Muffled audio in movies, having to constantly adjust volume

[SubCog]

So I'm having to constantly adjust the volume when I watch movies on my projector. The dialog scenes are always too quiet, so I turn the volume way up, and then action sequences or music get so loud I have to turn it down. I feel like part of the problem is that the speech is often a little muffled, or maybe over-powered by sound effects.

There's 4 possible places in my setup that might be trouble:

1. Bluray player. I'm using a very old panasonic DMP-BD91 bluray player. I wonder if a newer bluray player might output clearer, better balanced sound? I've tried using a chromecast instead and it seems to be a significant improvement.
   
2. Projector. Optoma HD141X. Video comes into the projector over hdmi, and then audio comes out through a very long shielded audio cable. Maybe the projector's audio output isn't great?
   
3. Audio cable. 3.5mm cable, 20 feet long, although is reasonably good quality and shielded. Connects from projector to sound system. Maybe I'm losing some fidelity over that 20 foot span? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
4. Sound system. I'm running the audio through an old Sony MHCGX99. It's a system I had in a box for over a decade, before hooking it up for my home theater. I don't have the subwoofer plugged in, 'cause that REALLY blows out any speech in movies.
   

I wonder if I can buy a bluray player or soundsystem that automatically adjusts volume so that things never get too loud or quiet? Or maybe something that can adjust sound levels so voices stand out better?

I'm happy to replace components, but I hate to spend $$ on the wrong things. Also, I'm not necessarily looking for ultra-high quality audio... I just want things to sound good and voices to stand out without having to adjust volume through a movie.

Thoughts?

[12Bass]

IME, the biggest issue is how the movie's dialog audio tracks are mixed... which is a production issue. A lot of the time I have to use subtitles or else risk disturbing the neighbors.

[CurrentlyPissed]

Speakers and a non-dedicated center is your issue. Your dialog is getting drowned out by the speakers having to flex for mids and lows (which they are naturally designed to do). Leaving no flex for the center channel audio. If your genuinely curious I can peice together a budget system for you, but everytime I do this and spend the time on it people tend to not listen.

Long story short, your speakers are trying to do too many frequencies at one time. And from the quick looks there isn't even tweeters on those speakers making it that much worse.

When I say budget, I mean, you could pretty easily beat that setup with an extremely minimum budget.

[SubCog]

I'd be interested to see what you recommend. I actually have a set of 5.1 speakers laying around, but I don't have a receiver to plug them into. I don't know if it would be cheaper to buy a receiver, or to just buy a whole new sound system. Also, I haven't decided whether I'm willing to string up all the wires to do full surround sound... maybe it'd be easiest to just go with a (wireless?) soundbar? What do you think?

My other concern is I don't know how to hook it up. My bluray player only has a single HDMI out, which is why I have to run the audio up through the projector. The projector only has a 3.5mm audio out, so I don't know how I'd get 5.1 to a surround sound system anyway. Maybe I need to buy a receiver with an hdmi input on it? Maybe something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M9I1DO1..._t3_B000066OBT

[dodger]

Definitely sounds like a missing center channel issue. Can you get the bluray to down mix to plain stereo? Like go into some menu and specifically turn off surround?

[metroidfox]

You can rule out some of the electrical components by plugging a set of headphones into that Sony deck.


Another possibility is that it could simply be the audio settings for the speakers, or some interaction with them and your room.

[SubCog]

Definitely sounds like a missing center channel issue. Can you get the bluray to down mix to plain stereo? Like go into some menu and specifically turn off surround?

I looked in the Blu-ray player settings. It was already set to down mix to stereo, but it still had the Dolby dts or whatever turned on. I turned it to the raw setting, and that made some improvement.

[SubCog]

You can rule out some of the electrical components by plugging a set of headphones into that Sony deck.


Another possibility is that it could simply be the audio settings for the speakers, or some interaction with them and your room.

I'll try with some good headphones and see what I come up with.

