On the announcements, it seems to be hit and miss for me. Being taller than your average person, my ear is pretty close to the speaker overhead each seat. Going from YUL-GVA last week, I couldn't hear a single word of the pilot's announcements (which would have been useful, as he was mentioning how we were taking a 90 minute detour through northern Greenland and Scandinavia).

On other flights, I have to stick my fingers in my ears.

And yeah, the volume of the ads is excrutiating. Funny, I might actually watch the ads if I wasn't forced to remove my headphones.