Question

Movie score much louder than rest of audio.

  • 31 July 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 333 views

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Hi, I recently received delivery of a Sonos Arc, I’m enjoying it a lot since. I’ve luckily not noticed either the harsh highs or muddy bass tones, and am quite happy with the sound.
 

One thing I’ve noticed is that often the score to a movie or show is much louder than the rest of sound. I noticed this on a lot of shows during their intro song, but also movies.

For example, on Captain America: Civil War on D+ with Atmos, right after they get into the car at the very beginning, the music feels drastically loud compared to everything before.
 

Is this just the dynamic range of the media, or do I potentially have something set up incorrectly?


I can turn on night mode to flatten the range, but I figured I’d see if that’s actually necessary. I’ve also tried turning the volume down and using speech boost, but I often don’t like what it does to the sound.

 

Thanks for any help


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2 replies

Userlevel 4
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Unfortunately, many movies are deliberately mixed with the music / ambient channels louder than the speech channel. Use the speech enhancement button in the Sonos app to boost the speech.

We have persistent trouble with sound tracks overwhemling the vocal … we have to turn down the volume every time music plays. I use the Sonos AMP with 2 non-sonos speakers, and a sonos sub and 2 rear surrounds that are sonos 1’s. I have an enormous amount of sonos gear … 9 amps, 2 connects, etc. So, basically, I have a huge sonos system that apparently can’t do surround correctly. I mean, if there is a surround decoder in the AMP (there must be?) why can’t I just turn up the center channel? I don’t use a separate center channel but I have to assume the information is not just ignored by the decoder. Does this mean I have to buy yet another Sonos product to make this work correctly? I will, grudgingly, if someone will just tell my what, and why. I have not yet tried the speech enhancement solution.