"It's called dynamic range, you philistines!" quoth the audio engineer who hasn't consumed his own work on consumer-grade hardware since his early teens.

Yep. I think this is the real problem right here. Whenever I’m producing my first pass at a music project, I do it on my laptop speakers or similar. That way I know the core idea of the track still works on basic speakers. I’ve tried going the other way and all that comes through is a melody if I’m lucky.
I also check in the car and on a crappy BT speaker after. The fact that they’re producing entire movies and shows without ever seeming to do a consumer audio check is just annoying.
- Yeah, my test checklist after mixing/mastering using my studio headphones is:
  Laptop speakers
  Apple wired earbuds
  Cheap bluetooth headphones
  TV soundbar
  Car speakers
  It’s only final until it sounds good on all the above.
lol, I posted simultaneously with you. And basically posted that. 🤣
- This being the Internet - and great minds thinking alike - it was bound to happen sooner or later :)
I hate audio dynamic range. And i also hate how they don't ensure dialogue is audible over other noises unless it's dubbed.
This last one is so bad that I basically don't watch any American content in the original language anymore, because the French dub has clear voices and doesn't force me to use subtitles. So ridiculous.
- You don't hate dynamic range, you hate bad mixes, two different things, without dynamics audio sounds like shit. An explosion is supposed to be louder than talking speech.
  It's just not supposed to try to mimic the absurdity of an actual explosion, to the point of discomfort.
  Also, like said before in the parent comment, most consumer systems don't even even have the dynamics to reproduce it without distortion (or damage the woofers).
What I hate most about this attitude is a disregard for the fundamentals that make a film hold up over time: the story/plot/world building, way, way, way more than the graphics or other bells and whistles.
Sound design and graphics are very important, but if you're sacrificing dialogue for the vast majority of watchers, for you to have a wank over dynamic range, then you don't have your priorities straight.
They really ought to release multiple audio mixes. This is really getting annoying, and if wanting to hear dialogue is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
- Preach, brother. I don't get the fetish with aiming for 'natural' dynamic range in a movie in the first place. I need these people to explain to me why reproducing the relative sound pressure of a fucking explosion relative to normal speaking volume is somehow desirable to me.

Mr. Lovenstein version

Nah, Christopher Nolan says it’s our fault that we don’t have IMAX theater setups at home.

Or--and hear me out here, Mr. Nolan--maybe have the important dialogue take place once the characters are off the speedboat.
(I assume that wasn't actually important dialogue, but I'll never know.)
- Hence subtitles.

Dynamic ads in podcasts are absolutely terrible for this.

I am driving along listening to a podcast, and suddenly the ads appear at 50% higher volume, with zero warning.

I wonder if you could sue a podcast provider for dammages if you are hard of hearing and need the podcast playing loud, and the ads come on and blow your speakers out...

What should be especially illegal is those ads that use "alert" sounds. Door knocks/bells, phone rings, and worst of all, fucking car horn and other alarm noises.
Anything beeping or sounding like a siren should be completely forbidden for safety reasons.
- It’s literally the non-verbal equivalent of the classic “crying fire in a crowded theatre” scenario, it should already be illegal by existing law imo.
  “Honking horn at the operator of high speed multi-ton machine on their radio” seems pretty clear cut recklessness in my book.

I thought it was quite bad already in the EU but we at least have standards for it. I'm currently in the US and watching TV I have to turn on closed captions for everything because voices are just so damm silent, while Ads and stuff just blast your face off.

I think the US passed some sort of standard, under Obama, to normalize the volume for commercials on broadcast TV.
That worked for a while, but now that everything is streaming, they're fucking doing it again. Because of course they are.
- And now they wonder why people use adblockers whenever they can
- Tbf before that standard it was ROUGH. You'd have advertisers that would absolutely CRANK the volume on their sound, even distorting it, just to make it the loudest thing on earth. You could literally be somewhere in the house and just hear "mnmmmmnmnmnm....BIG BOBS CARPET EMPORIUM TWO DAYS ONLY" like it was some kind of stadium speaker system, like the neighbors hearing it was gonna help the ad reach more people.
There also the fact that speakers on modern tvs suck because they want only a little black frame around the screen. CRTV speakers pointed at the viewer and modern tvs point downward or behind the screen, so everything is a bit muffled. It's like they forgot that audio is a big aspect of watching shows and movies or they are wanting to make a ton of money off a separate speaker system.
- Very good point. Didn't even think about that. At home we use a soundbar because of that.
but we at least have standards for it
Holy shit. I didnt know that. We're on the baby-mode kiddy-gloved nanny-state-in-muh-TV mode?
Poor Americans. They must be going deaf.
- The standards are still pretty bad, and most producers of movies and tv shows still don't balance their audio for home TVs, but I do believe Ads have a limited allowed "loudness".
  If it was real baby mode we would have a regulated minimum and maximum loudness for everything, so we don't have to change volume constantly.
I want an automute for ads.whatever they are selling they can shove up their loud ass.
- Lol yeah. Surprised no one made that yet.

Yeah I can't hear the dialogue, but when those two characters kissed I could hear everything happening in their mouthes and that's what's really important.

Two characters kiss in deep space 9 and it sounds like a kiss irl. Two characters kiss in superman (2025) (or almost any modern media) and I'm listening to a 30+ second close-up of the actors trying to wetly suck the other's lips into their mouth. Why??

No idea why anyone thinks the kissing audio needs to be so pronounced. Drives me up the wall. Watching a tender scene, only to be ripped out of the moment by kissing audio that was recorded by having toddlers eating fettuccine alfredo for the first time.
- Those slurping noises are definitely something else 🤣
Because DS9's tagline is "To wetly suck what no one has sucked before."

