If you press Home on your Samsung TV remote, head to Settings, Sound, and then Sound Mode, you will see three possible presets to select: Standard, Optimized, and Amplify.
In Standard mode, as you might guess, you’ll receive direct audio from whatever you’re watching, with no additional tonal emphases or compression. For most viewing experiences, this mode is recommended, especially if watching movies with the most fidelity possible is important to you.
In Optimized mode, Samsung says “specific effects are more powerful and sounds are more spacious.” It’s hard to find any more technical specifics beyond that, but it anecdotally is similar to other TVs’ “Movie” or “Cinema” sound modes. Broadly, it promises to expand the soundscape of what you’re watching, but via the television’s algorithms and compressors. By trying to mimic the experience at the movie theater, it paradoxically changes the movie’s audio.
Lastly, in Amplify mode — similar to other televisions’ “Dialogue” modes — middle and high tones and frequencies are boosted. This is designed to boost the volume and clarity of spoken words in a film in case the actors are getting drowned out by explosions and the like. It can be practical, but again, does inherently change the audio the filmmakers designed for the viewing experience significantly.
