Best Audio Option For Stereo Playback

[leosantare]

Hello,

Like the title asks, what is the best audio option for stereo playback?

I have tried ACC stereo using the different profile and that is worse than DTS HD 5.1 surround.

Anyone watch mkv's with stereo audio, what do you prefer?

Thank you,

[dcoke22]

I'm not sure what you mean by worse. 2 channels is worse that 5.1? Or something else?

Do you have a playback situation that can't down mix a surround sound mix to stereo such that you need a stereo only track in your .mkv file?

[leosantare]

I am asking which is the best audio option for stereo playback? I believe when listening to a movie without a center channel (surround setup) the dialogue level is too low. Therefore, I'm looking for the best option makeMKV offers for stereo playback so that the dialogue level is higher. I assume the dialogue level will be higher with a stereo mix instead of a surround mix when listening on a stereo system.

For example, there are options like,
TrueHD Surround 7.1
DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1
DTS-HD Surround 5.1
LPCM Surround 5.1
DD Surround 5.1
DD Stereo

Are there any others?

I also tried the tried ACC stereo using the different profile and that is worse than DTS HD 5.1 surround.
What I mean by that is the overall audio level was much lower and the dialogue level did not improve. I assume this is because the ACC Stereo option is a lossy format.

[leosantare]

"Do you have a playback situation that can't down mix a surround sound mix to stereo such that you need a stereo only track in your .mkv file?"

I'm not sure. I use VLC Media Player for my mkv's. Does VLC down mix a surround mix to stereo automatically? Do I need to change any of the default audio options in VLC? I tried messing with the stereo audio output mode options in VLC, but it didn't make any difference.

Thank you,

[dcoke22]

The tool MediaInfo can tell you a lot of details about the audio tracks in your .mkv files. The most recent movie I ripped has 3 audio tracks, all of them multi-channel audio. My computer only has a stereo audio system. When I play it with VLC or MPV I'm pretty sure the multichannel audio gets down mixed to stereo. The audio and dialog sound fine to me with clear and intelligible dialog. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that this movie is from 1993.

Code: Select all

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 48 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 496 MiB (3%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4353 (0x1101)
Format                                   : MLP FBA
Format/Info                              : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA
Commercial name                          : Dolby TrueHD
Codec ID                                 : A_TRUEHD
Duration                                 : 1 h 48 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 1 596 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 2 868 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 1 200.000 FPS (40 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 1.21 GiB (7%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #3
ID                                       : 4
ID in the original source medium         : 4353 (0x1101)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 48 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 496 MiB (3%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Hard to understand movie dialog is a weird trend in modern Hollywood movie making. https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres- ... to-fix-it/ <--- That article discusses some of the reasons why and shares some insight into the movie mixing process. I wonder if older movies sound better to you on your stereo setup?

As you're aware, MakeMKV has conversion profiles. You can make your own, as other people have done. It is unfortunately not well documented, but there are lots of posts around this forum about it. You could try to up the bitrate of the AAC stereo profile or try to output a stereo FLAC track.

Going even farther, ffmpeg can give you a lot of control over down mixing multichannel audio. https://superuser.com/questions/852400/ ... ing-ffmpeg

MakeMKV's main goal is to make an exact copy of the bits on a disc and put them into a .mkv file without the copy protection. Any manipulation of those bits is best handled by other tools.

[ArArdin]

For stereo in mkv I prefer FLAC. Widely supported codec.

Eac3to can take a surroundtrack and downmix to stereo FLAC. It has a GUI also: https://www.videohelp.com/download/eac3 ... 3to132.zip

[leosantare]

I reached out to VLC and they are pretty certain that VLC automatically down mixes a surround audio to stereo if passthrough is not being used. If that is the case, I guess it doesn't really matter which audio option I use in makemkv. I will try the FLAC stereo profile and compare it to a surround version. Like I said, the surround option beats the ACC stereo profile all day long.

If I decide to go with a surround option and just have VLC downmix it to stereo, which option below is the best?
TrueHD Surround 7.1
DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1
DTS-HD Surround 5.1
LPCM Surround 5.1
DD Surround 5.1
DD Stereo

Are there any others?

I'm pretty set on only using makemkv and a player such as, VLC to view them. I would rather not include another app for additional processing.

[dcoke22]

If your intention is to listen on a stereo setup and if the movie in question has a stereo track, I'd guess that's probably the best place to start. If there isn't a stereo track on the disc, then probably use the highest bitrate choice. Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio are both lossless formats. Starting with the highest quality track to down mix to stereo seems like a good strategy.

[leosantare]

I ripped a modern blu ray title, (Halloween 2018) five times using all the different audio options.

DTS-HD MA Surround 7.1
DTS Surround 5.1
DD Stereo
DTS-HD MA (FLAC Surround 7.1)
DTS-HD MA (AAC Stereo)

DD Stereo was the worst. Actually, it wasn't even applicable. There was someone speaking at times throughout the movie. Is this the case with all movies using the DD Stereo audio option?

DTS-HD MA (AAC Stereo) was the second worst. The overall audio level was much lower than all the other ones.
DTS HD MA Surround 7.1 and DTS-HD MA (FLAC Surround 7.1) sound the best. I can't tell any difference between the two and DTS Surround 5.1 seems a tiny bit worse.

Therefore, I will go with DTS-HD MA Surround 7.1 for stereo playback. I say that because I don't see any reason to choose the DTS-HD MA (FLAC Surround 7.1) over the DTS-HD MA Surround 7.1. For discs using Dolby Labs, I probably should use Dolby TrueHD Surround just like you said.

Thank you and I hope someone finds this helpful.