this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2025
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"It's called dynamic range, you philistines!" quoth the audio engineer who hasn't consumed his own work on consumer-grade hardware since his early teens.
Yep. I think this is the real problem right here. Whenever Iβm producing my first pass at a music project, I do it on my laptop speakers or similar. That way I know the core idea of the track still works on basic speakers. Iβve tried going the other way and all that comes through is a melody if Iβm lucky.
I also check in the car and on a crappy BT speaker after. The fact that theyβre producing entire movies and shows without ever seeming to do a consumer audio check is just annoying.
Yeah, my test checklist after mixing/mastering using my studio headphones is:
Itβs only final until it sounds good on all the above.
lol, I posted simultaneously with you. And basically posted that. π€£
This being the Internet - and great minds thinking alike - it was bound to happen sooner or later :)
I hate audio dynamic range. And i also hate how they don't ensure dialogue is audible over other noises unless it's dubbed.
This last one is so bad that I basically don't watch any American content in the original language anymore, because the French dub has clear voices and doesn't force me to use subtitles. So ridiculous.
You don't hate dynamic range, you hate bad mixes, two different things, without dynamics audio sounds like shit. An explosion is supposed to be louder than talking speech.
It's just not supposed to try to mimic the absurdity of an actual explosion, to the point of discomfort.
Also, like said before in the parent comment, most consumer systems don't even even have the dynamics to reproduce it without distortion (or damage the woofers).
Imma be honest, I don't see why the explosion should be louder than speech. I can see the boom; I can tell that it's an explosion. It doesn't need to be reinforced to be through volume.
Because cinema is supposed to be immersive, it's supposed to take the audience into the action, it's supposed to make you feel like you're there. Dynamics play an important part of this.
It's not enough to acknowledge that there has been an explosion or a monster has screeched, it's important that the viewer feels in danger, like the monster can actually harm the viewer. To get that adrenaline pumping.
Ofc when your levels are ridiculously exaggerated and you stretch over to the volume control all the time, then the immersion is broken because instead of watching the film you're too busy riding the fader.
That should be optional. I don't wish to be "immersed". I just wanna see the story. Sure, make the "extreme" experience a possibility for those with a taste for the subtle things in the art or whatever, but don't push it onto all of us.
Because ANYTIME there are sounds that are way louder than dialogues, of course I'm gonna reach for the remote, because holy shit.
Plus, that idea of dynamic range is what allows ads to be so damn loud compared to everything else.
Well, it's now cinema is supposed to be.
Ideally they could make two mixes, one for serious viewing and good systems and another for bringe watching or bad speakers. But since that would cost more money and isn't done, a good dynamic mix is preferable because you can always throw a compressor and some limiting to a dynamic mix, but you can't recover information after it's lost. And as a film and series enjoyer I don't want my experience to be nerfed.
As for ads, I have no idea? I haven't watched an ad since I got internet many years ago. Idk how you're getting your media, maybe get an adblocker or use torrents?
Tbh if you only have the budget for one mix, it should be the mainstream one for 90% of viewers. If the producers wanna be artsy, go ahead, include an artsy mix with the BluRay or something.
Imagine if they did something as extreme as they do to movies with music. You basically only hear the bass and the lyrics are incomprehensible unless you have an expensive sound system? Sheesh.
By the way, normal people like me don't even know what a compressor is. To me, even the hassle of having a speaker outside of my TV isn't worth it. Most people are like this.
Lol no, if you only have budget for one mix it should be the one that preserves the most information, if "90%" of the viewers don't care about the art form they are watching then they don't have the right to ruin it for the people who do care.
As for music there's the opposite problem, there's a problem in the music industry where most modern music is an incomprehensible mess thanks to the loudness wars, where modern music has zero dynamics, high distortion, lack of tangibility and overall boring.
If you listen to a 70s or early 80s recording you will notice that together with greater dynamics, you have better sound quality, definition and tangibility, than modern trash. Independently of what system you listen it on.
But a good mix will translate well no matter what system you have, it will sound good either on a 10000 dollars HiFi system or on some cheap pair of computer speakers.
Seriously tho, personally I don't understand people who can tolerate watching anything with on a TVs built in speaker, I rather watch 480p with good sound than 4k on a TV speaker, but that's me.
If I can't afford a reasonable pair of speakers then a 20 bucks pair of wired headphones can have excellent sound quality. So there's really no reason to defend a nerfed mix.
With this, I'm not saying that some modern shows don't exaggerate and that their levels are past ridiculous.
I honestly haven't watched a lot of non-dubbed content in a while, considering my mom moved in with me and she doesn't tolerate other languages.
But my ears aren't very sharp, so I can't tell what's a good mix. I'll be honest with you, I may own a decent pair wired earbuds, unless it's classical music, I can't hear much difference between music qualities.
Bad color or motion handling on a TV, though, that's an instant cringe for me.
What I hate most about this attitude is a disregard for the fundamentals that make a film hold up over time: the story/plot/world building, way, way, way more than the graphics or other bells and whistles.
Sound design and graphics are very important, but if you're sacrificing dialogue for the vast majority of watchers, for you to have a wank over dynamic range, then you don't have your priorities straight.
They really ought to release multiple audio mixes. This is really getting annoying, and if wanting to hear dialogue is wrong, I don't wanna be right.
Preach, brother. I don't get the fetish with aiming for 'natural' dynamic range in a movie in the first place. I need these people to explain to me why reproducing the relative sound pressure of a fucking explosion relative to normal speaking volume is somehow desirable to me.