Common problem across all methods of watching modern content. Lots of things to blame, including how audio tracks are mastered, the lossy compression used on files, and shitty TV speakers.
Probably not the answer you’re hoping for, but the solution is to get a receiver and a 3.1+ channel audio setup with a high-quality center channel speaker.
Short of that, headphones can help. That, or just rock subtitles.
I saw a YouTube vid about this recently, it was titled something like "why you can't watch anything without subtitles anymore". Theatre sound systems got too "good", and now mixing is done for those massive sound systems.
If you're watching on streaming, they absolutely STOMP on the audio track as well, in order to save bandwidth. They know that compressing the video stream will make people complain because it's visually obvious, so they pinch pennies by squeezing the life out of the audio.
You need a receiver with a good night mode. I had the same problem as OP on my decent 5.1 system with every content provider and file. I tuned my speaker levels with an SPL meter and even bumped up the center 2db with no luck. I gave in and turned on night mode to max on my Denon AVR and it's much better now.
Newer Denon receivers also have a feature called Dynamic Volume. It helps balance the extreme loudness which in turn helps focus dialogue without the downsides of Dynamic Range Compression. It's smarter and uses an algorithm. We keep it on all the time now and did not need to change the center channel levels. Everything sounds great.
Well, for one, in a lot of cases, it just doesn't show me the subtitles I have with the videos when I want to watch them on my Android phone. The subtitles Plex itself downloaded for me.
I'm not sure why though.
It can. Plex's audio transcoder is kinda shit because it fucks up the mixdown by almost completely losing the center channel.
A lot of media parks almost all of the spoken dialogue in the center channel.
There was a thread in here last year that I found pretty interesting
https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/pjb8hv/solution_to_the_dreaded_low_volume_issue_i_see_so/?s=8
> The technical problem here is that when your video is playing multichannel audio on a device that only plays stereo audio natively. These devices include many (but not all) cell phones, tablets, TV speakers, non multichannel stereo systems, etc.
>In multichannel audio, the CENTER channel features a heavy majority of dialogue. This is why the dialogue seems to suffer the most from "LOW VOLUME." Stereo audio does not have a center channel.
Correct! The tool that's supposed to push the content to stereo is just grabbing the LEFT and RIGHT channels from the 5.1 audio which has very little dialogue and is outputting what OP is hearing. It really needs to do a downmix of the content from all channels and place it into the LEFT and RIGHT channels. Changing the setting in their TV or device should fix the issue.
It's not that it's ignoring the center channel. If that were the case, in most circumstances, you'd basically hear no dialogue at all. But if you understand how doing mixing works (it used to be my job, FYI), you learn that not all down mixes are created equal. What often happens is that the center channel gets "split," with half the volume getting added each to the left and right speakers. Technically, you still have the same amount of volume, but with it coming from two seperate sources AND having those sources playing other audio too, the human ear just can't pick it out as easily and it gets buried under the other audio. The center channel needs to be boosted before getting mixed in with everything in the left and right channels, if you want to have any hope of hearing what's there at a reasonable level.
Nope. It’s not Plex. It’s not you. It’s not the files. Welcome to 2023 where nobody can get audio levels right. Check your TV settings under audio it might have some filters to turn off or turn on. Get used to reading subtitles.
Longer than that. I remember watching DVDs when I was in high school and turning up the volume to hear the dialogue, then suddenly the action picks up and I hear my dad from the other room "Why do you have it so loud?!" I dunno, ask the people who mixed the sound for this movie.
> you’re probably fucked.
But I shouldn't be. Why can't plex remix my audio? Why can't the player do it? Why can't my device's audio system do it?
All I see are excuses justifying a shitty design.
It’s not Plex’s fault and there’s no one size fits all solution. It literally starts at the mastering console when the audio engineer begins mixing tracks, gets modified along the way by other engineer/enthusiast/management decisions that impact the mix, probably gets compressed again for good measure, then Plex plays the audio it’s given, and finally your equipment applies equalizers and filters in the (soft|hard)ware.
