Alexa volume VERY low on Sonos Beam

  • 31 December 2020
  • 93 replies
  • 10218 views

Userlevel 3

When my Sonos Beam volume is set a comfortable level for watching tv and I ask Alexa a question, the volume of her response is too low. I am unable to hear the answer.  If I raise the volume of the Fire Cube it doesn’t change the volume on the Beam. If I raise the volume of the Beam I can hear her response, BUT the volume is WAY too loud to watch tv.. 


93 replies

This is the problem with investing in a “system”… once they’ve gotcha they don’t really care much about supporting their existing customer base’s concerns… only in selling more **** to you. 

I would gladly pay $5 to have this issue fixed and I bet if Sonos could charge each of their customers that to have it fixed, it would’ve been done yesterday.

 

Moderation edit: removed offensive language

This is the problem with investing in a “system”… once they’ve gotcha they don’t really care much about supporting their existing customer base’s concerns… only in selling more shit to you. 

I would gladly pay $5 to have this issue fixed and I bet if Sonos could charge each of their customers that to have it fixed, it would’ve been done yesterday.

 

I count 19 unique complaints in this thread.  $5 x 19 = $95, which would cover my software engineer salary for just a little over an hour.   

For what it worth this is what I did. Prior to getting ARC had a echo dot hooked to a Bluetooth speaker. After hooking upARC and enabling Alexa I unplugged dot. Noticed volume really sucked with Alexa like all the complaints on here. Have ARC setup in in app under  “living room” so when I give Alexa a command I hear it over my Bluetooth speaker. If I want play Amazon music I tell Alexa to play in living room and it plays over the ARC. I can control the volume on Bluetooth speaker to my liking.

I have the same problem with the volume of the tv and alexa.  It is very annoying.

Same problem here. Please SONOS fix this asap! Usually night time we use tv very low volume and next time morning Alexa is so low that u cannot hear it :(

Userlevel 2

Same problem in my Arc, and has been forever.

 

Come on Sonos. Pull your finger out. Give us separate volumes for Alexa and other sources already! 

+1 same issue here. It is very annoying!

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I spent over an hour with supervisor Hugo L demonstrating this problem on a Sony Bravia A9 and an Arc over 4 months ago.  Having such a critical problem with top of the line components is very disappointing. 

Case 03465294

 

The comfortable listening volume on my SonyXBR77A9G which is eARC connected to a Sonos ARC is 30.  When Alexa responds it does so a volume level that sounds like about 3 which is barely audible.  If I increase Alexa volume to a comfortable 5  using either  the Sonos App, ARC buttons, Sony Remote or Alexa commands, the Alexa responses are audible at this level but the TV level moves in tandem to 50 which is way too loud.  Because they are tied together, either the TV is too loud or Alexa is not loud enough.  When you set Alexa using ARC to 5 the TV goes to 50 and vica versa.    It feels like Alexa responses are delivered at the reduced Sonos “ducking” volume rather than the current volume setting in effect which makes them barely audible.  There appears no way to set Alexa and TV to operate at the same volume level.  This makes Alexa useless while the TV is on and your users are quite upset about it.

 

Sonos community threads describing problem (there are many). 

 https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/alexa-volume-issue-since-12-1-6848860  

 also https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/make-alexa-volume-separate-from-sonos-volume-6838343

 

I have re-installed Alexa without effect.  Also I tried Google Assistant and it has the same problem so the problem is not in Alexa. Because the Sonos App sets the Sony TV to a louder volume that doesn’t match Sonos Music or Alexa the problem is not with SONY.  You really need to correct this problem that affects your top of the line component.

The Sonos Arc linked to an LG C9 TV ‘ducks’ the TV audio whenever we speak to the built-in Alexa and ‘she’ can be heard quite comfortably from where we sit across the room - the TV volume level we ‘usually’ use in the Living Room/Lounge area is Sonos slider-level 33. The TV audio falls to ‘almost silent’ when we talk to her, as we use the Arc Alexa assistant to ‘enable’ an Amazon Group in the Alexa App.

That said, it would be nice to add the Alexa assistant to the HT surrounds, but appreciate too that some users may prefer to use an echo dot instead, placed near to their seated position.

