is left of the original movie. Sounds i a huge part of the movie experience. Try watching a scary movie with the sound muted, it’s not scary at all. If you mix it for a TV’s built in speakers, nothing of value is left. What is even the point of watching a movie like that?
You got a smidge of a point. Yes, movie surround sound is mastered for (home) cinemas and if that’s the setup you have, it works. You don’t even need a fancy setup. I have a cheap old 5.1 system and when I’m in the mood for a home cinema experience, including the volume, it works great.
However, there’s no excuse for studios to not provide a more compressed TV mix because not everyone has a home cinema or the capability of turning up the volume without angry neighbours kicking down your door. Especially for Series and direct-to-streaming movies that never had a theatrical release but just drop on Netflix one day. Because there are plenty of those that are also not mixed for quieter soundsystems, TV speakers or people who cannot or don’t want to turn up the volume.
So yes. I expect the audio to work well on my living room TV. Because I’m paying to watch it on a service that’s available on on my living room TV and Studios know that the vast majority of people do not have a home cinema. It is thus, in my opinion, a reasonable expectation, for any movie that released past the DVD age, to have an audio track that doesn’t require me to own a home theatre. Because you can optimise for two things, by just having two audio tracks. Some movies on Netflix even have a dedicated stereo tracks available. Why can’t that be the norm?
Or, those streaming services could offer a setting to compress the dynamic range for home viewing. My AppleTV actually has that function built in and it’s very useful when you want to watch something late at night without waking the whole house up. Sadly, most streaming services use their own media player instead of the native one and don’t have a comparable feature…
That said, I very much don’t want a compressed dynamic range sound mix to become the only one available. I happen to have a setup that can just about handle a higher dynamic range in most of cases, if I can/want to raise the volume accordingly and I usually like it that way.
I think this depends on how you see movies. Do you see them as art or just a form of entertainment?
For me, it’s about how the movie makes me feel. I think movies are art, and art is meant to make you feel things. If I watch a movie I want to be overwhelmed by the action, I want to be moved by the music swelling at that emotional moment, I want to be creeped out by that scary scene in the spooky house with the wind howling all around me.
You don’t get that if you watch in a bright room with a 2.0 sound track with no dynamic range. To me there is no point in even watching a movie if it can’t immerse me in the movie and make me feel all those things.
I sorta agree with you, except that I've worked in audio before, and you can in fact mix for HiFi and normal people at the same time. That is actually what like 90% of mixing/mastering is. Making it sound good everywhere.
I also hard disagree on not being able to get a good experience with 2.0. Spend a couple thousand (obviously not everyone needs to do this) on 2.0 tower speakers, maybe add a sub (technically now 2.1), and you will almost certainly get a better experience than 99% of pre-build everything-in-the-box surround sound systems.
You can, of course, build you own surround sound system for more than a few thousand, but that is a radically different price range, which I don't think is really relevant to this conversation (I certainly don't have that kind of money to spend on a speaker that I'm only using when watching movies). I think it is borderline poor-shaming (or really just not-rich-shaming) to say that movies can only have audible dialogue at $10,000 surround sound systems. Before that, 2.0 or 2.1 will almost always be a better investment.
It doesn’t have to be expensive at all. You can get a 5.1 setup with a decent amp, floor-standing fronts, bookshelf surrounds, a center and a subwoofer for as little as €3000, and that will blow any sound bar in the same price range out of the water. Add a nice 77” OLED, pick last year’s model for a good deal and you can have a home theater setup that will be good enough for 99,9% of people for less than €5k.
Why do you think I would use it only for movies? I have never even heard the speakers in my TV because disabling them was the first thing I did after unboxing. I use my 5.1.4 set all the time. Why wouldn’t you?
No one says you need to spend that amount of money, it can be much, much cheaper. €3k can get you a pretty nice set, but you can build a passable one for half that.
You misunderstand me. My principal point is that any 2.0/2.1 (i.e., stereo) setup will always be better than the surround sound system of equal price.
That axiom only starts changing when talking about exceedingly expensive setups (e.g., spending 10k on a custom Elac or KEF system). Until then, a stereo system will have better value 99% of the time.
As for my comment on spending money on speakers I would only use for movies: surround sound only has a real advantage for movies, for other activities stereo speakers of the same price will undisputedly be better. I would hate to spend 3k on a surround system, when I'll use my 3k stereo system for most of my listening anyway (this is an example).
But I see that we have very different values (and likely different budgets) when it comes to audio.
Define better? Better depends on what your application is. They won’t be better at playing object-based surround sound. Both kinds of systems are set up for a different purpose. For example, in my home theater I want a subwoofer that makes me feel explosions in my gut. That’s not what I look for in the low-end of my 2.x system.
Of course, but we were talking about sound systems for use with your TV for watching movies.
That’s why you have both kinds of systems.
I use both regularly, but at different times of the day and for different purposes. I use my HT system when watching a movie or series in the evening. I use my 2.0 system during the day while I’m working or relaxing on the weekend.
I'm not sure why you get so much down voted while you are right. It's similar how people want to play a 4k movie on a 1080p screen...
Personally, I have experienced that when you're downmixing a 5.1 to 2.1 solves all the issues OP is talking about.
I'm only an amateur but did some video/audio encoding and it's a bit more complex than what I'm saying here, but it does indead solves the issue.
People underestimate how big of a difference it makes.
If you ever get the chance to do this on a decent home theater: grab a blu-ray copy of the LoTR trilogy. 1080p, 5.1 audio. Should be pretty good right? Watch it for a couple of minutes. Then switch to the UHD blu-ray (4k HDR, Dolby Atmos). It’s a night and day difference. The 1080p version is fine, but the UHD version just draws you in. It’s almost addictive, once you turn it on you can’t look away. Before you know it you’ve watched the entire trilogy.
It’s shocking how much better the experience is, it’s like a completely different movie.
Who else out here still watching on DVD?
For the folks disagreeing with you, I think a helpful analogy might be to think of it like a recipe.
If you try to make a fancy dish at home without the high quality equipment and ingredients the chef had, it's not gonna turn out like the chef intended, and it's not the chef's fault or a bad recipe.
It's art meant to be enjoyed in a particular fashion, and will naturally be less enjoyable when prepared or consumed in another manner.
There's a valid argument to be made for remixing it for shitty speakers, since it doesn't seem hard and would make a lot of people happy, but artists shouldn't be obligated to bastardize their work if they don't want to