I rewired the speakers tonight. I may have had them wired incorrectly before, so maybe I had the drivers swapped? It's hard to say, but there may be some additional improvement there. I think I'd still like to replace them with something more designed for movies though.

[CurrentlyPissed]

What would be your range of budget.

[SubCog]

What would be your range of budget.

Oh I could drop a couple hundred bucks pretty easily. I suppose I could be persuaded to spend more if I were really inspired.

[Munkus]

As others have pointed out, get a dedicated center channel. It's designed for dialogue, and you can increase/decrease its volume independent of the fronts/rears via the receiver. And yes, you'll need a good HT receiver too if you don't have one.

[Mahjik]

Here are some links to take a look at:

https://www.themasterswitch.com/best...heater-systems

https://www.worldwidestereo.com/blog...r-systems-2019


You can definitely piece a system together with whatever components you want. I think my HTS has about 3-4 different manufacturers. However, it can get expensive going that route.

[metroidfox]

The cheapest solution is hope you have at least a 9 band equaliser setting somewhere in your hardware, and start fiddling with the 2K-4K Hz range.


You'll probably need to do something like tune 1K up, and then drop the 2K-4K range.

[Mahjik]

The cheapest solution is hope you have at least a 9 band equaliser setting somewhere in your hardware, and start fiddling with the 2K-4K Hz range.


You'll probably need to do something like tune 1K up, and then drop the 2K-4K range.

I tried that before I bought a center channel speaker.. Didn't work.

Basically, you either have to force it into 2.1 mode or get a center channel speaker.

[Higgy10]

get a good center channel, its arguably the most important speaker for movies. I paid a small fortune for a paradigm center channel nearly a decade ago.

Imo its worth it spend more initially on quality audio as it tends to have a longer life than visual components.

Ive got a mix of paradigm and vega speakers and denon avr2808 that are all pushing 10years age or so. Zero reason at all to upgrade the speakers and even the avr would still be fine today if it wasnt an hdmi 1.4 receiver

[CurrentlyPissed]

This 5.1 build would cost $580. Alternatively finding a receiver second hand could easily save you $100. If you need to stay around $300 I would get the center, and L/R channel, and pick up a used receiver locally.

Front L/R Pioneer SB-22 Andrew Jones $96/pair

Center Pioneer SP-C22 Andrew Jones $99

Rear L/R Pioneer SB-22 Andrew Jones $96/pair

Elac 8" 100 watt Sub Andrew Jones $90

Pioneer Dolby Atmos-Ready Audio & Video Component Receiver Black (VSX-832) $199 5.1

Alternatively you could do a 3.1 Atmos that would suffice most and cut out the rears saving $96, and getting the add ons for $97. And limit on wiring.

Pioneer Atmos Add-Ons $97

If you want to go a cheaper 2.0 build you can go with these. These will have good seperation with both frequencies. And add the receiver above, or find one locally cheap.

JBL Arena B15 Black Bookshelf & Surround Speaker with Special Edition Grilles & Logo Set of 2 Black $199

If you want to try your hand at ebay, this is a fanstic AIO kit, just need to add the above receiver.

Energy Take Classic 5.1 $379

If you need cheaper, this is a pretty decent AIO 5.1, again. Will have to pair above receiver.

Def Tech ProCinema 600 $249.99

[SubCog]

Thanks, I'll take a look.

[MasterGoa]

There should be an option on your bluray called dynamic compression, sound compression
or something along those lines.

I assume that the audio comes from the projector back to where the bluray is? Of so, simply use the analogue RCA stereo out of the player.

[SubCog]

Well I ended up going super cheap and buying this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1


CurrentlyPissed was right, even the cheapest of the cheap sound system is WAAAY better than my previous setup. I may upgrade in another year or 2, but for now this solves all the problems I was struggling with. This system has lots of great features, and the voices come through a dedicated center channel that I can control the volume of, which makes them MUCH more clear.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this, especially for the price. Thanks everyone for the input & advice!