Personally, we’re fine with using the ‘group ducking’ features and the built-in assistant on the Arc itself is loud enough for our 22ft x 14ft Lounge area.

For what it's worth I fixed this by lowering my surround audio offset from +15 to -15 on both tv and music. 

 

Settings>System>Product Name>Surround Audio

 

I also set the volume limit to something that made sense for me. This fixed the issue realted to volume being set by Alexa. 

 

I hope this helps someone!

 

Walt

Oh my God, it was the volume limiter that was causing the problem.  Thank you so much for that.  Crazy Sonos have never tried to help on this.

Same issue. Set my volume limit to 75% for beam Gen 2. 

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Lowering surround aud

For what it's worth I fixed this by lowering my surround audio offset from +15 to -15 on both tv and music. 

 

Settings>System>Product Name>Surround Audio

 

I also set the volume limit to something that made sense for me. This fixed the issue realted to volume being set by Alexa. 

 

I hope this helps someone!

 

Walt

Lowering surround offset in that way makes buying products to create a surround sound experience pointless. That is No solution. You might just as well have no Sonos products at all. 

 

I am having the same issue. It makes Alexa or google useless. 

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Apparently Sonos have developed their own sound feature called Sonos sound. It works the same as Alexa and Google Home but obviously with louder responses. It's currently rolling out in the US via an update, but no dates set for elsewhere yet. 

Are you referring to Sonos Voice Control, as detailed here?

It has not yet been released anywhere,  not even the US. 

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Yes. Well on Reddit #sonos group many people are saying they are getting the update now. Admittedly this won't necessarily solve the low volume on Alexa or Google Assistant. Interesting though, I have just replaced my TV with a new LG TV connected to my arc soundbar. This has improved the volume. 

Yes. Well on Reddit #sonos group many people are saying they are getting the update now. Admittedly this won't necessarily solve the low volume on Alexa or Google Assistant. Interesting though, I have just replaced my TV with a new LG TV connected to my arc soundbar. This has improved the volume. 

The Wife and I use an older LG (C9) TV and we’ve not had the issue with Alexa volume. The TV volume in the Sonos App is usually shown in the region of 35%, or thereabouts, and we hear the Alexa assistant just fine, so it must vary by TV manufacturer.

Don't know if it helps anyone but I had the same issue but seems better after reducing my TV (not beam volume) to zero. I forced my LG TV to select internal speaker, not HDMI then reduced the volume to zero. Then when it switched back to HDMI input increased beam volume to comfortable level. Alexa voice level is OK now. I guess the voice assistant level is preset in relation to beam volume and if the input from device (e.g TV) is different this screws it up. Would still be great to have a separate voice assistant volume in the sonos app. 

This REALLY worked!! Thank you so much. 

I’ve got this problem using a Fire Cube plugged into HDMI 2 port on my TCL (google tv OS), and the eArc HDMI 1 port connected to the Beam.  I can hear the initial chime (softly) and Alexa is so soft compared to the content I’m play either from the fire cube or directly from an app on the TV.  Does anybody have any new ideas on a resolution?

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Same issue here Sonos Ray + Fire TV Cube ... Can barely hear the voice assistant on the cube...

Same issue here Sonos Ray + Fire TV Cube ... Can barely hear the voice assistant on the cube...

 

Turn it up using the Volume+ button on the Cube itself.

Userlevel 3
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Just came looking for the same thing. Alexa volume on Sonos Arc is way too low for us, enough to be unusable. I don't want to reduce the volume of our surrounds to ‘fix’ it, and I'm not clear how setting a max volume would change anything.

 

Shocking to see this still isn't resolved given how old this thread is, and these products aren't new to market!

So I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to Sonos 2 today and this is a problem now, no issues before. Can hardly hear Alexa at all now!

 

Same issue   Seems to make use of alexa worthless

I have a Beam Gen 1 and the Google Assistant volume is far too quiet.

People buy these speakers because they're smart speakers, but not being able to set the voice assistant volume independently of the overall volume makes the product unfit for purpose, in the case of the Beam.

Sonos... You absolutely need to solve this issue above all else, by either increasing the volume of Google Assistant / Alexa, or allowing the user to set the voice assistant volume independently.

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