I saw this thread before watching a couple of the episodes. I noticed a little bit of variation in audio level but if I hadn't read this thread first... I don't think I would have noticed.

any specific episodes that this audio problem is apparent - or is it inconsistent and varying. If it's really a big problem, I might want to return my copy to Best Buy unopened.

It's not a big problem imo,like another guy said if I would not have read this I would not have noticed it,I had a few audio dips on the first disc,on my 2nd and 3rd disc it only dips during the theme song.

Seems like all of them have this problem but it might not be as bad on other player's.

Well i've watched the first disc with this thread in mind and heard squat, so good enough for me.

So you didn't hear anything? j/k

Cartman with that baseball bat....damn that's funny

I've watched the first disc... Didn't notice any problems with the sound. Keep my ears open for the next two discs.

I'm not having this problem, not a noticable one at least anyway.

No problems here... bought mine at Best Buy, plays on my PS2. Sounds like a 'YMMV' thing.

Noticed it on mine too. Sometimes the voices would go low and get lost in the music, which seemed to get louder. It happened about 10 times in the whole set that I noticed, but it wasn't really anything that got me up in arms. Just a mild annoyance.

Is everyone having the problem listening to it through their audio receiver? Maybe its a Dynamic Range Compression issue.

I know I have to turn mine off for certain concert DVDs that do the same thing.

I know I have to turn my Dynamic Range Compression off for everything, because it's stupid.

The problem seems to be whenever music occurs, I think. It was apparent when watching it on my laptop with headphones and television speakers-pretty annoying, having to turn up the volume 3 or 4 times an episode.

Bought mine last night at K-Mart - same problems. I thought it was because I took painkillers.

I haven't noticed the problem although I have one more episode on disc 1 to go. I bought my set at costco.....I am going to give it another try and try to pick up on it and see if I can tell there is a problem.

The changing sound level problems were noticeable on my Malata, but not on my Panasonic. I didn't try it on my dvd-rom or on my Phillips, but the fact that the problem occured on one player and not on the other is interesting.

I didn't notice the problem listening over headphones on my portable DVD player through headphones, but it was noticeable right away through the 5.1 set up with my home DVD player. There've been a few threads about this at the forums at the show's official site southparkstudios.com, with a few people, myself included, annoyed enough that we plan to write Paramount, if only to decrease the likelihood of future seasons having the same problem.

It's not just background music, but any bass-heavy sound, such as the UFO rumbling in "Cancelled." Oddly enough, the problem doesn't occur on audio track 2. When Matt and Trey wrap up a mini-commentary a few minutes into an episode and the episode audio returns to normal volume for the remainder, it sounds great. It's a bit louder and the problem doesn't occur at the points at which it does on audio track 1.

A slightly more nitpicky thing I noticed, not so much a problem as an oversight, is that the opening titles do not change halfway through the season as they do as televised (i.e. episodes 708-715 are SUPPOSED to have different opening titles than 701-707, but they don't on the DVDs). Season 7 was the first to insert a commercial break between the opening and first act. The opening's separation from the rest of the episode might be what allowed for this little slip-up to occur.

Huh, interesting...

I haven't noticed any problems but I always watch SP with my headphones on. That probably explains that.