[dylan604]

One of the criteria for me to go to the theater was the big screen and big sound would really add to the experience. The last film I saw in the theater was was so loud that it physically hurt and ruined the experience.

As you say with the image quality being as high at home now plus a decent surround system really makes the theater experience at home very enjoyable.

[foobarian]

These days it's hard for the screen and sound alone to compete with home theater tech. So the only remaining edge a theater might have is the presence of others. The Minecraft movie was the perfect example of this. Some of our kid's classmates went to see it multiple times due to the viral audience cues. And to think that some theaters tried to suppress it.

[mschuster91]

If you got a house of your own, yes.

If you are in an urban area and are not a millionaire, you probably live in some kind of apartment or studio. And yes, you can stick up a projector and a good surround system... but it might be that the builder cut corners on the floors and your neighbors already come knocking when you are talking, much less turn up the audio system to a tenth of the sound pressure a good cinema sound system provides.

[ozim]

I do live in an apartment and I am far from a millionaire.

I don't have any of the problem - but I don't have "cinema sound system" as I mentioned whatever I have must have just clear sound and clear doesn't mean loud. I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie.

[mschuster91]

> I don't need "sound experience" to enjoy a movie.

Unfortunately, most cinema movies are not properly remastered in their audio tracks, but keep the original cinema mix. That results in very silent dialogue (which is not a problem in a cinema, at least as long as people behave and don't yap around all the time) and very loud sequences particularly in action shots.

When you now give such a movie to your usual home theater setup, you have to turn up the volume enough so you can understand the dialogue and either constantly turn it down whenever it gets heated or live with neighbors complaining.

Straight-to-streaming releases usually don't suffer from that problem, because they are made and mixed for normal users streaming on their laptops with shitty speakers. Note I said usually, because Disney's Star Wars series are still mastered for decent setups with dynamic range.

There's a debate to be had about the impact of that on storytelling, as straight-to-streaming these days is produced with the movie/episode on a side screen while people are doing something else, so everything that you would normally see on a screen is verbally described by actors, but that's another debate entirely.

[evrenesat]

Thanks for clarifying that. I always thinking it was due to my bad hearing or lack of fluency! English is my second language, and without subtitles, I'm having trouble to understand the dialogues without increasing the volume until I reach a level where I also got disturbed from the sound effects, bg music etc. It's a bigger issue with movies, not only due to what you explained about sound mixing, but also error correction of my brain works worse without the context, unlike series where I know the plot and the characters.

[mystraline]

Watch out for any show with Christopher Nolan as director. He is notorious for terrible audio mixing, and having actor mumble and otherwise dictate horribly.

As an american and English as my only human language, even I need subtitles.

And the movie "Tenet" was so bad that I ragequit 30 minutes in. Horrible horrible audio.

[ethbr1]

It's not you; it's media (including TV).

Post-1990s, directors forgot how to mix audio for stereo.

And streaming services assumed you had at least a 5.1 system with a dedicated center channel.

[shiroiuma]

>you have to turn up the volume enough so you can understand the dialogue and either constantly turn it down whenever it gets heated or live with neighbors complaining.

It doesn't help that many actors these days have become students of the "mumble acting" school of acting. It's amazing watching some 50-year-old movie from the 70s and the dialog is crystal-clear and perfectly understandable.

[mschuster91]

> It's amazing watching some 50-year-old movie from the 70s and the dialog is crystal-clear and perfectly understandable.

Back then dynamic range in cinemas also wasn't there and TVs were mono as well. You couldn't fix stuff in post to a large degree either, so in moviemaking you were all but forced to have sets as quiet as possible and actors speak clearly.