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It's all very simple: I am asking for a feature that limits the top and the bottom to the audio.
Say I want to limit the bottom to 50db so that I don't miss out on the whispers and limit the top to 70db so the neighbors are not a part of my Marvel movies explosions.
That's it. That's all. Limit the top decibels and the bottom decibels.
Movies are made for the big theater that all have agreed to the huge decibel experience. But at home, the same decibels are intrusive to the neighbors or even to people in another room.
Call it what you want to "Limiter" or whatever but that is what I want the feature to do and I think lots of people would welcome an audio limiter.
Don't dismiss me and tell me to adjust my tv or my sound system or move my speakers. I'm asking for a feature incorporated into the Kodi player to limit the top and the bottom decibels so I don't get an explosion of sound that wakes up the neighbors.
It might even save a lot of marriages where one sleeps and the other watches movies.
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Ah, and right now, after testing a few hours, I adjusted like that:
Volume -6
Volume Amplification +9
Center-Mix +4
But: Why is it, that I have to amplify more then I regulate the volume down? Should'nt it be as loud or even louder than before amplifying and regulation the exact same amount down?
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Oh, I forgot: I am jusing downmix to 2.0 within KODI and a stereo amp with two bookshelf speakers via TOSLINK connected to my TV. And I use 5.1 sources.
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I just tested a bit with and without volume adjustment in addition to volume amplification. It seems that the limiter is active even without reducing the volume too. I think, the possibility to reduce the volume is to make it more convenient to switch between multiple sources like TV vs KODI and their very different loudness? And I also guess that the limiter integrated within KODI is "just" a peak limiter so true peaks are not covered? Then I thought, to just set the volume to -3 dB should give enough headroom to cover for true peaks, hm? Are my guessings/conclusions right?
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I want to achieve a gentle and not stressful listening volume. For my, and the taste of my wife, the dynamic range of all movies and series is way too big. We always use the nightmode built within our tv and a modus called srs trudialogue so that everything is equally loud with no regard what we are watching. But with the switch to an external amp and bookshelf speakers now everything is way too loud and way too quiet the same time (too big dynamic range). Our tv does not filter the toslink output, only the built in speakers. So I have to manage that somehow. Then I found out about the volume controls within KODI.
I even use the EBU R 128 plugin of foobar2k to normalize stereo audio streams. That works sometimes a bit extreme at quiet situations but all in all it does what I want.
Last time I went into a cinema (star wars 9) I had to put handkerchiefs into my ears to avoid pain. Even with that it was still way too loud.
Yeah, I figured that out too (I guessed, at least): Turning the volume down is a shifting. Then amplifying the volume is a shifting back. So, that's not what I want. I want the loudest moments stay the same but make the quiet scenes louder. So, just applying volume amplification seems to be what I want - with a plus at the center-mix of course.
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And I noticed, that the sound quality stays a lot better if only volume amplification is applied instead of both, volume decreasing combined with volume amplification. Last one makes everything a bit dull.
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But one question remains. There is still the possibility of intersample clipping when applying volume amplification right? Therefore I asked about the dB where the limiter is working. I don't know right now what would be a safe upper limit. But with true peak limiter I know that -1 dB is quiet alright (apple music uses the same).
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Hmmmm, are you married or still available? Hi, hi!!! ;-) Thank you very much for that quick informations and, even more, for that nice function within KODI - it's a real life-saver for us!
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Amen brother. I feel exactly the same way. It's bad enough when using on the TV in my living room, which is only hooked up to an old boombox for audio. We have to watch movies remote control in hand at all times.
But in the bedroom, I'm using headphones. The music and efx sounds are loud enough to blow out one's eardrums.
Then in the next scene the characters will be whispering.
It is very frustrating.
Would love an easier way to deal with this.