Can someone tell me why I'm an idiot: streaming services have access to the entire video you're about to watch. They know the max and the min volume of that video. Why is there no setting to shrink that range? Is it going to degrade the audio really bad and they don't want to be blamed?

This goes double for home theater software like Jellyfin, Kodi, and Plex. They have 10,000 customizations and settings, so why can't I define my own custom audio range in them?

Technically speaking it's very easy to implement, it's just a compressor, oldest thing in audio after maybe the EQ.
VLC has a compressor under effects, if you're using Linux you can add effects to pulse or pipewire really easy too.
- I use Easy Effects for maximum control of inputs and outputs. It can do wonders if combined with qpwgraph.

Even if you can hear them, you'll still need captions because actors today mumble so much.

You leave Timothee Chalomet alone! Vocal fry is acting!

What you need is dynamic range compression. You can get a browser extension to apply it to everything you watch in a browser. VLC also has a setting for it, but I think they call it something else.

If you're using an app or a smart tv, then sucks to be you I guess.

Do u know where that setting is in vlc?
- I'll do you one better, i give you instructions:
  https://www.geekality.net/blog/settings-for-vlc-dynamic-range-compression

It's not the broadcasters fault you don't have a 7.1 audio setup and they refuse to allow channel selection. That would involve remastering, dammit!

Yes it’s dynamic range but the most common cause is listening to a source that’s been mixed for a centre vocal speaker.

It will play on a stereo (Left and right speakers only) but you will have very little vocals and lots of special fx.

This is also completely ignoring the us lack of lufs standards for advertising (apparent loudness.)

Not necessarily the end users fault. If the wrong audio source is selected/streamed then you are stuck. There are workarounds but no real solution

Except I have Dolby 5.1 set-up and it’s still dogshit
- If you don't have a 649.2.2 Atmos setup, that's your fault. Get hearing loss, scrub!
  /s because... sigh...
- If you have a true 5.1 setup then increase the centre speaker levels relative to the others. Or get a much bigger centre speaker.
  Most centre speakers are woefully small compared to the left and right fronts being towers.
- Have you checked that all your speakers are in phase? Specifically that the positive on amp cable goes to the positive connect on on the back of the speaker?
  If your system is otherwise matched especially the left/centre/right then it should function.
  Depending on your surround sound amp/processor some of them can get stuck in stereo vs surround.
  A quick test is here.
  Verify the dialog with a well mixed movie or dvd though that adds another level of possible issues. (most appletv stuff works as expected)
  Good luck with it.

Fuck your dynamic range, it doesn't enhance the media what so ever.

enables loudness equalization

TRY OUR NEW ULTRA SOFT CHARMIN BATH TISSUE

"TRY-"
mute

Horror movies be like:

WHAT?

Breakaway audio volume leveler (if you're on a Windows device).

This is good for the source audio itself for complicated reasons, but why tf isn't stable sound more standardized?? It's just a compressor!! Just send the values for the compressor in the metadata!!

Same issue with white balance settings in cameras - the setting should be non-linear to give the same perceived change per step.

You watched the same minute physics video then
- There are dozens of us
There are lots of controls in the world I’ve noticed over the years that are mapped linearly when they should be mapped logarithmically. But that’s harder to program, so almost no one does.

French dubs have intentionally higher speech volume

Do what you want with that info

French dubs aren't dumb.

Very good explainer from Tom Scott.

https://youtu.be/Is_wu0VRIqQ

What about video players with no volume control? Or video that starts off at 140dB SPL right off the bat with 250% THD as well?

Hadn't it happen to me in a while and the last week we watched KPop Demon Hunters and that was annoying. Holy shit it was so bad.

Huh, I don't think I remember having audio issues while watching KPOP Demon Hunters with my mom, and usually we both will complain about that kinda stuff when watching anime/YT/playing games. Sorry bout that for y'all.
My GF and I watched it last week and had the same issue.

DNR

I listen to The Archers while driving sometimes. And it's annoying because some characters in it speak quietly and the others loudly so I cannot hear the quiet one over the engine

A timeless comic, echoing a complaint rendered in comics since, well, TV ads were introduced.

It's gotten worse wiþin shows, for sure. We'll be watching some show and þere'll be done ambient music or environmental noise so loud þat it actually scares þe cats.

WTF, audio mixers? Do you not know your jobs? Nobody needs þat shit.

It's funny how for the mainstream things only get better and better for video, but audio gets the shaft. And I am guilty of this too. I am admittedly kind of a videophile but not an audiophile. Like I have decent headphones and I play FLAC music from my Jellyfin server, but if I am watching something on a TV that's only using TV speakers it doesn't bother me.

But the good audio setups are available, of course. So I also get that it would be a shame to master the audio to target crappy little TV and phone speakers. Maybe a range of good dynamic range compression settings needs to be standard on everything.

Quiet is quiet and loud is loud!

People don’t appreciate that we have access to high dynamic range audio now.

The solution is better awareness of dynamic range compressors, and using them if one doesn’t like HDR Audio.

The average user should not have to learn about compressors to have a proper audio mix on a regular tv. It is way more reasonable to have the default mix be for the average home system, and require the enthusiast to select a different audio mix more suited to their system (which is asking a lot less of them than learning about compression). The main reason this doesn’t happen is because movie and television producers can’t be arsed to pay for multiple mixes.
BUT I CAN'T HEAR YOU!! 😤
Anyone have recommendations for MacOS? I've got a little media server on a 10 year old MBP and would love to have something to average out the volume levels a bit for those late night watch sessions.