Too loud and too quiet...

[roger06]

Hi

If I have the volume on my home cinema system set at a good level for normal dialogue etc, it's way too loud for the action bits so I'm constantly got a finger on the remote's volume control.

Any idea why ? Could it be due to an old (2000) and rather cheap Yamaha DSP 492 processor feeding its main channels into a far more expensive Nait 5i amp ?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

roger06:
Hi

If I have the volume on my home cinema system set at a good level for normal dialogue etc, it's way too loud for the action bits so I'm constantly got a finger on the remote's volume control.

Any idea why ? Could it be due to an old (2000) and rather cheap Yamaha DSP 492 processor feeding its main channels into a far more expensive Nait 5i amp ?

Can't you lower the levels of your surround speakers? The centre speaker is what you hear when people talk, just adjust the other speakers so that they aren't so loud.

 

[Anonymous]

It's more likely just the way the film maker intended the movie soundtrack to be. I've got loads of DVDs and Blu-rays that are the same - the dialogue is a fine level but as soon as the action starts the music level seems to increase ten-fold and any explosions bang and rumble so much that anything in the room that's not tied down starts to move.

I suppose they do it to up the excitement, but I just find it annoying.

 

[Messiah]

I can agree with that. It is probably how it is mixed. But can't you adjust the other channels??As the dialogue should be coming from the centre just turn the volume on the Naim down a little to compensate.

 

[Dan Turner]

The problem could be that you have the balance of the channels wrong - but won't really be down to the front L&R going through the Naim because if you set-up the processor correctly you'd have taken account of that and got them all at the same levels.

DVD soundtracks have quite a wide dynamic range, meaning that loud events in a film can genuinely be loud - they're supposed to be! So if your processor is set-up correctly then you're probably hearing the soundtrack as intended.

Your DVD player and processor should both have 'dynamic range compression' functions which allows you to artificially compress the dynamic range of the sound-track so that the difference in volume between loud and quiet sounds is reduced. That could be what you're after.