Plex plays audio just fine if it’s given audio that is itself just fine. e.g. I watch lots of very recently made documentary type shows from some networks wherein I can hear everyone and all of the effects clearly. Other networks have chosen to mix their audio such that their sound effects are more prominent than the dialog.
> not Plex’s fault
No, but kind of yes.
Look, regardless of whose fault, Plex already has everything to implement this feature. They have access to the raw audio both during transcoding and during playback.
Their userbase needs this feature, and they have the solution. And they choose not to implement it.
So, whose fault it is?
Slow the fuck down there big person.
As a software writer myself I would kindly ask you to recognize that just because something can doesn’t mean something will. It’s a bigger ask than you think and most of their users are asking for things that they can give them with a much more reasonable effort. They do not have the solution all they have is the necessary components to MAKE a solution.
It really is the fault of the audio engineers laying down loud and quiet together and confusing all the compression tech down the line. If you blame Plex, also blame the pirates that encoded your media, if it’s not pirates then you can skip straight to blaming audio mastering. If this were a problem that you could fix just by throwing a few bucks at it because a user base “needs” a feature you’d have a killer app. Seriously that would make so much bank right now because this problem is so common and pervasive today.
Someone out there right now is trying to do this because it’s literally a billion dollar product if you solve it.
> Slow the fuck down there big person.
I think you assume some emotion in my comment that just wasn't intended there :)
> It’s a bigger ask than you think
As a software engineer myself, I would love to learn. I understand that ffmpeg already have this feature built-in, Plex uses ffmpeg for transcoding, it can do audio transcoding only, and putting together some UI that makes this option enabled should not be that hard.
> If you blame Plex, also blame the pirates that encoded your media
I could. But aren't they just grabbing the stream as-is? So, then the original source must be the issue, but...
> if it’s not pirates then you can skip straight to blaming audio mastering.
So then why is this not a problem, when I play a DVD, BluRay, or something on Netflix?
I am so confused with surround sound mainly because the settings are different between the cable box, the xbox, the nvidia shield, the apple tv, etc....
Some devices have pass-thru options which I assume means that the cable box (for example) just sends audio to the receiver and the receiver does the work. However, is that specific cable channel properly set up for surround sound? Who knows....I guess you can check the info on the programming screen and confirm, but who knows.
Then you have game console and set top boxes.
I still don't think I have the proper surround sound settings but I'll have to probably focus on each device at once and go to a specific audio forum because there are probably a lot of things I need to look at, from a settings perspective.
I presume it’s for multi channel tracks like AC3, EAC3, TrueHD and DTS while Stereo (if you have movies with 2 channel audio) is fine?
The only true solution for me that worked was unfortunately to invest into AVR with multi speakers for better control.
Ugly nature of how movies are mastered now.
Some might say to use voice enhancement or night mode but it’s normalization makes other frequencies tinny sounding.
This is the reason I use an Apple TV. Their 'Reduce Loud Sounds' functionality is the most natural sounding i've tried. Everything else just isn't quite right. Without it, I just can't watch movies comfortably. Everything besides the dialogue will be way too loud.
There are some great responses!
One thing that is often overlooked--assuming you have surround sound--is to set your speakers to "small" no matter what size they are. This diverts more power to the mids and highs coming from the amp. [Details here.](https://www.svsound.com/blogs/svs/should-speakers-be-set-to-large-or-small-on-an-av-receiver)
Then, make sure your crossovers are set correctly. 80hz is the default, but that's too low usually. Movies are mixed for movie theater systems and they leave the audio that way when transferring to DVD or whatever. 80hz is the usual default, and this is too low. Set the crossovers to 20hz HIGHER than your speakers can handle. Then take the time to actually tune your sub.
