I enjoy special effects and thumping bass as much as the next man, but like most of you I imagine, I care a lot about dialogue. I don’t treat movies and TV as rollercoaster rides — I engage with their plots and themes, and I can’t do that if it’s difficult to follow what characters are saying. Give me intelligible dialogue on a cheap soundbar over muffled conversations on 7.1-channel home theater system.
You don’t need to upgrade your devices to get clearer conversations, though. Chances are there’s at least one accessible solution that will fix dialogue without having to resort to subtitles. Your options will depend on the exact hardware combination you’re using, naturally.
Look for different labels
If you’re relying on your TV’s internal speakers, this is pretty much your only option. The good news is that any recent TV should have some sort of dialogue enhancement option built in, located under one of its Sound or Audio menus. Bear in mind that TV makers frequently like to rebrand this tech — Roku calls it Speech clarity, for instance, and Sony sometimes refers to it as Voice Zoom.
What does this tech do in practice? Depending on the implementation, it boosts vocal frequencies, isolates them, and/or turns on dynamic range compression that lowers loud sounds while raising quiet ones. One way or another, voices become more prominent in the audio mix. Some platforms may offer different levels of enhancement, or break out range compression into a separate feature, since that will impact all sounds — not just voices.
Depending on the implementation, dialogue features boost vocal frequencies, isolate them, and/or turn on dynamic range compression that lowers loud sounds while raising quiet ones.
Indeed, some of this tech can be controversial at times, since there’s the possibility of it warping audio too far. It might even break a director’s intent, say if they actually meant for some lines to be indecipherable. That’s an unlikely issue, but might be a reason to leave enhancement off if you haven’t been struggling that much.
You can find similar options on any add-on media streamer. The Apple TV 4K lets you turn on one of its Enhance Dialogue options at any time by selecting the waveform icon in playback controls. If you go to Settings -> Accessibility, you can add Voice Isolation as an option. Roku devices ask you to hit the Star button and go to Sound settings -> Speech clarity/Dialog enhancement. If you have something else, the instructions are easy to find online.
Enabling dialogue features on my speakers
The wonders of smart tech
If you’ve got external speakers, you should automatically prefer their native dialogue features over the ones on your TV. In fact there’s a high chance that your TV’s options will be unavailable when external speakers are detected, since TVs typically pass raw audio signals along for processing.
You’re most likely to find enhancement features on smart speakers, since they have the processors and software to handle it, and app control to make toggling them easy. If you’ve got a Sonos speaker, for example, all you have to do is select your speaker in the app, then tap a Speech Enhancement icon. Arc Ultra owners can choose from four different levels, including a Max option for people with hearing loss. I’d like to see similar options on more devices.
On “dumb” speakers, there may still be a button that boosts voices. Amazon’s Fire TV Soundbar Plus includes a Dialog button on its remote, which you can also long-press to activate DTS TruVolume, a form of dynamic range compression.
Changing EQ and calibration settings
Whether simple or complex
Since the factor that drowns out voices is all the competing sound frequencies, it stands to reason that you can fix this yourself by adjusting a TV or speaker’s EQ. This can be tricky in practice, as you may need to experiment to get the best results on your sound system. The general principle is that you want to raise mid-range frequencies, and lower bass and/or treble as needed.
You’ll probably only have access to a full set of frequency sliders if you have an app-connected speaker or a separate hardware equalizer. Even then, some apps may only offer a simplified set of controls, such as “boost” switches, or the same sort of generic bass and treble scales you’ll find on many TVs.
Whether they’re hardware- or software- based, you may want to try disabling any bass-boost features. These can add oomph to otherwise mediocre audio, but bass is the most likely culprit for overwhelming other frequencies, and you’re not magically extending the dynamic range of your gear.
Some more advanced speakers support room calibration. That is, they can bounce sounds around your environment, and use the resulting echoes to balance not just your EQ, but signal timing. Recalibrating your speaker can sometimes make dialogue clearer by adapting it to your room’s acoustics.
Falling back on service-specific options
Less than ideal, but workable
In some circumstances, apps for individual services may have their own dialogue options. The best-known example is Amazon Prime Video, which has a Dialogue Boost feature under its mid-stream Audio and/or Subtitles menus. The tech is purely AI-based, so it’s available on any platform, although there’s a chance that it may not be available for all shows and movies.
Beyond Prime Video, you’ll have to explore. Many apps don’t seem to have anything directly dialogue-oriented, or often audio-oriented in general aside from captioning and choosing different formats. The assumption is that you’ll have either TV or speaker settings to fall back on, and that’s pretty reasonable.
If you’re listening to something on your phone, don’t assume any EQ settings will carry over when casting to your TV via Apple AirPlay or Google Cast. Even Spotify Connect limits vocal adjustments to the device you’re controlling things from.
Moving my speakers around
Placement always matters
This is a last-ditch maneuver. You’ve presumably got your speakers pointed in the right direction, and most placement issues that cause trouble with dialogue will affect the rest of your sound as well.
That said, it’s not a completely crazy idea. If you’re using distinct left-, right- and/or center-channel speakers, keeping them too close together could affect stereo separation, and hence how isolated voices are. If you or others always watch TV from a particular spot, aiming speakers directly at that location may help too. All of this applies to any rear satellites you may be using as well.
If you’re using distinct left-, right- and/or center-channel speakers, keeping them too close together could affect stereo separation, and hence how isolated voices are.
Another consideration is what surface your speakers are sitting on. Some materials may rattle a lot when a speaker is running loud, introducing enough noise to affect clarity. Subwoofers should always be sitting on the floor. If you can’t move a speaker, you may be able to mitigate your problems by inserting a mat, cushion, or even a towel underneath. Some speakers include their own legs or stands for similar reasons.
