On a Toshiba 19" TV, WHAT IS STABLE SOUND?

Question

On a Toshiba 19" TV, WHAT IS STABLE SOUND?

Answer 1

Basically, this is "sound compression".  Compressed sound is perceived as being louder  - which is why people complain of loud commercials: they're made with compressed sound.

Compression turns up the quiet portions of the soundtrack, and turns down the loud portions, giving a more uniform volume.  It's used a lot by commercial broadcasters, who can get into trouble if their signal is too loud.

The giveaway, if you listen carefully, is that quiet portions of the soundtrack - with no dialog and no background music -  will start to "creep up" in volume so that you start to hear background hiss or noise.

Answer 2

It is intended to stabilize the audio levels so that commercials will not blast you out of your skull when they come on. Despite the advertisers insistence to the contrary, we all know that the commercials are MUCH louder than the programs we watch especially annoying car commercials. Toshiba's feature is meant to counter tht but it is only so effective and advertisers seem to have found a way around it.