Is there way to reduce sound effect volume in vlc without....?

I know how you feel. Sometimes that background noise makes it that much harder to hear the dialog. I fiddle with the control on the subwoofer. That helps a little sometimes. You might also want to pick different Environmental and Equalizer Settings in Sound Manager or VLC itself. Frankly it only helps a little at best for me. Maybe that will work better for you. Hope this helps. Good Luck.