Hard to pardon: why Tenet's muffled dialogue is a modern problem

When I bought my TV it won awards for the built-in audio. Now we're cranking movies up to 65% just to make out the words, which seems a lot higher than even a year ago and I don't think it's because the AC has been running more (could be) or we're all going deaf (also possible).

I keep looking at 3.1 or higher sound bars so I can get the audio track back. Not sure I want or could site the back speakers. Even 3.1 is not cheap, if you want something that isn't panned for bad audio quality (which I already have for $0)