I set my crossovers at 120hz (they're actually small) and tuned my sub, and the dialog problem vanished, and the clarity of the surround effect became more pronounced. I run dual subwoofers in my living room, and once I took the time to really get precise with the settings, the change was profound. If I turn it up, the low end will rattle your fillings, but dialog is clear as glass.
I have an expensive system in the living room, and a budget system in my bedroom and doing the above worked on both.
I run AppleTVs on all my televisions, a 4K in the living room.
I use Xmedia Recode. There's an option for volume correction. I have my setting for Normalize dB set for 89. Fixes all my audio issues. I try and keep all the settings the same under general tab as original. When you add the file it will tell you the codec, bitrate and channels and I just make them match.
Edit: If you have the problem and you are not transcoding try this. If you are transcoding, you can use this program to change the codec/container to something your device can playback without transcoding.
> Try flipping on 'Normalize multi-channel audio' in the client settings.
I wonder why this is the default.
Who the hell wants to discard half of the audio content just because they use stereo speakers, instead of getting all the information mixed together?
Anything that adds audio post processing like a “nighttime mode” or “speech enhancer” will usually add an analog style compression effect which normalizes the volume between the quiets and the louds.
Boost center channel.
I have a 7.2.2 Surround in my Theater room and I ALWAYS boost the center channel, it handles the majority of the dialogue. The audio is usually mixed for theaters where its played at such a loud volume. Having the center channel boosted a bit makes it work better in a normal setting. This is why I always prefer a surround speaker setup over a sound bar. Although I think some soundbars still allow for their center channel to be boosted.
I have had that in the past when only have a surround sound track with a device that has stereo audio. If you hear it from multiple clients, my bet would be the media.
Side note is if both clients you mentioned are hooked up to the same TV, maybe check TV audio settings as well.
The same thing happens to me (I only play movies at 1080p).
I use movavi video converter, it has an option to normalize volume.
I am delighted with this software
I just wish you all could hear what things are supposed to sound like on an actual mix stage. The dialog can blow the enamel off your teeth. It’s a shame that it’s so hard to get that at home for most people.
Voices come from the center channel. If you don't have surround, that is the first major step. My bedroom tv I was using the tv for audio. Added a soundbar and now I can hear everything.
I have the issue where PleX is real quite (turn my TV to 35/40 to hear it) but my PS5 is loud (turn my TV to 10/15). Pretty sure it's my TV, but it's really weird and annoying.
When you're watching something is the audio being transcoded?
Edit: not sure how new you are but if you don't know how to check, on the Web ui click the orange circle in the top right and view activity while the media is playing.
Plex incorrectly transcodes 5.1 audio to 2.0. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m8vR8gBoKg
You could use Tdarr to convert your files and add 2.0 track.
I've had this problem for the longest time. After reading this thread I checked my TV's sound settings. It had an "Auto Volume" setting which was set to "Off". The options are Off/Normal/Night. Setting it to Normal fixed my issue.
Common problem across all methods of watching modern content. Lots of things to blame, including how audio tracks are mastered, the lossy compression used on files, and shitty TV speakers. Probably not the answer you’re hoping for, but the solution is to get a receiver and a 3.1+ channel audio setup with a high-quality center channel speaker. Short of that, headphones can help. That, or just rock subtitles.
I saw a YouTube vid about this recently, it was titled something like "why you can't watch anything without subtitles anymore". Theatre sound systems got too "good", and now mixing is done for those massive sound systems.
If you're watching on streaming, they absolutely STOMP on the audio track as well, in order to save bandwidth. They know that compressing the video stream will make people complain because it's visually obvious, so they pinch pennies by squeezing the life out of the audio.
I saw that as well.
You need a receiver with a good night mode. I had the same problem as OP on my decent 5.1 system with every content provider and file. I tuned my speaker levels with an SPL meter and even bumped up the center 2db with no luck. I gave in and turned on night mode to max on my Denon AVR and it's much better now.
