• azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      Poor sound balance is 95 % bad downmixing.

      Going from 5.1 channels to 2 the media player should first bump up the center channel (the one for dialogue) a fair bit. But they don’t because they use the coefficients from some manual from the fucking 1990s or whatever calibrated for expensive-ass headphones. Some players (e.g. Kodi) do have an option to amplify the center channel.

      The second issue is overly large dynamic range which is inappropriate in noisy environments or when someone may be sleeping nearby. That’s easily solved with an audio compressor. My receiver has a “night mode” that does exactly that.

      Every streaming service should have both of those as easily toggleable options on their media players, but for some reason they don’t. IDK if it’s stupidity on their part or if their licensing contracts disallow “tampering” with the media or what it is but it would solve 95 % of audio balance complaints.