cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/nonpolitical_comics/p/1657114/mr-lovenstein-volume
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Depending on how far back you go a lot of those movies were only recorded in stereo and sometimes even mono. So the mixing was pretty straight forward. Surround sound and pulling the bulk of voices to the center channel is a large part of this problem. Then you’re kind of at the mercy of your device as to how well it down mixes surround down to stereo. Some are pretty decent, and others are pretty terrible. Now things like DTS:X and Dolby Atmos that have 11+ channels I’d expect this issue is only worse(these still fallback to 5.1 surround if not supported).
I have a 13 speakers Atmos setup sitting in my living room and this isn’t even remotely an issue. That’s absolute overkill for people that aren’t very into home theater though. As it’s an expense for sure.
I will mention there is a rare movie (I own about 4 thousand titles) that I need to adjust the center channel volume but it’s like maybe 1:250 movies. So sometimes the mix does just suck. I don’t really watch streaming so that might be its own can of worms for audio.
Most films are still recorded in mono. That’s what mixing is for.
Yeah, maybe a lot of movies are mixed for the theater experience. I have a JBL soundbar with detachable back speakers, and I do struggle a lot with modern movies.