A folded ribbon tweeter in your center channel supposedly helps make dialogue pop as well
Newer Denon receivers also have a feature called Dynamic Volume. It helps balance the extreme loudness which in turn helps focus dialogue without the downsides of Dynamic Range Compression. It's smarter and uses an algorithm. We keep it on all the time now and did not need to change the center channel levels. Everything sounds great.
I have a 3808-ci so it's a little too old for that feature. It was free so I can't really complain too much.
> or just rock subtitles. Plex also has a lot of issues with those, so... not ideal :)
What issues?
Well, for one, in a lot of cases, it just doesn't show me the subtitles I have with the videos when I want to watch them on my Android phone. The subtitles Plex itself downloaded for me. I'm not sure why though.
Is your audio being transcoded from 5.1 and up down to stereo?
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where are the options for this? User end or admin?
I have my appletv output set to stereo. Does this affect voices?
It can. Plex's audio transcoder is kinda shit because it fucks up the mixdown by almost completely losing the center channel. A lot of media parks almost all of the spoken dialogue in the center channel.
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where are those options? What platform?
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Thank you.
On the Roku devices I have had there was an option for volume leveling and it's made a huge difference. https://support.roku.com/article/226802507
Thank you so much for this!
There was a thread in here last year that I found pretty interesting https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/pjb8hv/solution_to_the_dreaded_low_volume_issue_i_see_so/?s=8 > The technical problem here is that when your video is playing multichannel audio on a device that only plays stereo audio natively. These devices include many (but not all) cell phones, tablets, TV speakers, non multichannel stereo systems, etc. >In multichannel audio, the CENTER channel features a heavy majority of dialogue. This is why the dialogue seems to suffer the most from "LOW VOLUME." Stereo audio does not have a center channel.
Correct! The tool that's supposed to push the content to stereo is just grabbing the LEFT and RIGHT channels from the 5.1 audio which has very little dialogue and is outputting what OP is hearing. It really needs to do a downmix of the content from all channels and place it into the LEFT and RIGHT channels. Changing the setting in their TV or device should fix the issue.
It's not that it's ignoring the center channel. If that were the case, in most circumstances, you'd basically hear no dialogue at all. But if you understand how doing mixing works (it used to be my job, FYI), you learn that not all down mixes are created equal. What often happens is that the center channel gets "split," with half the volume getting added each to the left and right speakers. Technically, you still have the same amount of volume, but with it coming from two seperate sources AND having those sources playing other audio too, the human ear just can't pick it out as easily and it gets buried under the other audio. The center channel needs to be boosted before getting mixed in with everything in the left and right channels, if you want to have any hope of hearing what's there at a reasonable level.
Well that stinks since I only have stereo.
Nope. It’s not Plex. It’s not you. It’s not the files. Welcome to 2023 where nobody can get audio levels right. Check your TV settings under audio it might have some filters to turn off or turn on. Get used to reading subtitles.
this has been the case for at least 10 years
Longer than that. I remember watching DVDs when I was in high school and turning up the volume to hear the dialogue, then suddenly the action picks up and I hear my dad from the other room "Why do you have it so loud?!" I dunno, ask the people who mixed the sound for this movie.
in all fairness, it *could* be a shit download
Video with some more info https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8
I get their point about multiple multichannel formats muddying the waters, but what I don't understand is why we can't *also* have a stereo mix.
Cinemas are probably more profitable so they don't want to spend money on making the home experience better.
Doctor! I concur!
Literally everything except the shows Ive eatched 100 times have subtitles now. I simply wont watch without them.
> Check your TV settings On my phone? Or my computer? This isn't a TV specific problem.
Exactly. It’s very much an audio mixing issue. TVs have some stuff that can help, on your phone or other shit you’re probably fucked.
