Because the fuckers producing the shows make the music and sound effects 5x louder than it needs to be but the dialogue half as loud as it needs to be.

Music loud as fuck, voices soft as fuck, turn volume down and put on subtitles

There's a couple reasons why I use subtitles all time. Firstly I'm getting older and can't hear as well with background noise. If my wife is banging around in the kitchen I can't hear dialog from the TV. With subtitles on I don't have to mess with the volume.

Another issue is media producers (TV and film) have this idea they need to blast you out of your chair with sound effects and music. So if you turn up the volume enough to hear the dialog clearly, you're going to get blasted by everything else. Trying to manage that with the volume control is damn near impossible. Interestingly I've noticed "dialog boost" appear on occasion in sound track options from my streaming provider. I use it when the option is there. That kind of indicates a global problem.

An issue related to sound leveling is actors used to come out of theater where they learned to annunciate loudly and clearly. It seems actors don't get proper stage training anymore and now it's okay to mumble and fail to annunciate. A decent director should never allow that.

For me, at least, it's the fucking bad audio. So goddamn often the sound makes someone difficult to understand so I watch most things with subtitles.

I don't have to do that with games. Why? Because I get separate volume sliders for music, sound effects, and speech. Trouble understanding just means I need to adjust those to make the speech louder over music and fx.

Why in the hells tv and movie audio tracks don't have this separation I don't understand at all.

I always use them, otherwise I have to hold the remote the whole time and keep changing the volume. Watching Silo right now and there's so many whispering scenes I'd never be able to make out.

I’m just deaf and happy y’all’re seeing the light. My father was annoyed with mom’s captions. My wife used them before we met

I don't think average TV audio gear is the problem. We have excellent audio gear, and the fuckwits who make the content are letting actors get away with (whispering). Lazy shits.

Audio is all over the place from streaming sources. It's like the last 80 years of knowledge was forgotten.

Ray Charles (and other real artists) made his mix engineers listen to a song compressed in mono and bandwidth chopped because he knew most of his fans listened via AM radio.

Make those fuckers listen to their own shit. Or the assholes giving those other assholes money.

The degradation of TV audio was inevitable once flatscreen monitors started to get really thin and big. We now sit farther than ever from our screens, which leads to higher pitched dialog getting quieter (since it attenuates faster than low pitched sounds - think about how you can hear a car stereo from around the block, but can’t hear your neighbor’s baby crying). In addition, our quest to eliminate speaker grills has led to designs that either point speakers straight down (obviously bad), or use complex sound piping to reorient sound through small openings (sorta bad).

When you add in the fact that most TV and films are now designed explicitly for surround sound and/or good headphones, you can imagine how bad things get for most people.

1. I’ve got kids, so I’m not gonna hear shit bc no one can keep their mouths shut long enough to let me watch in peace, and 2. Depending on what I’m watching, sound levels are all over the place. Loud action sequences followed by whisper quiet dialogue, I need subtitles as a way to not constantly have to fiddle with the volume.

Whatever the reason, a lot of people struggle to hear dialogue now, so turning on closed captioning to decipher what people are saying has become a no brainer move.

Good to realize I am not going deaf.

Film producers are intentionally mixing for theaters and refusing to mix for home devices.

There was a video essay going viral about this some time ago.

https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8

I literally can't hear some words occasionally in newer shows. I don't need them for older shows though.

I got fucking kids and now never have any peace anymore. That's how that happened for me at least.

Because the mixing is usually ass on these shows

For me it started with Movies that follow this new trend of poor sound editing on the mid channels. Then It just stuck because I know I'll never miss anything if I have them on

The audio is just really bad for movies and series that are in the original language. If it's dubbed the voice becomes much clearer. Or TV speakers might just be shitty, because with headphones everything is clear again ...

I watch while my baby naps. Subtitles on, volume low because I swear to god if I wake him up.....

I believe it's also psychological, it's easier to concentrate when there's written word matching the action. Our attention is diminished these days.

A striking example of how this trend is irreversible is japanese tv. You'll see words everywhere. It's used for emphasis but also the shows end up boring without them.

Let’s keep in mind that TV subtitles were true garbage back then. I have ADHD and often miss dialogue. I remember resigning myself to not using them as there was a huge time delay and the white text on black boxes covered 10% of our 480p screens.

I wish movie theatres would have regular showings with captions on the screen. I'm hearing impaired and need captions no matter what (doesn't matter what the audio mixing is like -- I need them). The chain theatres near me have caption devices available on request. They go in the cup holder and have a shared little screen.

Problem is, those caption devices suck. They are unreliable and sometimes skip lines here and there. I've also been to too many theatres where the captions just didn't work (every one has given me a refund and even consolation coupons, but I really just want to be able to watch the movie).

