Really Loud Cars and Really Quiet Voices!

[mariohomoh · Accepted solution]

@Halpen4  I've not being the most assiduous F1 22 player for the last weeks, but I didn't catch any difference in audio on my end. I always play with the same wireless headset on my PS5

Anyway, the key settings to fiddle with would be:

• On Board Mix
• Speaker Type

And obviously match them to your setup. I believe Broadcast for the mix would fit you best in this scenario, but your mileage may vary. And try cycling through the speaker types too – perhaps even setting it to Headphones may give you a better experience considering that could potentially stop the game + the tv both trying to remix the audio to some sort of virtual surround while having only two speakers to work with.

This kind of speech track is the one most often killed by a mismatch between surround/virtual surround systems and audio mix as there's rarely a speaker dedicated to or at least giving proper space for the central audio channel (voice). Cue in inaudible conversations with absurdly loud explosion in movies.

Also consider that there are other interfaces interposed between the game and your speakers. From your console settings to an update to your own TV that suddenly makes it kick in a different sound profile for that specific HDMI input, they all can interfere with your audio experience.

[Halpen4]

@mariohomoh I do not use a headset. So all sounds are from TV only. After playing for first time today, it felt like everything was perfect. TV volume was at only 18 outta 100. But what I think I noticed, as soon as a race starts... car engines were a little louder. But the biggest difference was after the race had ended. Then the announcer and F1 background music was really noticeably quiet!

[mariohomoh]

@Halpen4 Oh I know you don't use a headset, from your post I gathered it was all up to the TV.

My suggestion was to consider trying the headphone mix in the game settings even still if your current setting is not cutting it.

That's because the game offers various different sound mixes – and both On Board Mix and Speaker Type settings mess with this. A mix for a stereo system, a mix for a physical surround system, a mix for "nighttime gaming", etc.

So let's call it the source mix. Source, as it is the own game outputting a certain balance of all sound.

Then there's your console mix. In the audio settings, you can set it to match your devices – soundbar, stereo, 5.1 system, 7.1 system etc. You can even set it to "upmix" a stereo source mix to a virtual surround one. That's on top of the source mix. Let's call it system mix.

Finally there's your output device. Here it is your TV, but could also be a soundbar or a headset or whatever. Some of these devices can have their own "oh I know how to produce good sound, let me 'improve' your sound here, mate!" dig at it and overlay another different mix on your sound. Most of the time they have some filter or preset upmix to emulate virtual surround. Let's call it output mix.

All things set up nicely, they'll work in tandem and make sure to keep out of each other's way. And it is supposed to be seamless, to not bother the user in the slightest. Like plug in and play, pure sonic bliss from the get go.

That's not always the case though. There are some headsets out there that will freaking do their best to overlay their annoying "I know how to surround, babe" filter – or the even more insidious "I'll make steps and explosions sound crystal clear and help you play Call of Duty better, my friend" filter.
Other common culprits in messing with sound mixes are updates (software, yes, but also console and TV/output device), parents, and kids. Heck, even my dog managed to mess with my TV quick settings once by sitting its butt on the remote.

Regardless, whenever this sort of mismatch happens, voice/speech channels are usually the ones that suffer the most.

Sorry for rambling on for so long 🙃
Given that I did not notice any change on my end while having the game in the same version as yours, all that I can do is to try to be thorough and hope for the best 😅

[BadMayh3m]

@mariohomoh Just a quick question......could a console update affect this?
Just curious Mario🤔

[mariohomoh]

@BadMayh3mHave been a console player most of my life and don't remember ever seeing that happening.

Switch to PC and then it can be a can of worms. Driver updates and such. I've even had my mouse software updating disabling my 5ghz wireless internet connection capability.

TV manufacturers have pushed out a few problematic updates here and there. It doesn't take much to mess with your previously selected image or sound profile for a given HDMI input.

User error make it to the top of the list, though. Easily.

Bottomline is, once you're satisfied with the results, take note of your settings somewhere.

I've noted down my TV image settings because God forbids I have to recalibrate that monster again.

Same applies to game settings if you fiddle with them too much. I've got a backup of my Total War key bindings and graphic settings because I'd probably rage quit if I had to go over them again in the future 🤣

[Halpen4]

@mariohomoh I'm wondering if it's something to do with cut scenes. Basically I hear a volume drop when the race ends. The announcer speack and music, as the cut scene plays with the winning driver walking to receive trophy. Then at the menu whdn their are commentators speaking. As opposed to say non cut scene, live action... Where I play the game on track feels set louder automatically. The before race cut scenes as well, are never at an equal volume to what the driving volume is! I also tried to turn effects volume to zero, which I found out to my surprise killed my cars engine sound completely. So, that's kinda what I needed. Effects are lowered to half 5, everything else is 10.

[mariohomoh]

@Halpen4That's odd. Maybe your TV has some sort of dynamic sound normalizer/leveler?

Some LG TVs have an Automatic Volume mode. Samsung TVs have one too. I used to have a Sony TV and it had a Steady Volume option? Theoretically, it levels volume across your session so that you don't get bombarded with loud commercials during breaks and such, as they're notorious for annoyingly cranking up the volume.

Anyway, if I ever were this deep in the weeds, I'd probably just reset the game settings to default and start over. Other than that, the next obvious step would be to check game files, but that's more of a common practice on PC.

One simple troubleshooting would be to connect a wired headphone to your Playstation controller and see if the audio would be equally skewed there too, just to test it out. If that's the case, then I guess you'd be able to confidently single out the game as being the culprit as the headphone connection would bypass your TV sound settings altogether and the console would automatically set its settings to match the new output device.
Maybe give it a go?

[ScarDuck14]

As game supports Dolby(as all aaa games do) I set my ps5 to Dolby and my Sony TV  to Dolby.  

Sounds awesome 

As @mariohomoh  says do no trust your TVs sound modes.   Or display modes for that matter.  They do not know better. 

[Halpen4]

@mariohomoh Well, well... Just like a thought all along. It isn't my sliders, it isn't like I all of a sudden changed a setting. It is the game! Probably a server type online connection issue. How do I know, you ask. Because without touching any setting tonight during the qualifying for the weekly event at Japan. While driving the sound dropped, actually for 2 or 3 seconds there was no sound. Then it came back, and was sometimes loud sometimes quiet. At the end of it where the commentator asked the other announcer a question about favourite driver or something like that, but then dead silence. The voice line never even triggered! Again I am playing on the PS4 version!