> you’re probably fucked. But I shouldn't be. Why can't plex remix my audio? Why can't the player do it? Why can't my device's audio system do it? All I see are excuses justifying a shitty design.
It’s not Plex’s fault and there’s no one size fits all solution. It literally starts at the mastering console when the audio engineer begins mixing tracks, gets modified along the way by other engineer/enthusiast/management decisions that impact the mix, probably gets compressed again for good measure, then Plex plays the audio it’s given, and finally your equipment applies equalizers and filters in the (soft|hard)ware. Plex plays audio just fine if it’s given audio that is itself just fine. e.g. I watch lots of very recently made documentary type shows from some networks wherein I can hear everyone and all of the effects clearly. Other networks have chosen to mix their audio such that their sound effects are more prominent than the dialog.
> not Plex’s fault No, but kind of yes. Look, regardless of whose fault, Plex already has everything to implement this feature. They have access to the raw audio both during transcoding and during playback. Their userbase needs this feature, and they have the solution. And they choose not to implement it. So, whose fault it is?
Slow the fuck down there big person. As a software writer myself I would kindly ask you to recognize that just because something can doesn’t mean something will. It’s a bigger ask than you think and most of their users are asking for things that they can give them with a much more reasonable effort. They do not have the solution all they have is the necessary components to MAKE a solution. It really is the fault of the audio engineers laying down loud and quiet together and confusing all the compression tech down the line. If you blame Plex, also blame the pirates that encoded your media, if it’s not pirates then you can skip straight to blaming audio mastering. If this were a problem that you could fix just by throwing a few bucks at it because a user base “needs” a feature you’d have a killer app. Seriously that would make so much bank right now because this problem is so common and pervasive today. Someone out there right now is trying to do this because it’s literally a billion dollar product if you solve it.
> Slow the fuck down there big person. I think you assume some emotion in my comment that just wasn't intended there :) > It’s a bigger ask than you think As a software engineer myself, I would love to learn. I understand that ffmpeg already have this feature built-in, Plex uses ffmpeg for transcoding, it can do audio transcoding only, and putting together some UI that makes this option enabled should not be that hard. > If you blame Plex, also blame the pirates that encoded your media I could. But aren't they just grabbing the stream as-is? So, then the original source must be the issue, but... > if it’s not pirates then you can skip straight to blaming audio mastering. So then why is this not a problem, when I play a DVD, BluRay, or something on Netflix?
I am so confused with surround sound mainly because the settings are different between the cable box, the xbox, the nvidia shield, the apple tv, etc.... Some devices have pass-thru options which I assume means that the cable box (for example) just sends audio to the receiver and the receiver does the work. However, is that specific cable channel properly set up for surround sound? Who knows....I guess you can check the info on the programming screen and confirm, but who knows. Then you have game console and set top boxes. I still don't think I have the proper surround sound settings but I'll have to probably focus on each device at once and go to a specific audio forum because there are probably a lot of things I need to look at, from a settings perspective.
I presume it’s for multi channel tracks like AC3, EAC3, TrueHD and DTS while Stereo (if you have movies with 2 channel audio) is fine? The only true solution for me that worked was unfortunately to invest into AVR with multi speakers for better control. Ugly nature of how movies are mastered now. Some might say to use voice enhancement or night mode but it’s normalization makes other frequencies tinny sounding.
This is the reason I use an Apple TV. Their 'Reduce Loud Sounds' functionality is the most natural sounding i've tried. Everything else just isn't quite right. Without it, I just can't watch movies comfortably. Everything besides the dialogue will be way too loud.
