Can Barely Hear Conversations when watching movies on TV

This is all you need.

The other problem is space. I have nowhere that I feel I can sensibly put the soundbar. My TV stand already has a PS4 and a PS3 in front of the TV and a Switch behind the TV. I have a Dish Network receiver in one cubby and an xbox one in the other.

My inexpensive Vizio has those features. I think most sound bars come with at least the speech enhancement feature.

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My inexpensive Vizio has those features. I think most sound bars come with at least the speech enhancement feature.

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perfect. thats all the OP needs then.

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I struggle to hear voices when watching movies over the music/ambient noise. I have tried all the stock sound settings on my TV. Would a sound bar help?

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It should. Dialogue is intended to be mapped to your center channel directly below or above your TV with relatively little surround audio, which is intended to be mapped to the side channels. In this arrangement, the voices come from directly in front of you where the people are on screen. If you only have stereo speakers and don't have that center channel, though, all of the left side surround audio gets sent to the left speaker, all of the right side surround audio gets sent to the right speaker, and the dialogue gets mixed down pretty much equally into all the other stuff coming from the left and right speaker. So, not only are voices coming from off to the side of where you see the people, once it's all mixed down, it can be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to raise the volume of the dialogue without also raising the volume of whatever is drowning it out or without degrading the sound quality due to some signal processing intended to boost the frequencies that human voices span.

A sound bar (or a dedicated center speaker with surround speakers) should give you that dedicated channel right in the center of the action that dialogue is intended to have pretty much to itself (barring the occasion surround effect). The left and right surround audio will be on the left and right speakers of the sound bar and any other surround speakers you might have. You should then be able to increase the volume of only that center channel relative to the volume coming from the sides until you get a nice mix where you can hear everything well and the dialogue is clear and distinct.

Also, even if none of the above applies and you feed it the same signal to all of its speakers, a soundbar or center/surround setup is going to sound better and be more distinct simply because the speaker quality is better, the speakers intended to carry human voice are going to be better matched to reproduce those frequency ranges and make the sound quality better and less muddled, and you're going to get more left to right spatial resolution out of the speakers.

Finally, many of them come with subwoofers and will have a crossover that will send those low frequency effects to only the sub so that your smaller speakers that carry voice and crisper sound aren't muddied by a low-frequency signal coming along for the ride.

Try one out. What's the worst that happens? You still have trouble with dialogue and you return the thing.

I suspect you won't, though. It really can make a huge difference, even if you're not into installing a full blown multispeaker surround system.

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The other problem is space.

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Maybe try the sonos playbase? not cheap but may be what you need due to space constraints. You can just put the TV or other A/V equipment on top of it.

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I picked up the VIZIO SB3820-C6 38-Inch from Wal Mart. It doesn't come with a subwoofer. I had to do some rearranging on my TV stand, but I got it to work. I'm going to have to stack a couple shelves under my TV because the TV sits to low and the soundbar blocks the infrared remote receiver.

I'm not sure I really like the sound though. It's great if you want to hear miscellaneous background noise or every audible footstep. I am hearing sounds I never heard before, but at the same time, some of the sounds I have heard seemed drowned out or of lesser quality. I guess I just need to play with the bass/treble a bit

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sounds like you got too cheap of a soundbar to do some of the more sophisticated voice attenuation.


eta and no sub

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not sure if the vizio has it, but the sonos playbar has 2 settings that would help:

speech enhancement - makes TV dialog easier to hear
night sound - adjusts the audio for night time viewing so you can reduce the volume and still experience proper balance and range. At lower volumes, quiet sounds are enhanced and the intensity of loud sounds is reduced.

these 2 settings are great for late night tv watching when all the kids are in bed.

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Yep, we just got the Sonos (during the Ebay 20% coupon thing) and it's already helping

Now late night if I'm watching on Apple TV, I just use bluetooth headphones/buds

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I wouldn't get a soundbar and a subwoofer

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its only $100

same price you paid for the 3820 at walmart.