Got a new Vizio 2.1 soundbar with BT subwoofer that totally blows away my old one. This one came highly rated and I got it for around $125 on Amazon.

Got it hooked up to TCL Roku TV via optical cable and tweaked to by liking as far as subwoofer level, bass and treble etc and it sounds great.

One issue I can't seem to fix though and it's driving me nuts already. In every TV show and movie I watch, the BACKGROUND MUSIC or sound effects are like 3x louder than the dialog. I find that I'm turning the sound down when there is music or sound effects but then the dialog is way too low!

WTF am I doing wrong here? This wasn't an issue with the old LG soundbar I just replaced.

Help!

Your new Vizio soundbar is 2.1. That means a set of stereo (Left/Right) speakers inside the soundbar, plus a sub.

Nowadays, movies and TV shows are primarily mixed for multi-channel discrete audio, not stereo like they were back in the day. Dialogue is typically mixed mostly into the center channel, while sound effects/music/background noise/etc. are more in the four front and rear corner channels. The center dialogue channel is often slightly louder than the others, to help dialogue come through.

But since your new setup doesn't support the dedicated center dialogue channel, it's having to squish the dialogue sounds into the Left and Right channels, where it's competing with the other sounds, and the intended mix gets muddled.

This is why more and more folks nowadays are complaining about how audio mixing sucks, or dialogue is too quiet, or whatever... They're trying to watch content with dialogue mixed specifically for 5.1/7.1 setups with a dedicated center channel, but they're using just a set of stereo speakers (and even worse, often just the ultra-cheap stereo speakers built into their TV sets).


As to why your old LG soundbar sounded better, was it 3.1? That is, did the old soundbar have a center dialogue channel? That could explain why dialogue was better. Or, it may have just done a better job than the new Vizio of projecting the sound range in which most dialogue resides.

You might see if there are some settings on your Vizio soundbar or on your TCL TV that can be tweaked to help out. Sometimes they'll have different Movie/Music/Game sound settings, with Movie being better for content with dialogue. Or maybe something like a "Dialogue Boost" option to help if you find speech to be overly muddled, or similar.

You might also see if your TV has settings for different speakers under the Audio settings, which might currently be set on 5.1 but may have an option for just Stereo speakers, which may help.

Do you have a dialogue enhancement setting under audio on your TCL? We do, and it helps a great deal.

Not an audio expert, but just a stray thought...perhaps your "balancing" has conflicted with the source material mix. Specifically, by boosting the bass and treble over the mid-range, you are washing out the vocal tracks. Voice is almost exclusively in the mid-range. Going the other direction, de-emphasizing the highs and lows might give you a hint whether this is factor. Alternatively, I suspect that most audio in popular media is mixed for the lowest-common-denominator playback technology, and improving the sound "quality" actually makes it tougher on the listener. Just spitballin' here. I will add that I see the same issue with the Phillips-branded soundbar/sub-woofer combo I have, volume has to be cranked up to get clear dialogue. It is also connected to the TV via an optical interface, if that is relevant.

Turn up your center channel/speaker.

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
Turn up your center channel/speaker.

... He doesn't have one.

It's a 2.1 system. He has Left and Right channels only.

What is the model of the soundbar?
Which TV model do you have?

Try turning off anything that says virtual or simulated surround sound - on both the TV and the soundbar.

Thanks everyone! The virtual surround was the culprit, turned that off and it’s right about where it should be.

Glad that worked for you.

We did something else. To enhance the dialog I found that Bose makes a speaker specifically for dialog.

Works great.

Bob