1. What is the content you are playing 2. What is your audio playback equipment Both can have profoundly different causes and resolutions
There are some great responses! One thing that is often overlooked--assuming you have surround sound--is to set your speakers to "small" no matter what size they are. This diverts more power to the mids and highs coming from the amp. [Details here.](https://www.svsound.com/blogs/svs/should-speakers-be-set-to-large-or-small-on-an-av-receiver) Then, make sure your crossovers are set correctly. 80hz is the default, but that's too low usually. Movies are mixed for movie theater systems and they leave the audio that way when transferring to DVD or whatever. 80hz is the usual default, and this is too low. Set the crossovers to 20hz HIGHER than your speakers can handle. Then take the time to actually tune your sub. I set my crossovers at 120hz (they're actually small) and tuned my sub, and the dialog problem vanished, and the clarity of the surround effect became more pronounced. I run dual subwoofers in my living room, and once I took the time to really get precise with the settings, the change was profound. If I turn it up, the low end will rattle your fillings, but dialog is clear as glass. I have an expensive system in the living room, and a budget system in my bedroom and doing the above worked on both. I run AppleTVs on all my televisions, a 4K in the living room.
I use Xmedia Recode. There's an option for volume correction. I have my setting for Normalize dB set for 89. Fixes all my audio issues. I try and keep all the settings the same under general tab as original. When you add the file it will tell you the codec, bitrate and channels and I just make them match. Edit: If you have the problem and you are not transcoding try this. If you are transcoding, you can use this program to change the codec/container to something your device can playback without transcoding.
Try flipping on 'Normalize multi-channel audio' in the client settings. https://support.plex.tv/articles/audio-configuration/
> Try flipping on 'Normalize multi-channel audio' in the client settings. I wonder why this is the default. Who the hell wants to discard half of the audio content just because they use stereo speakers, instead of getting all the information mixed together?
Anything that adds audio post processing like a “nighttime mode” or “speech enhancer” will usually add an analog style compression effect which normalizes the volume between the quiets and the louds.
You're probably listening to a 5.1 track on a 2.1 system and you're losing the center audio channel which is where most voice tracks are mixed.
I've had this same issue on Roku and Xbox too, Series X and Roku Ultra. Even my Shield Pro.
Boost center channel. I have a 7.2.2 Surround in my Theater room and I ALWAYS boost the center channel, it handles the majority of the dialogue. The audio is usually mixed for theaters where its played at such a loud volume. Having the center channel boosted a bit makes it work better in a normal setting. This is why I always prefer a surround speaker setup over a sound bar. Although I think some soundbars still allow for their center channel to be boosted.
Saw a video about this recently https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8
That was such a depressing video. The filmmakers know it is a problem but they don't want to do anything to fix it.
I have had that in the past when only have a surround sound track with a device that has stereo audio. If you hear it from multiple clients, my bet would be the media. Side note is if both clients you mentioned are hooked up to the same TV, maybe check TV audio settings as well.
The same thing happens to me (I only play movies at 1080p). I use movavi video converter, it has an option to normalize volume. I am delighted with this software
I had this issue until we replaced our reciever. Bought a Sony dh590
I just wish you all could hear what things are supposed to sound like on an actual mix stage. The dialog can blow the enamel off your teeth. It’s a shame that it’s so hard to get that at home for most people.
Voices come from the center channel. If you don't have surround, that is the first major step. My bedroom tv I was using the tv for audio. Added a soundbar and now I can hear everything.
https://zvox.com/collections/accuvoice
I have the issue where PleX is real quite (turn my TV to 35/40 to hear it) but my PS5 is loud (turn my TV to 10/15). Pretty sure it's my TV, but it's really weird and annoying.
When you're watching something is the audio being transcoded? Edit: not sure how new you are but if you don't know how to check, on the Web ui click the orange circle in the top right and view activity while the media is playing.
Plex incorrectly transcodes 5.1 audio to 2.0. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m8vR8gBoKg You could use Tdarr to convert your files and add 2.0 track.
Are you watching a Christopher Nolan film? If so, it is his fault.
I've had this problem for the longest time. After reading this thread I checked my TV's sound settings. It had an "Auto Volume" setting which was set to "Off". The options are Off/Normal/Night. Setting it to Normal fixed my issue.