> "But what I want more than anything is a "compression" feature on the audio of movies. I mean I just want to hear what people are saying to each other without the neighbors calling the police when going into a scene with explosions and/or music."
This is due to the (misconfigured? buggy?) way that 5.1 surround audio sometimes gets mapped to 2-channel output. Dialogue in a film is usually carried on the centre channel, which in a proper cinema will be pretty powerful and loud set of speakers. Music and surround effects are carried on the other channels.
But for whatever reason, sometimes when down-mixing the centre channel comes through way too quiet and gets drowned out by the others. This seems to have gotten better in recent years (Apple TV, Netflix, etc are either good at down-mixing or the streams come with good 2-channel audio), but some TVs still make a mess of it.
No, it's due to bad mixes being trendy these days. Downmix issues are certainly a thing, but the real problem starts in Hollywood, with auteurs like Nolan that no sound professionals can say 'No' to.
With Nolan at least, he's acknowledged it was a deliberate "creative decision".
> “We made carefully considered creative decisions,” Nolan explained. “There are particular moments in this film where I decided to use dialogue as a sound effect, so sometimes it’s mixed slightly underneath the other sound effects or in the other sound effects to emphasize how loud the surrounding noise is. It’s not that nobody has ever done these things before, but it’s a little unconventional for a Hollywood movie.”
Also in case it will help someone: OSMC/Kodi has a similar “downmix center mix level” option. Mine is always at -7db for 5.1 audio. Works like a charm most of the times
Or if you have a PS5, plug the controller into the console (must be wired, not BT) and then headphones into the controller. The virtual surround is surprisingly convincing and sounds quite natural and not headphoney.
I'm not so sure that's the case. I have true 5.1 and I still have to have the center channel at a relative +7db minimum for the dialog to be as audible as I want it to be, compared to the rest of the audio.
Yeah, but that's probably because your centre channel is relatively smaller than on the cinema audio systems the 5.1 track was designed for. So setting it to +7dB at home is probably normal/expected.
After all, (Tenet aside) we don't experience these problems at actual cinemas, where the centre channel is a huge speaker stack behind the screen, and the surrounds are relatively small by comparison. But I agree that it's a common issue on on home setups.
This is due to the (misconfigured? buggy?) way that 5.1 surround audio sometimes gets mapped to 2-channel output. Dialogue in a film is usually carried on the centre channel, which in a proper cinema will be pretty powerful and loud set of speakers. Music and surround effects are carried on the other channels.
But for whatever reason, sometimes when down-mixing the centre channel comes through way too quiet and gets drowned out by the others. This seems to have gotten better in recent years (Apple TV, Netflix, etc are either good at down-mixing or the streams come with good 2-channel audio), but some TVs still make a mess of it.