[jmg999]

I'm not certain that this is the correct forum for this, but I figured that those in this forum were probably the most knowledgeable about what I'm looking to do. I have some .mp4 recordings I'd made using a Samsung Galaxy S8 cell phone. These are recordings for a legal claim, so they're a lot construction-type noises. I then transferred these recordings to my laptop running Windows 10 Pro. When playing these back, I listened to them using Bluetooth headphones that were nothing special (Cowin SE7s), yet these recordings sounded exactly as the original sound did w/ little-to-no difference.

However, when playing them back over the speakers on my laptop, many of the videos had no sound at all. I tried a second laptop, also running Windows 10 Pro, and while it was a bit better, many of the sounds, and much of the depth of sound, were still lost. I'm wondering how I can correct for this.

Does anyone have any suggestions for bringing out the depth and richness of the sound when playing it back on speakers as opposed to the headphones? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

 

[danadam]

Possibly the recording contains lots of low frequencies and the laptop speakers can't reproduce them. Connect the laptop to some bigger speakers and see if it helps.

 

[jmg999]

Thank you for your response. I'll give that a try. Other than this, is there a way a way to increase the volume by utilizing any software that you're aware of?

 

[bigshot]

If there is no sound at all, I would venture a guess that the sound is encoded in a codec that the player doesn't support. Either that or your sound settings are misconfigured. I don't see enough information in your post to know for sure.

 

[jmg999]

Thank you for your response. What other type of information can I provide for you that might help you make a thorough assessment? It's not that there isn't sound at all on some of the files, it's just that it's too soft to be heard, I believe.

 

[castleofargh]

Try VLC, that usually takes care of the codecs, and it probably still has the volume going to 200%. That may not be enough, but it’s an easy start.
Beyond that, you will probably have to consider an audio editing software. Audacity is free but I have no idea if it will let you easily import mp4. I imagine that installing ffmpeg(look where you install as you may ned the path), and adding it as library in audacity would be enough. But I’m quite noob for things like that, so you might have to ask google for help.
Then some more googling to find the steps to increase the gain(amplify? normalize?) of your track in audacity. And hopefully for you this can come out without too much noises and clipping, so the sound you want is audible. No guarantee.

 

[bigshot]

If there is no sound at all, that is a different problem than the sound being too quiet. And if the sound is fine on headphones, but not on speakers, I would suspect a problem with the speaker amp, not the files themselves.

 

[castleofargh]

I just considered that it’s often easy to go stupidly loud with headphones, and not as easy on the little tweeter of a laptop. But maybe that’s a wrong assumption. Time will tell.

 

[jmg999]

Thank you for the suggestions you all have provided. It really helps point me in the right direction. I'm going to try each of these out, and hopefully, one of them will work. However, if none of the suggestions pan out, before I delve into Audacity, I think that I'll post one of the files that I've been having difficulties w/ online, so you can hear what I'm referring to. Some of them are only 10-15 seconds in length. I realize that what I've explained is somewhat esoteric, so I thought that seeing the file might be of some help. Thank you again, and I'll check back in, when I have some more information.

 

[bigshot]

One other thing to look at is dynamic range. If you have something like a sound effect of a crash and crumble, the crash itself might be at such a high peak, it pushes the crumble sound down very quiet to maintain the same dynamic perspective. If the crash is very quick, most of the track will sound too soft. The solution there would be compression.

 

[jmg999]

This is interesting. Is this what happens when you're watching film/television, when there's a loud action sequence that may have intermittent quiet dialogue? I'll read up on compressing audio to reduce these effects. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

 

[bigshot]

In television it is quite different. There you may be talking about a multichannel mix with each channel being sent to different speakers. The balances of the individual channels may be off. Also, multichannel mixes can be folded down into 2 channel mixes. I've heard of small speakers and sound bars that do a bad job of keeping the dialogue level audible over loud music and sound effects. The problem may be that your speakers are getting overloaded by the music and effects and they're burying the dialogue. If you can change the settings to a 2 channel mix rather than folding down a Dolby or THX multichannel mix to 2 channel, that might help.

 

[Davesrose]

In television it is quite different. There you may be talking about a multichannel mix with each channel being sent to different speakers. The balances of the individual channels may be off. Also, multichannel mixes can be folded down into 2 channel mixes. I've heard of small speakers and sound bars that do a bad job of keeping the dialogue level audible over loud music and sound effects. The problem may be that your speakers are getting overloaded by the music and effects and they're burying the dialogue. If you can change the settings to a 2 channel mix rather than folding down a Dolby or THX multichannel mix to 2 channel, that might help.

To add on, there isn't a THX encoded format (it's a certification with hardware). Instead, the formats in encoded formats are from Dolby and DTS (and in Europe, Auro). If you're watching off HD blu-ray, the most popular format is DTS-MA (with UHD, Dolby has taken root with Dolby Atmos). Most modern cable TV boxes are outputting Dolby Digital. It's not so much speakers being "overloaded" but that the source is meant for 5.1 speaker setup and you're watching on a TV that's 2 channel (so things can be weighted for all speakers instead of just a central dialog one). If this is a matter about dialog not being clear from a cable box (and your TV is stereo), you can get an adapter that has optical input (common digital audio output with a cable box) and mini-stereo output (that you either can go mini to mini or mini to RCA depending on your TV for stereo input).

I'm finding there's another issue with some streaming services now. I have a LCD TV in my bedroom with stereo loudspeakers. I did started noticing some items from Netflix was producing no sound because their default track was 5.1, and it's a hassle to try to switch to a 2.0 if it exists. For other reasons, I got a new Apple 4K TV for my main home theater, and the old one went to my bedroom TV. What's nice about it is that it will take any source and output 2.0 PCM if that's your source (overkill if you factor price).

 

[bigshot]

On AppleTV the spatial audio soundtracks seem to have well balanced center channels. It isn't the least bit spatial, but it's balanced.

 

[Davesrose]

On AppleTV the spatial audio soundtracks seem to have well balanced center channels. It isn't the least bit spatial, but it's balanced.

My impressions were about my Apple TV connected to HDMI stereo setup in bedroom setup. I have another Apple TV 4K on my home theater setup, which I can demo new spatial audio tracks on my 7.1.4 speaker setup. Most of the time, it is very apparent they remixed the songs to full surround sound. Now the main question is what songs are actually better in surround sound? With the classical tracks Apple has, most of them are OK about having a good soundstage of everything being around 120 degrees in front of you. With other categories, it's a mixed bag about whether they are heavy handed in mixing particular instruments in back of you. I have noticed folks are wondering what Apple spatial adds: for now, it seems it's most apparent on Dolby Atmos speaker setups.