TV - music and FX much louder than dialogue!

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David W. Richardson

Chapelgrove Films
This doesn't seem to be a problem with regular TV through my cable box. It's mainly when I use the Roku or play commercial DVDs through my Blu-Ray player.

If I turn the sound up loud enough to hear the dialogue, then whenever there's music or some audio FX (explosions, telephones ringing, etc.), they are VERY loud. Painfully loud. If it's an extended music bed, I have to crank the volume way down, then way back up again when people start talking. It's very frustrating.

I don't have any Surround Sound or home theater audio system, only the stereo speakers on the TV. I've made sure the audio on the TV, the Roku and the Blu-Ray player are all set to 'stereo', not anything like '5.1'. There is no kind of normalizer turned on on any of the devices. But I cannot get this problem solved.

Any suggestions?
 
Sounds like there's a problem in the 5.1>stereo conversion. The center channel (dialog) somehow gets trounced in the mixdown. Is this with everything you play on Roku/DVD? Or just some things?

And how are these devices connected to your TV?
 
Alex H. said:
Sounds like there's a problem in the 5.1>stereo conversion. The center channel (dialog) somehow gets trounced in the mixdown. Is this with everything you play on Roku/DVD? Or just some things?

And how are these devices connected to your TV?
Click to expand...

Both devices are connected to the TV via HDMI.

I can't say for sure that everything played on them has the problem. We like to watch a lot of old British TV via the Roku, as well as streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime. Most any recent Hollywood movie on DVD has the problem -- of course, all of that is typically 5.1. (We almost never play any Blu-Ray discs.)

But yeah, it does seem like the 5.1>stereo conversion isn't working properly. Since it occurs with two different devices -- but not with the cable box or the VCR, neither of which is likely to be feeding a 5.1 signal -- it almost seems like the problem would be with the TV. However, I've read that problems like this tend to be in the configuration of the individual devices, so I'm not sure. At any rate, everything is set for 'stereo', so I don't really know what else I can do.

Also it's worth noting that the cable box -- which is just a digital adapter, since all I have is basic cable -- also connects to the TV via HDMI.
 
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