Speakers that auto-adjust volume ?

[nammynake]

Through years of heavy engineering, my Dad's hearing is well and truly fecked. When he watches TV he is constantly lowering and raising the volume, particularly during actions films, which go from quiet scenes of dialogue to full-on guns, bombs and explosions. He also moans when adverts come on, which are often at a higher volume. He has now taken to pressing mute during the adverts, rather than constantly pissing around with the volume.

Question is, do TV's (or AV units) exist that can maintain a constant volume (i.e. dB output measure) regardless of the source input?

I'd gladly buy the equipment for him, just to stop his constant moaning.

[PJ S]

Some TVs will have the feature in the menu, but aside from channel-channel balancing, adverts or the pre/post-advert sponsor ad is always louder to grab you attention.
We've been doing the same thing - muting once the breaks occur, but it's just as annoying to have to fiddle during the movie as the dialogue is often much lower to the music or action scenes.
I'm not sure if it's a function of the TV's muxed output of the 5.1 sound received through it's internal speakers, or the broadcast itself being way off, and those with 5.1 can adjust the output of each channel to compensate.

[clived]

Most AV amps have a "night" mode that basically reduces the dynamic range of the material - which is exactly what he wants by the sound of it

[Dudikoff]

I can tell you that my onkyo 608 receiver has a "dyanmic volume" function which will do exactly what you're after. It does a great job of balancing out different volumes.

[freecar]

Dudikoff said:

I can tell you that my onkyo 608 receiver has a "dyanmic volume" function which will do exactly what you're after. It does a great job of balancing out different volumes.

Indeed, my Denon 2309 does the same, I don't watch real telly with ads much but when I do they never bother me any more!

[cod man]

My 2 yr old Toshiba TV has this volume balancing feature apparently.