what settings will help with very low dialog and VERY loud music/background/fx

[gardengirl1331]

I'm not sure where else to post this since it's about sound, but without us having a surround sound system. (and please I'm very new to this and don't understand technical stuff much, although my husband is a musician so he might be able to help a bit. So go easy on me.)

We've been having issues with VERY loud music, background noises, sound fx etc and having to float the remote to hear the dialog, then back again when an action scene happens, just about giving us both a heart attack. (and yes for me with my bad health I do have slight hearing issues- oddly for my age it's mid-range I struggle with) So far the problem got worse when we went to blu ray, and now we very recently moved to 4k we were hoping maybe it would improve a bit and it hasn't. The worst offender so far seems to be the Kingsman Secret Service blu ray. I had to float the remote from 40/42 for the voices down to 17/18 for the action scenes! I really don't want to have to do this for every loud action movie.

Here's what we have, and it's not exact as I know nothing about this stuff:
TV is Sony x90j (probably doesn't matter but it's 65") we sit about 15' from the screen- when we did the set up my husband almost returned it that day after having it calibrate itself for our room and distance, holy hell it sounded like crap! Like REALLY bad! We turned that off (so much for tech thinking it's smarter than us) and just set it up like normal and it was fine after that, thankfully!) We normally don't use extra sound, just the TV I'd say 80% of the time, but for some movies we like to add a bit of bass through our stereo/speakers that we have for the turntable, which is an old 1980's Sony receiver and two Klipsch speakers from the 90's. We had to buy some sort of adapter to hook it up since it doesn't have the same outputs our old 1080 TV had, but it works well for what we want it for. The player is a Sony x800M2. We also have some kind of dumb, but good, LG blu ray player hooked up too but haven't used it much since buying the 4k setup, it's kept for a backup.

I tried setting the TV to the voice zoom max but my husband hates how it makes it sound, but he agreed to put it to 4, even though it still bugs him a bit. It doesn't help at all. We messed around a little bit with the equalizer, especially the 125 I think, and it didn't seem to do much to help. On the player it's set to digital audio output to auto, everything else is off, it's set to 48kHz, and the downmix is stereo.

Is there anything else we can do to fix this without having to buy a whole surround sound system?

[oddbox83]

You don't have to go full surround, but a 3.0 soundbar might help as dialogue will have it's own channel. A good one might have a "night" or similar mode which adds dynamic range compression - softening the difference between loud and quiet sounds.

[CreasyBear]

Might be time to upgrade to something with a dedicated center channel. You're trying to push 5.1/7.1 or more out of only two channels so some things can kind of get lost in the shuffle if it's a very active mix.

[gardengirl1331]

Are sound bars any good though? I thought they weren't, I could be wrong. It's good to know if they are good that they do come 3.0, so thanks I'll look into that.


We don't really want surround sound, and don't mind just using the TV for most things. But for some of the action stuff and horror stuff we like the added bass from the 2 speakers. But we don't really like things too loud, I know you can turn surround down and have it just for the background, but loud sounds and noises kind of throw me off. Not sure what it is or why, something with my hearing and health it kind of freaks me out in a weird way. Having a musician for a husband can be fun! Ha ha! But we really don't want to go with a surround sound system, like I said we probably won't use it much.

I know this probably can't be done, but is there just a way to add a middle speaker for the dialog? I know our stereo/receiver whatever it's called, probably can't separate the center out since it's analog stereo not surround. But are TVs now just meant to be used with a surround sound system? Is there no way to adjust this on the set itself, or the player?

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by gardengirl1331

I know this probably can't be done, but is there just a way to add a middle speaker for the dialog? I know our stereo/receiver whatever it's called, probably can't separate the center out since it's analog stereo not surround. But are TVs now just meant to be used with a surround sound system? Is there no way to adjust this on the set itself, or the player?

You'll have to upgrade your receiver to a 5.1 receiver to add a center channel. What are your current speakers as you'd want to get one that would kind of match.

If you're just looking for something basic, the Yamaha V385 receiver from A4L should be enough. And you can run your devices (up to four) through it as well.

https://www.accessories4less.com/mak...eceiver/1.html

[gardengirl1331]

We currently have a Sony from probably 1982ish, can't find any model info on it, and the speakers are Klipsch from the early 1990's, again no model info. So we'd have to start from scratch which my husband won't do since he specifically bought this setup for the turntable. He doesn't like the idea of getting a whole new surround sound setup because we don't really have the space with the Sony and Klipsch and the two players.

We have the sony and turntable on a TV stand, the TV mounted above where the top of the record player hits when open, then on the middle shelf the players, then nothing under it (it's just sliding doors with storage, not really usable for sound equipment, the speakers on right on either side of the TV stand. If we mount it off center we may have room for a new center speaker. Would our two old speakers work with a new center? My husband's at work so I can't ask him this right now, but can the two speakers be connected to both the Sony and a new 3.0 receiver? If not, then it'll be a hard no go from him, they're mainly for music stuff. Even though I never use them for movies/TV he's the one who likes them on occasionally, he doesn't want to add too much stuff to what's there.

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by gardengirl1331

We currently have a Sony from probably 1982ish, can't find any model info on it, and the speakers are Klipsch from the early 1990's, again no model info. So we'd have to start from scratch which my husband won't do since he specifically bought this setup for the turntable. He doesn't like the idea of getting a whole new surround sound setup because we don't really have the space with the Sony and Klipsch and the two players.

