Someone raised this after watching Venom The Last Dance: dialogue perfectly clear, but the music and background sat so far back it didn't feel like part of the film. I've had the same impression on Netflix a few times and I don't think the catalogue is quietly getting worse.
Two things stack here. A stereo track is a downmix, and downmixes are built dialogue forward on purpose, because most people listening in two channels are on TV speakers or a phone. Anything that isn't centre channel content gets pulled back so speech survives. Then loudness normalisation runs on top, and it gets applied at more than one point in the chain. The service does its own, a lot of TVs and soundbars ship with a volume levelling mode already switched on, and between them they flatten exactly the dynamic range you are missing.
Before writing off the service I'd check the boring stuff. Is the device set to output stereo or to bitstream, does that title even have a 5.1 or Atmos track on your plan, and is some auto volume feature running downstream. I've been asked to look at this twice and both times it was a levelling setting nobody knew was enabled.
If you are on the multichannel track with processing off and it still sounds like that, then it is the mix and worth naming titles so others can check the same ones. What is the chain here, TV app straight in, a box, or through an AVR?
Two things stack here. A stereo track is a downmix, and downmixes are built dialogue forward on purpose, because most people listening in two channels are on TV speakers or a phone. Anything that isn't centre channel content gets pulled back so speech survives. Then loudness normalisation runs on top, and it gets applied at more than one point in the chain. The service does its own, a lot of TVs and soundbars ship with a volume levelling mode already switched on, and between them they flatten exactly the dynamic range you are missing.
Before writing off the service I'd check the boring stuff. Is the device set to output stereo or to bitstream, does that title even have a 5.1 or Atmos track on your plan, and is some auto volume feature running downstream. I've been asked to look at this twice and both times it was a levelling setting nobody knew was enabled.
If you are on the multichannel track with processing off and it still sounds like that, then it is the mix and worth naming titles so others can check the same ones. What is the chain here, TV app straight in, a box, or through an AVR?
