...as used in modern movies, and particularly DVD mixes, REALLY sucks. I hate missing half the dialog, then being deafened by a bunch of overdriven, clippy sound effects or music. That is all.
...as used in modern movies, and particularly DVD mixes, REALLY sucks. I hate missing half the dialog, then being deafened by a bunch of overdriven, clippy sound effects or music. That is all.
That's actually "feature" of modern BluRays, they have the space on the disc now to do such things.
It's not the movies, that's how they're all recorded, it's just that now they're able to more accurately write that to the media.
Unfortunately, it does make things a bit "interesting" when you're trying to watch a movie late at night, quietly.
Many receivers have a night mode. Check your manual.
Yeah, its gotten so bad that I automatically turn on the subtitles as the wife will miss a piece of dialog (TBH, my hearing is better than hers as I can hear her phone ringing from the other room during the movie)
I have the opposite issue with music. No dynamic range whatsoever.
I agree it's annoying. In order to hear the softer bits of dialogue, you have to turn the volume up so far that the louder music and sound effects causes significant shaking of the walls.
This really bothered me when I was burning thru my ST:TNG set 2 years back.
Which is why I don't listen to NIN much anymore. I can't hear half of it because Trent Reznor is an artsy-fartsy type playing around with super quiet sections in songs (and albums) when I just want to listen to some hard hitting industrial.
I'm sure that it's excellent, don't get me wrong, but if I can't even hear it then I can't even make an observation, you know?
I can't stand that E36 M3, the loudness war has overtaken everything.
if you're playing the movies on a windows pc like we do, there's a program you can download that sets a hard limit on max volume. You can turn it up to hear the quiet bits but it caps the loud bits at your preferred setting.
Found the link to the article about it on lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5951284/how-to-fix-movies-that-are-really-quiet-then-really-loudredux
I used to have that issue listening to music in my van. There's so much wind noise at interstate speed I had to crank it to hear anything quiet at all, then the loud bits were almost deafening.
scardeal wrote: I have the opposite issue with music. No dynamic range whatsoever.
Quit listening to compressed music. 
Modern directors taking cues from abusive, late night TV commercials? Who knew?
Subtitles. Done it for years.
Grizz wrote: Subtitles. Done it for years.
ditto
z31maniac wrote:scardeal wrote: I have the opposite issue with music. No dynamic range whatsoever.Quit listening to compressed music.
It's not even really that, unless you want to make the argument that even CDs are compressed. The "Loudness Wars" is real when it comes to music.
But not when it comes to movies. What made movies easier to listen to in the past WAS that compression.
Appleseed wrote: Modern directors taking cues from abusive, late night TV commercials? Who knew?
Not really... 
You're just finally seeing the technology that results in less compression allowing more dynamic range in movies. What you're hearing is more true to how movies have been recorded for decades.
Well, quit it .
z31maniac wrote:scardeal wrote: I have the opposite issue with music. No dynamic range whatsoever.Quit listening to compressed music.
Are you talking about compression algorithms, eg MP3, or the studio mixing?
z31maniac wrote:scardeal wrote: I have the opposite issue with music. No dynamic range whatsoever.Quit listening to compressed music.
Good luck finding any that isn't these days. The problem is almost all modern music has been affected by the loudness wars, even the stuff that's being put on vinyl, it all gets mastered hot.
DBX Compressor/Limiter.
JoeyM wrote:Grizz wrote: Subtitles. Done it for years.ditto
If I wanted to read what was going on, I'd buy the berking book.
But yeah, I put the subtitles on, too. Started doing that recently, when we met new friends that one of them is partially deaf.
I regret selling my DBX 3BX Series III expander. It made even the crappiest of MP3s sound almost normal.
The playback equipment comes into the equation as well.
I've an old Phillips analog TV, with typical cheap and lousy speakers. I use closed captioned to follow what is being said, and the volume goes up and down quite a bit.
Inlaws have a nice modern TV (Visio?) I don't need or use closed captioned when watching it, I have no problem hearing the dialog. The volume stays much more stable as well.
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