And then indie theatres straight up have never even tried to be accessible to me. There's a cool looking indie theatre in my city that I'm never gonna go to because they have no accessibility options.

Vox - Why we all need subtitles now

I've started turning on the Subtitles, as it seems as if newer shows and movies are harder to understand. At first, I thought my hearing is going, but not only can I hear the music in the shows just fine, I can watch old shows and movies from over 10 years ago and understand them just fine. In my opinion, it is as if they are putting less volume on the vocal tracks, or maybe using microphones or recording techniques that are not ideal for the spoken language.

I use them because often when I watch series I munch on loud snacks.

Eating chips.

I'm HoH and don't like to use captions. My wife hears fine and will only use captions.

You all now know that. You're welcome.

When I play films produced decades ago in stereo or even mono, it’s shocking how much easier the dialogue is to understand. I’ve resorted to spending a not insignificant sum on a 5.1 setup just so I can crank up the centre channel and make the dialogue a bit more intelligible. Even then it still isn’t perfect. The dynamic range just really isn’t suitable for home viewing. I’m still constantly riding the volume to keep sound effects from pissing off my neighbours/sleeping child…

Here’s a youtube video on the same topic I watched recently: https://youtu.be/VYJtb2YXae8

I find that I tend to miss words because of pronunciation, accent, or the character just basically not even verbalizing parts of some words.

When I turn on subtitles, I never miss a word.

Does that mean I'm a nobody? Lol

For real though, I'm so glad to have a 5.1 speaker setup, it solves the problem of too many channels coming out of two speakers on the back of the tv. I can hear rather clearly and only use subtitles for foreign language content.

I use them just because it can provide more information. Look at them in passing when you didn't quite make out what someone said. Also subtitles for foreign films, I dont like watching dubbed.

They need to sell more soundbars with dedicated center channels to address this specific issue. The vast majority of them are left/right channels, great for explosions but not great for dialogue.

Sound engineering is expensive. Actor retakes are expensive. Fixing dialogue in post production is expensive.

All studios are cheap and trying to squeeze as much profit as possible. They won't pay to do sound correctly.

I hate subtitles, I find them distracting. I love to read books, I read a lot. But if I want to read a book in that moment I will read a book. I want to watch and listen to what's on the TV, not read it.

My wife prefers them though, so it's a point of contention.

TVs nowadays have terrible built-in speakers with hard to hear dialogue. A lot of soundbars also struggle with voices.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/watching-movies-tv-with-subtitles/674301/

This article encapsulates everything I feel about the subject. I hate using subtitles, but sometimes I just have to in order to hear what people are saying due to streaming services messing with the actual sound mix using their stupid algorithms. As for reasons I hate subtitles: they distract from the actual film and can occasionally spoil things happening. If subtitles are on the screen, my brain forces my eyes down to read them, and I inevitably lose out on some of the nuances of the visual part of the visual media.

Additionally, if I'm watching foreign films, I get this urge to learn the language so I can stop using subtitles. Maybe I'm a curmudgeon, but I just can't stand them. I can't imagine watching Redline for instance with subtitles on. Yuck.

IMO, a not-insignificant factor here is attention - most people are doing two things (at least) while watching TV these days. They aren't fully tuned in and actively listening to hear what's being said in English speaking shows, even with heavy regional dialects. You can definitely follow these shows, you just have to "be there".

Second observation is actually around Neurodivergent people. I find certain people fixate on understanding exact language and meaning in TV shows/movies, when in reality, much of the content speaking to multicultural audiences know that you won't exactly understand every cultural reference or specific phrase - when the Italian mafia boss shouts quickly with angry eyes and runs the back of his hand under his chin at someone... You don't need to know specifically that he said, "your mother is a prostitute who sleeps with goats". You're meant to take the general context of that moment from tone and body language. ESPECIALLY say, is the person he's yelling at in Italian is American for example, that confusion you feel personally adds to you emphasizing with the fear and confusion of that character who doesn't understand what's being said. Many though can't break that fixation on needing to know EXACTLY though, so I know people that keep the subtitles on.

I think some people should probably just be trained to consume media properly, and they may respond well to that training if it existed somehow. Problem is, all of the networks are owned by huge multinational conglomerates. They don't care at all about the art or the split attention, just that they have captured that diverted attention in both places that you're half focusing on.

I thought I was just losing my hearing. Well, technically I am.. but at least it’s not the only reason.

English is not my mother tongue but I prefer it when watching movies and series. The subtitles are English as well, but when there is some strange dialect or some background noise I need it to get the context.

I pirate tv shows and movies. They don't have embedded subtitles for when someone starts speaking another language anymore. If I don't turn on subtitles I may be watching something and suddenly realize, "These mofos have been speaking Mexican for the last three minutes!"

I think the majority of the time its the mix being designed for a cinema setup. It's annoying, but understandable.