My wife is also very sensitive to loud or harsh sounds and we have to do a similar thing. Sometimes I set up a compressor in VLC, but it's a pain to get the set

My wife is also very sensitive to loud or harsh sounds and we have to do a similar thing. Sometimes I set up a compressor in VLC, but it's a pain to get the settings right. Really we need something more like a limiter but I don't think VLC has that. It's not very fun to watch a movie on the TV nowadays