Compression and limiting of audio

[freeradical]

Which would be better for reducing the dynamic range of audio from TV/Movie content? I'm not looking for anything expensive like compressors or limiters for musical instruments. I just want something that will allow me to listen to normal speech content in a show, while preventing music/special effects from blowing me away late at night.

I'm looking for something cheap to put between my audio switch box and my normal stereo line in. Not Dolby or surround sound or anything funny like that.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

[Kraniac]

Free,

You're already listening to audio that is completely stomped on with limiting/compression.

It's very hard to accomplish this by compressing an already compressed signal..EQ might work better..do some cuts below the typical vocal frequencies and play around above 1k or 2k with a combo of small boosts and cuts in, and, or around the 'presence' areas..

[cbelt3]

You say compression, but it sounds like you want volume limiting. Yes ? Two very different things.

[Fritz]

is your source OTA or cable.?
OTA should be relatively controlled.

Cables ops have been known to take the incoming dig stream, run it into their "QC" station and then "re-assemble" it for distribution.

Some audio post miss the mark and/or are inconsistent, even within 1 ep.

Other than that, breakout your listening environment to 5.1 or 3.1.
Some of them soundbars do a mighty nice job with incoming dig stream from cable.

If your processor (audio rcvr) is too old, it may not be up to the task of folding down incoming 5.1 to 2.0.

Or listen through Waves L3LL Multiband processor. Kidding.

As more encoding is introduced (to drive the market) Dolby Atmos and other "immersive audio experiences" that are "backwards compatible" ....... aaahh yea.....

[deckeda]

cbelt3 wrote:
You say compression, but it sounds like you want volume limiting. Yes ? Two very different things.

Two sides of basically the same thing. Whenever you limit dynamic range, you've compressed it, and peak limiting is included in that. Even if you don't bring up the softer parts the dynamic range is still lesser.

free, you might also try headphones. You can set the volume to work with the loud parts, and the isolation they afford should allow the quiet parts to be heard better than if listening through speakers.

[cbelt3]

deck- yeah... for some reason I was thinking clipping. Which is icky..

[freeradical]

I'm not interested in compressing/limiting music, just the difference between say spoken voice and the loud thundering music and special effects that occasionally kick in and make me have to turn down the volume. The source material is DVD's from Netflix etc. I do not have cable television.

[Fritz]

physical media or stream?
kind of sounds like the wrong decode or playback/theater mode is engaged on your receiver.
Especially if the source material is modern movies from media, maybe less so from a stream.

[Kraniac]

You can do this with an EQ..I use EQ - post compression quite a bit and it's reasonable to take a decent graphic equalizer (100-150 dollars) and make some cuts in the low end to reduce that ferociously compressed thunderous jive that's present in almost everything..

You could create a very simple curves that would accomplish this and be applicable to most shows...easy if you're using an amp and outboard speakers..if you're just using the TV for your sound then you're at the mercy of the preset EQ settings in the menu..

[wurm]

You mean you don't like it when you've cranked up the volume to hear the whispered dialog, only to have A JET COME THUNDERING BY?