Audio Level of a Wii Way too high?

[drventure]

Anyone else here experience that problem?

When watching any show through cable (I'm on time warner), the volume on my amp is set at, say, -30db.

When I switch to the Wii, however, it's blaringly loud and I have to dial the amp down to, say -60db.

I've dug through my cable box settings and the wii settings and neither seem to have any volume adjustment.

The cable supports HDMI out. The wii doesn't, but I picked up an adapter that converts the wii's funky video.audio output to hdmi.

Could that be the culprit?

I tried the standard wii video/audio cable and it seemed slightly better, but i get nasty video noise on the screen, so I'd rather not use it. Probably a bad cable (the wii was a used unit off CL).

Just wondering if that was a common issue?

[keilmillerjr]

My wii is considerably louder than my cable box, my appletv is considerably quieter than my cable box... Whadadodo? Just use your tv's volume controls.

[drventure]

Well, yeah, there's always that. I just wanted to verify that what I was seeing was relatively normal.

In the end, once I have my high end receiver back, it has separate vol levels for each input, so that would completely resolve the issue.

[hypernova]

The Wii's audio output is definitely higher than all other electronics.  Watching TV, my volume is set at a bar of around 25-35.  My laptop's output is quite low, forcing me to up the TV's volume up to 50 or so.  The 360 is set at 19-20, though I was playing Darksiders II a few weeks ago, and it seemed like a louder game than others, so I had to dial it back to about 17-18.

The Wii however, can't be tolerated any higher than 13...and I'm always a big lover of video game music.  When letting my kids play, I end up lowering it even more to about 10.

[lilshawn]

when it comes to unbalanced analog in/outputs, nothing is standard. it's supposed to be 1.0 volt RMS p-p for standard non-professional type consumer equipment...but most cheapy consumer stuff puts out 0.894 as the "standard" to reduce the chance of clipping the signal and distorting... or may even go over 1 volt RMS since they figure people don't care about it being too loud, only too quiet. nobody seems to really adhere to the standard.

I picked up an adapter that converts the wii's funky video.audio output to hdmi.

i'd suspect the converter though. HDMI audio is all digital... the convertor has to convert that analog signal to digital. (likely PCM) perhaps this box can be hacked on the input side to fix the audio issue.

[harveybirdman]

Nowhere is this more annoying than when your 5 year old dicovers the mithril disco phial in Lego LOTR.

[stu33]

I've noticed this too.  Especially the Menu itself, it's just ear-splittingly loud.   But with certain 'channels' the volume ends up even lower than you expect.  Especially the Netflix app.  If I'm using that, I have to turn the receiver down when I turn on the Wii, and then turn it back up, higher than it was originally, once I launch the Netflix app.

I wish I could justify going Xbox Gold just for the Netflix app...but I'm cheap.

[lilshawn]

someone needs to just make "automatic level adjustment" mandatory on any equipment. in this day and age of computers there is no reason for this.

I wish I could justify going Xbox Gold just for the Netflix app...but I'm cheap.

<rant>
I wish Microsoft would just do simple on-line stuff like skype, netflix, internet explorer, etc for free and just charge to play GAMES on-line. I'm not using their server, why should i pay to access the internet? Having to pay for an account to access services easily available on my PC is redonkulous. what's the point of requiring to set up a xbox live "free" account if there is no point to it cause you can't do anything anyway. To track you that's why.

case in point: The trophy wife went to play a DVD last week in the 360... gotta update the xbox... then do a bunch of security ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- up the wazoo for the live account... which didn't work properly and i had to go on-line to fix it. Tried to send about 6 verification e-mails back and forth from the primary to the secondary e-mails and back and forth and still didn't work. MS was just going back and forth asking to verify over and over and over again. Finally had to set up a cell phone number to send a text message to verify! just to get the damn thing going to play a DVD! For what? in case some --cream-filled twinkie-- tries to steal my account?  if this thing would just work when i turned it on and i didn't have to keep the damn thing attached to the internet so it can ask microsoft I can play with it today, people wouldn't need to steal accounts.

you have enough money Billy, how about you give something away free for once.
</rant>

[DaveMMR]

I wish Microsoft would just do simple on-line stuff like skype, netflix, internet explorer, etc for free and just charge to play GAMES on-line.

That's why hooking up the PC directly to the main TV was the best decision. Totally avoid those BS license restrictions some shows on Hulu+ have (e.g. The Simpsons - you can only watch on the PC, not 360/PS3/etc.) but all the services are directly through the browser so there's little stoppage for mandatory updates, Sony/Microsoft server problems, etc.