Dialogue muffled

[marine65]

Was watching Hunters on Amazon and couldn't hear a lot of the dialogue clearly.
We have noticed this on a number of series on Amazon and Netflix.
My Samsung T.V. has very good built in speakers.
Regular T.V. sounds just fine but not so good on the streaming services.
Anyone else notice this?

 

[eljefino]

Does your fire stick have any internal audio settings? Seems like you can turn on (or off) more or less dynamic range.

 

[marine65]

I'm using the Samsung built in apps.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Does the TV allow you to set the sound to either stereo or surround mode? Play around with it and see if one of them sounds better.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I've notiiced this on some of the wife's on-demand shows. They may be severely compressing the audio. I wish they would just bandwith limit it to say 9khz and dont .mpeg H.264 the heck out of it

There may also be an issue with the 5.1 to stereo mixdown. .

I notice this on our cheap visio sound bar we got to help us hear. We still have to turn on closed captioning..

Don't get a sound bar, I would just get a small 30-50W amp and a pair of clear 5" 2 way speakers on open frame stands.

If you have cable, take the audio from the analog out.

 

[RamFan]

My Vizio did something similar with the built in Hulu app. For some reason the shows volume was fine, but then the commercials would blare obnoxiously. Ended up finding an audio setting in the tv which was the cause. Now the volume between shows/commercials is equal and I don't have to manually lower the volume when the commercials start. 1st world problem, I know, but it was kind of annoying.

Perhaps your Samsung has something similar.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by marine65
Was watching Hunters on Amazon and couldn't hear a lot of the dialogue clearly.
We have noticed this on a number of series on Amazon and Netflix.
My Samsung T.V. has very good built in speakers.
Regular T.V. sounds just fine but not so good on the streaming services.
Anyone else notice this?


Yes, but its not just streaming services. Honestly we find some dialogue crisp and clean whether its Amazon, NetFlex, Apple, or Bluray it really depends on the movie, series or show.
We are quite amazed at the variation of audio in dialog across all media. Even bluray discs. Its kind of shocking as we are supposed to be so advanced and sound engineers cant even get dialog right in a lot of movies and series, we do find the more advanced DTS ect very good.

We have a Sony 900x 65 inch but its not limited to just the TV, our external surround system shows the same issues with some dialog and our system has some pretty respectable speakers.
We never have an issue with OTA (over the air broadcasts through our attic antenna)

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I gave up and wear sennheiser wireless headphones with the audio pulled out of the cablebox stereo analogue out mixdown.

Was thinking of trying a HDMI > BT transmitter converter. But i dont have HDMI ARC to bplay with and Im not daisey chaining
the HDMI signal before it get to the TV. I want Cable box > TV for best picture.

But, maybe I'm assuming that I would lose quality going through multiple GND references and diodic connexions.

 

[MrMoody]

Originally Posted by ARCOgraphite
There may also be an issue with the 5.1 to stereo mixdown.
This is the most likely problem. If you have surround, you can adjust the center channel gain and correct it. Some equipment has a dialogue level/enhancement setting that will help.

 

[Cujet]

This sounds much like when I play a Dolby surround program on the two front "stereo" speakers and don't use the center channel.

Possibly you have it set on Dolby 5.1 and are using just 2 speakers?

 

[Aredeeem]

marine65 your post really struck a chord with me. Was watching same series last night on my Samsung and noticed the same problem. Tried increasing the volume but that didn't help too much. Sounds like it needs more treble.

 

[HangFire]

Originally Posted by MrMoody
Originally Posted by ARCOgraphite
There may also be an issue with the 5.1 to stereo mixdown.
This is the most likely problem. If you have surround, you can adjust the center channel gain and correct it. Some equipment has a dialogue level/enhancement setting that will help.

I agree. I had this issue on a Sony and a Yamaha X.1 system, where X > 5. For some reason all the dialog went into the Center speaker, which was defaulted to almost no volume, even after a sound calibration. The fix was to lose the included mic, ignore the stupid sound calibration, and adjust all the speaker levels for the reality of my situation.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by HangFire
Originally Posted by MrMoody
Originally Posted by ARCOgraphite
There may also be an issue with the 5.1 to stereo mixdown.
This is the most likely problem. If you have surround, you can adjust the center channel gain and correct it. Some equipment has a dialogue level/enhancement setting that will help.

I agree. I had this issue on a Sony and a Yamaha X.1 system, where X > 5. For some reason all the dialog went into the Center speaker, which was defaulted to almost no volume, even after a sound calibration. The fix was to lose the included mic, ignore the stupid sound calibration, and adjust all the speaker levels for the reality of my situation.

OP doesn't have a receiver and external speakers. He's using the built-in speakers in his TV, so I doubt there is a away for him to adjust center channel volume. However, there are probably different surround modes available for him to choose from, hence my earlier suggestion to play around with those and see which one sounds best for dialog. Or try switching the surround mode off completely.

 

[marine65]

Originally Posted by Aredeeem
marine65 your post really struck a chord with me. Was watching same series last night on my Samsung and noticed the same problem. Tried increasing the volume but that didn't help too much. Sounds like it needs more treble.



I switched the sound from Dolby to PCM and Hunters sounded better.
I have no idea why.

Watched 3 episodes of Hunters and I think I'm done.
Not very good.