We have the sony and turntable on a TV stand, the TV mounted above where the top of the record player hits when open, then on the middle shelf the players, then nothing under it (it's just sliding doors with storage, not really usable for sound equipment, the speakers on right on either side of the TV stand. If we mount it off center we may have room for a new center speaker. Would our two old speakers work with a new center? My husband's at work so I can't ask him this right now, but can the two speakers be connected to both the Sony and a new 3.0 receiver? If not, then it'll be a hard no go from him, they're mainly for music stuff. Even though I never use them for movies/TV he's the one who likes them on occasionally, he doesn't want to add too much stuff to what's there.

Yeah, they'd work fine with a 5.1 receiver. You don't have to use all of the speaker inputs. I'd grab a Klipsch center if possible.

https://www.klipsch.com/products/r-52c-center-speaker

https://www.klipsch.com/products/r-34c-center-speaker

[gardengirl1331]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Yeah, they'd work fine with a 5.1 receiver. You don't have to use all of the speaker inputs. I'd grab a Klipsch center if possible.

https://www.klipsch.com/products/r-52c-center-speaker

https://www.klipsch.com/products/r-34c-center-speaker

Oh sorry, I meant would we still be able to have them hooked up to the Sony stereo if they were also hooked up to the new receiver at the same time. Unless there is a very good receiver for cheap that would work very well with our turntable? But we really love this stereo, so I'm not sure we're willing to part with it.

And yes, while looking around I found the r-52c and thought about talking with him about that one. But if they can't be split to go to both components then I'm not sure he'll want to swap anything out. But if you can split them and it won't degrade the sound at all, I might be able to convince him to build us a new stand.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by gardengirl1331

Are sound bars any good though? I thought they weren't, I could be wrong.

Soundbars have come a long way. I've had one in my office for over four years and it is fantastic. They've gotten even better since then.

Amazon has a huge selection of every brand imaginable (mine is LG), and each one has customer reviews. This will allow you to do some research before you order one. Good luck!

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by gardengirl1331

Oh sorry, I meant would we still be able to have them hooked up to the Sony stereo if they were also hooked up to the new receiver at the same time. Unless there is a very good receiver for cheap that would work very well with our turntable? But we really love this stereo, so I'm not sure we're willing to part with it.

And yes, while looking around I found the r-52c and thought about talking with him about that one. But if they can't be split to go to both components then I'm not sure he'll want to swap anything out. But if you can split them and it won't degrade the sound at all, I might be able to convince him to build us a new stand.

Your old receiver is only stereo. It won't work with a 3.0 LCR setup for a movie. You'll have to find a 5.1 receiver with a phono input, if that's what you're using for your turntable.

[Panson]

Originally Posted by gardengirl1331

I'm not sure where else to post this since it's about sound, but without us having a surround sound system. (and please I'm very new to this and don't understand technical stuff much, although my husband is a musician so he might be able to help a bit. So go easy on me.)

We've been having issues with VERY loud music, background noises, sound fx etc and having to float the remote to hear the dialog, then back again when an action scene happens, just about giving us both a heart attack. (and yes for me with my bad health I do have slight hearing issues- oddly for my age it's mid-range I struggle with) So far the problem got worse when we went to blu ray, and now we very recently moved to 4k we were hoping maybe it would improve a bit and it hasn't. The worst offender so far seems to be the Kingsman Secret Service blu ray. I had to float the remote from 40/42 for the voices down to 17/18 for the action scenes! I really don't want to have to do this for every loud action movie.

Here's what we have, and it's not exact as I know nothing about this stuff:
TV is Sony x90j (probably doesn't matter but it's 65") we sit about 15' from the screen- when we did the set up my husband almost returned it that day after having it calibrate itself for our room and distance, holy hell it sounded like crap! Like REALLY bad! We turned that off (so much for tech thinking it's smarter than us) and just set it up like normal and it was fine after that, thankfully!) We normally don't use extra sound, just the TV I'd say 80% of the time, but for some movies we like to add a bit of bass through our stereo/speakers that we have for the turntable, which is an old 1980's Sony receiver and two Klipsch speakers from the 90's. We had to buy some sort of adapter to hook it up since it doesn't have the same outputs our old 1080 TV had, but it works well for what we want it for. The player is a Sony x800M2. We also have some kind of dumb, but good, LG blu ray player hooked up too but haven't used it much since buying the 4k setup, it's kept for a backup.

I tried setting the TV to the voice zoom max but my husband hates how it makes it sound, but he agreed to put it to 4, even though it still bugs him a bit. It doesn't help at all. We messed around a little bit with the equalizer, especially the 125 I think, and it didn't seem to do much to help. On the player it's set to digital audio output to auto, everything else is off, it's set to 48kHz, and the downmix is stereo.

Is there anything else we can do to fix this without having to buy a whole surround sound system?

A new AVR would halp matters immensely. Possibility--Yamaha RX-V4A, or similar Yamaha model. Using Manual speaker setup, set front left and right to "Large" with 8 ohm speaker impedance. Set seating distance.

For movie sound program, choose Sci-Fi. This will help with clear separation of dialogue from sound effects, back ground music.

From Option menu, choose Dialogue Level and set to 3. This will give additional help in separation.

You may find these settings sufficient, without having to buy a center speaker.