Comment by jrmg
16 hours ago
There’s something to what you’re saying - but it’s also something of a spectrum.
Our need to turn up the volume in dialog scenes and turn it back down again in action scenes (for both new and old content) got a lot less when we added a mid-range soundbar and sub to our mid-range TV (previously was using just the TV speakers). I’m not sure whether it’s sound separation - now we have a ‘more proper’ center channel - or that the ends of the spectrum - both bass and treble - are less muddy. Probably a combination of the two.
Audio has become a WTF situation for me. I grew up with speakers that had a driver for low ends some where in the 8"-12", a driver for the mids typically in the 4"-6", and then a third for the highs in various forms of a tweeter. These were all internally crossed over so that only a single cable was necessary.
Now, we have "satellite" speakers that are smaller than the tweeter and are touted as being all that's necessary. Sound bars are also using speakers the size of an old tweeter just in an array with separation between left/right sides smaller than the width of the TV. Some how, we let the marketing people from places like Bose convince us that you can make the same sound from tiny speakers.
Multichannel mixes used to also include a dedicated stereo mix for those mere mortals without dedicated surround setups. These were created in the same studio with mixing decisions made based on the content. Now, we just get downmixes made by some math equation on a chip that has no concept of what the content is and just applies rules.
Bit of a tangent, but another WTF for me has been the mainstream return of mono audio for music (HomePods, Echos, many Bluetooth speakers etc.), after decades of everything being at least stereo.
Ugh, mono. Phasing is an effect that is used quite a bit, and when things are 180° out of phase and mixed to mono, oops, no more audio. Of course, my favorite use of 180° phasing was Dolby ProLogic to send that to the mono rear speakers. It was always fun listening to music that was not mixed for ProLogic but used 180° phasing as an effect in ProLogic decoding enabled. Random things would play from the rear speakers.
My theory is that many people don’t have space for speakers. Soundbar sounds better than TV speakers.
I also think the focus on surround means people don’t consider stereo speakers. Good bookshelf speakers are better than surround kits and easier to install. I also wonder if normal speakers are no longer cool.
Finally, I wonder if people don’t like the big receivers. There are small amplifiers but I can’t find one that works in home theater with HDMI port.