>> I guess the solution is to buy a surround sound system and hope it's good enough.
This made a huge difference for me. I went from TV > Sonos Beam > Sonos Beam + two surrounds. I've tested going back to just the Beam (I wanted to use the surrounds as stereo music speakers) but the huge decrease in my ability to understand dialog made me keep the surrounds. It's particularly problematic on TV shows where background music is used a lot. Having that come out of the surrounds and dialogue from the Beam made things so much better.
> I guess the solution is to buy a surround sound system and hope it's good enough.
Yet many people opt for a soundbar which has similar issues with the physics of thin/small speakers. I personally have a set of restored Bozak B-302As from 1958, big box speakers that are a solid meter cube, and they sound great :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYJtb2YXae8
It boils down to a combination of:
- Actors speaking naturally instead of projecting toward a microphone
- Smaller microphones
- Dynamic range - big explosions have to sound loud, so dialog gets pushed quieter
- Downmixing from Atmos to 7.1, 5.1, stereo, mono
- TV speakers have gotten smaller and mounted on the back due to thinner TV's (and also poor quality speakers on devices)
I guess the solution is to buy a surround sound system and hope it's good enough.