Sound designer Thomas Curley (Whiplash, Yellowstone, Documentary Now!), summed up the array of issues in one simple quote. “It might fall into the realm of the ‘Jurassic Park’ thing,” said Curley, “They spend so much time realizing that they can do all these things, but not thinking about if they should do all these things.”
In the past, before digital audio was available, options were limited. Before digital audio was available, it was a given that dialogue would need to be loud and clear. As digital audio was introduced, sound designers were given the ability to easily change elements with extreme speed. With the same budget and time, far more changes could be made to the sound mix in a given piece of media.
Having more options isn’t always a good thing. In this case, having greater control over the entire soundscape means there’s more to mess with – and more to mess up.