Do you tweak your setup based on the movie?

[jay21112]

I don't get it.
Some movies I watch have an amazing soundtrack, and some movies I watch, well, I'm just amazed at how poor the soundtrack is.

Let's take for example Jonah Hex versus Red. Both were Blue-ray discs from Netflix and both were brand new (no scratches on the disc, disc looked pristine). Both were played in my system with the same settings (THX Ultra 2), and the same volume level (-5)....and both had very different effects.

Jonah Hex nearly blew me out of my chair. I thought it was amazing. Red left me feeling cheated. Red was actually a bigger action movie than Jonah Hex, but I didn't get the feel of the action in it: the gun fire was subpar and the explosions didn't rock anything. Heck, I even turned the sub volume up for that one, and still nothing.

So I'm wondering, is it just that movies totally render their soundtracks differently and that some movies are good to listen to and some are horrible, and you just deal with it.....or do you actually go in and retweak your sound settings to try to improve the movie?

I mean, did anyone else watch Red? Was the sound that horrible, or did I get a "bad" disc? Do "bad" discs even exist???

 

[its phillip]

Well, there are two versions of Red...one has a decreased video bitrate and DD5.1 audio only, and the other version has a higher quality video and DTS-HD MA audio. I honestly don't know how significant the differences are between the two, but perhaps you had the crappy version of Red and the audio suffered accordingly?

 

[DTS]

RED audio {Bluray} is awesome! Make sure its the special edition, it should rock the house. The regular Bluray only has DD 5.1.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Red-Blu-ray/18815/ 5 out of 5 audio.

 

[jay21112]

So I don't get it.
Why did it sound so crappy at my house, when all the settings were the same as any other movie?

You ever turn on a computer and something screwy happen and it freezes, or doesn't put out audio or something like that.

Can that happen with home theater? Could everything seem to be working fine, but my blue-ray player (PS3) or Receiver (Onkyo 875 or 807 I think) have a brain freeze and not output the correct audio?

I mean, I could hear it....it just lacked the oomf that I expected from that movie. I mean the last airbender almost brought my house down when the kid made the sea rise at the very end. So I really expected a lot more from this movie...

I don't know if this bit of info will shed some light on the matter, but this is my bass setup:
I'm running Polk Audio LSI25's in front (they come with 10" subwoofers) in full range mode. The speakers are fed from the front L+R line level outputs, with the subs being fed from the front L+R preouts going into the LSI25 sub's line level inputs, and crossed over at 80hz.

Behind them, I'm running 2 Polk Audio MicroPro 4000 subwoofers split from the same receiver sub out and going into their respective LFE channels. These are crossed over at 80 from the receiver and the crossover on the sub turned all the way up (per the audioholics subwoofer setup article).

Not sure if that made any difference at all....

 

[j_garcia]

No, never.

 

[Ares]

I'll put it like this, have you ever noticed that some TV stations sound extremely loud and others sound so quite that you have the raise the volume just to barley hear it. Well it's the same for movies some will sound great and for others you wished you rented something else, so in short it's the source and not your setup.

 

[just-some-guy]

i usually tweek the subs. sometimes the surrounds.

but yeah, some movies sound kinda crappy.

NF doesn't have RED special edition

 

[Crescendo]

I heard a saying once in a movie... "You can't polish a turd".

In other words, you can't really bring out the best in something that never had much of anything to begin with.

I don't know the specific details about the soundtrack and film you were talking about, but chances are that if you played this with the same set-up and at the same volume, and one was clearly better than the other, then it was either lacking in terms of production or mastering or it was a bad disc.

If you find yourself having to "tweak" certain recordings or movies then that's telling you somethings wrong. You can have one of the finest A/V systems out there, but if your source material is lousy, there isn't much that can be done to make it really shine.

These are the Audiophile/Videophile fundamentals, which is why some don't like to use equalizers, or any of those silly surround modes or other tweaks. Any given recording or movie should be heard or viewed in it's best or purest form and allowed to stand on it's own, with consideration for whatever limitations it may have for the time it was made.

That's when you can really appreciate the art and craft of music/film.

 

[jay21112]

So let it ride, and suffer through it is what I'm hearing.

And it's not so much a volume issue, it's a soundtrack issue. For instance, at the normal volume, the dialogue was clear, but there wasn't much oomf from the bass or clarity from the surrounds. When I put the volume up to try to get that oomf and clarity, the center dialogue was making my ears bleed. So, it's definitely a source problem and not a volume problem.

Guess I'll deal, and appreciate the good movies even more. I've really only had anything close to my current setup for a year, and from what I have heard in that time the Transformers series tops my list of audio bliss, and the Ironman series is a close second. I just preordered the Lord of The Rings Extended Blue Ray edition and I have super high hopes for that....

 

[j_garcia]

I heard a saying once in a movie... "You can't polish a turd".

In other words, you can't really bring out the best in something that never had much of anything to begin with.

Mythbusters proved that you CAN polish a turd. (it is still a POS though).

 

[Pyrrho]

I never tweak for a different movie. The only setting I change for different movies is the volume control.

I also don't use any extra processing to the audio. If you do use some sort of extra processing of the sound, then that could make something sound like crap that shouldn't sound like crap. And so if you like the extra processing on some soundtracks, it is fine for you to use it, but you ought to be prepared for a different setting for some other soundtracks that are not good with that particular extra processing.

As for your specific examples, I have never seen them, and so have nothing to say about those discs in particular.

 

[yepimonfire]

I'll put it like this, have you ever noticed that some TV stations sound extremely loud and others sound so quite that you have the raise the volume just to barley hear it. Well it's the same for movies some will sound great and for others you wished you rented something else, so in short it's the source and not your setup.

yes but ive only rarely heard a tv broadcast actually sound decent.

 

[just-some-guy]

For instance, at the normal volume, the dialogue was clear, but there wasn't much oomf from the bass or clarity from the surrounds. When I put the volume up to try to get that oomf and clarity, the center dialogue was making my ears bleed. So, it's definitely a source problem and not a volume problem.

in that case, try turning the center down. i have had to do that, and it turned out well.

last night i watched TOMBSTONE. i had to turn the subs up or i got no lfe.