I have the rebuild series on DVD and I'm really struggling to understand what's going on. Anyone else noticed a problem with poor audio balance with these films when you don't have surround speakers?
When Seele are on screen, there's one of the members I can't hear at all - like the DVDs weren't made to work with only 2 speakers.

The sound effects, music and other sounds are significantly louder than the dialogue, so I'm straining to hear what's being said half the time.
I tried the subtitles, but they're all phrased differently to the audio dialogue and that throws off my focus entirely.

Has anyone done any fan subs of the English dubs, please?

So frustrating that I've probably missed half the plot because of poor sound.

Is this the Evangelion 1.01 DVD? There are some things (such as darkness issues in scenes) in that release, later corrected for the Evangelion 1.11 DVD/Bluray. You're watching the English dub, I take it? I'm asking these to better diagnose your problem

Though, this could just be a "simple" issue of not having a Surround Sound setup as you stated.

Sailor Star Dust wrote:Is this the Evangelion 1.01 DVD? There are some things (such as darkness issues in scenes) in that release, later corrected for the Evangelion 1.11 DVD/Bluray. You're watching the English dub, I take it? I'm asking these to better diagnose your problem

Though, this could just be a "simple" issue of not having a Surround Sound setup as you stated.

It's all 3 of them that have the problem. Tried it on 2 different TVs, but it's no different. None of my TVs have a surround sound system.
I bought all the DVDs around the time of 3.33 being released and I haven't noticed any darkness issues. I'm suspecting that these DVDs weren't made to be internal speaker friendly. Quite an inconsiderate publishing decision if that's the case.

The darkness issue was only with 1.01 https://www.amazon.com/Evangelion-1-01- ... 002KYIAJ2/ which was corrected in 1.11 https://www.amazon.com/Evangelion-1-11- ... B0030ZOYHC so thankfully 2.22 and 3.33 don't have those issues.

From what you're describing, that does sound the problem's because of lack of Surround Sound on your home setup, which is a pity if Surround Sound's the only available audio option in Settings

Really sucks. I've got all the settings on internal speakers, but it's kind of like certain voice levels are exclusively for speakers 3, 4, 5, etc when I only have 2 built in speakers.

I've never seen subs of the dub (actually, not for any anime anywhere).

The surround setup of these films was quite widely criticised; your best bet is to find a way to play which allows some control over how the channels are downmixed to stereo - some players have stuff like that in their setup menus.

Go to the "Settings" on whatever DVD player you are using. There should be some tab/menu/whatever for "Sound." Within that there should a setting (usually called "Downmix") that's currently set to "Surround," or something like that. That setting needs to change to "Stereo." What that does is it tell the DVD player to take all of the audio tracks, and play them all through either the left or right speaker, depending on the audio's original mix. This should at least get everything audible to some degree.

Granted, it would be much easier if Funimation just kept the alternative 2.0 Stereo mixes from the Japanese releases. IIRC, this was also an issue with the ADV Platinum DVD releases of the TV show, where the English-language distributors wouldn't keep the 2.0 mix that was also available on the Japanese DVDs. I don't get it; if ADV/Funi could release the Surround Sound mix, you'd think they'd be able to release the Stereo Sound mix as well.

I have the German DVDs, and sadly, for some reason they are mixed in a way that makes watching them on my stereo impossible as well...