I use vlc, works regardless of the drivers you have and they have built in equalizers that you can easily adjust the max/min volume for until you find the volume you like, including one specifically for the dynamic range you're talking about.

It's been set how I like it for so long that I'm not sure anymore what the exact option is, but I'll try to find it and I'm sure you could find it in the audio settings.

It's some dynamic range compressor something in the audio options that you can very easily adjust for the maximum volume so that explosions won't be so crazy loud but you can keep voices at their normal volume.

Ah, here. It is under tools effects Compressor. Enable the compressor.

https://www.vlchelp.com/fix-movies-loud-music-low-dialogue/

You can use hotkeys to fiddle with the threshold until you find something that makes explosions or loud music quiet without affecting dialogue

I don't have an answer for the windows audio codec.

Perhaps EasyEffects with the auto gain plugin would help in the meantime?

Screenshot is mine:

I haven't used it, but it looks like there's a program called pulseeffects that can do some real-time processing for PulseAudio, including that:

https://www.maketecheasier.com/improve-linux-pc-audio-with-pulseeffects/

EDIT: For more-generally applying effects, there's also a Linux "audio effect plugin" standard called LADSPA, large library of those, and I know that I've seen ways to apply it to streams in realtime.

googles

https://askubuntu.com/questions/43950/how-can-i-apply-a-ladspa-plugin-to-a-pulseaudio-stream

If you wanted to do something like reverb or pitch-shift all the audio being played back, I expect that that'd let you do that.

ReplayGain is more about making the volume level consistent between tracks. It’s really good for playlists and mixes because you don’t up with some tracks being too quiet and then some being much louder.

Appreciate the replies! I will try the effects apps when I get home later. For vlc, that is actually what I am currently using to watch my media, and where I enabled the replaygain function to unsatisfactory effect. I will try and tinker with the range some more, perhaps I configured it wrong.

I'm using this preset with pulseeffects.