TV commercials too loud?…

{Updated 2009 September 19}

One of the things I have always hated is that television commercials can be louder than the program I was watching. If it happens during a show I want to watch (all of), I’ll mute the entire commercial break or switch to a different channel until the break is over. If it’s just a show that I have on, I might not return to the channel after I have left it…

I’ve never understood how many television receivers were made without audio leveling functionality as a standard feature, or a button on the remote control to allow for quick and easy lowering of the volume for when these horrible practices of presentation were on.

I found some time to search to see if there are solutions in the market, and found a few products all manufactured by Toshiba. They have a “StableSound” feature on some models: “This feature maintains television volume within a preset range regardless of the source signal. Benefit: Eliminates the annoyance of normal program volume being followed immediately by extremely loud commercial messages or drastic volume fluctuations while changing channels.”

The Toshiba 46XV545U 46″ REGZA 1080p LCD HDTV (J&R Item # TOS 46XV545U) has StableSound…and a mute/half-mute function! It’s listed as a “Clearance Item” with “Limited Availability” for $1,099.97…so there’s no telling how long this will be around.

Kmart has a 26-inch LCD TV with HDMI unit (135000TOS-26HL67, Model# TOS-26HL67), with StableSound, for $712.49

And the least expensive TV I was able to find with StableSound is a Toshiba 15DLV77 15″ LCD TV with Built-In DVD Player (Model: 2009304) for $229.00

We can put a man on the moon and watch it on television, and watch Michael Jackson “moonwalk” across the TV screen, but ads like “We Love the Subs” for Quiznos need a leash.

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