Volume fluctuation with streaming music

Thanks Ratty. Why wouldn’t the setting be passed through to the Sonos app? And I don’t see a way to play directly to the Arc from Amazon Music. I tried to use Cast from Amazon Music, but it doesn’t show up as an available device.

The Arc should show up as a target device. Ask Alexa to rediscover all your devices. If that doesn’t work try powering off and on again.

The Sonos app is not involved in any media handling at all. It’s a remote control for the Sonos players.

When casting using the Amazon app the Sonos player is pointed directly at the Amazon servers. Sonos has no support for loudness normalisation on the online services, and I’m not even sure the track loudness information is available in the metadata.

Thanks. Got the Arc added via Alexa. Had to do an update to the Alexa app first.

Still playing Amazon Music via the Sonos app, now the problem has mysteriously gone away. The same playlist is running every song at the same volume. Earlier this morning, there were wild differences from track to track. No idea what happened, but anyway…. 

I’ve had the same issue for about 2 weeks now after 2 years of no problems (at least not with this issue). I stream Amazon through the Sonos Arc and other speakers. The volume will spontaneously increase to a shocking level. I have to quickly turn the volume down to 1 (normally I play music at around 12). It will stay that loud for a few songs and then go quiet again. This problem has not occurred so far with other streaming music or my own music.

I have spoken with Sonos support 4 times and have submitted 6 diagnostics. Support personnel are nice but seemingly very limited in expertise or actions. They had me do a factory reset but that didn’t work. Now they’ve suggested that I replace the Arc. However, if I send my old Arc back to Sonos for a replacement, pay for a new one (it’s out of warranty), and the same problem persists - Sonos will only offer to “investigate further”. I could be stuck with having paid for a new Arc for no reason and have no recourse for their misdiagnosis.

My question: Is the problem really with the Arc or with Amazon streaming?

The problem also reappeared for me after I sent the message above. It is only with Amazon Prime, Unlimited (with Dolby Atmos and Ultra HD). And yes, shockingly loud is right. I have to also turn those random songs all the way down to 1.

In all instances of this kind of thing in the past, there’s been 2 potential issues. One is that it is the source that is changing the volume, and there’s not much that Sonos can do.

The second is an event caused by a button press internal to your system. This could be a broken piece of hardware, the button sending an errant message to the system, or it could be an external force. In my world, the external force was a cat sitting on top of a speaker for warmth. My solution to that one was to turn off the buttons in the Sonos controller for that “room”. There have been other cases where the buttons on a mobile controller have been pressed without specific knowledge, like while a phone is in a pocket. 

I’d assume that the Sonos folks would have identified the second of those two in a diagnostic, to my knowledge (scant that it is) the device sending the “increase volume” is logged. Which leaves the first option, the volume being different from the streaming source. To date, Sonos has never “leveled” input data. 

I honestly don’t know what’s causing your issue. I don’t frequently use my Arc for music, I have a pair of Fives (or PLAY:3s, depending on the room) that I use for music playback. 

Sorry I’m not more help than this. 

I am having the same problem with the ARC in our guest bonus room. When someone is visiting it freaks them out and they don’t know what to do except turn it off and never turn it back on. It does seems to be related to Amazon unlimited. Seems Sonos has a bit more pull with Amazon to address it than I do. 

I’d doubt that. There is no financial relationship between the two companies. It feels like Amazon might be more willing to listen to someone who is paying them, than not. 

I’m having the exact same issue as you guys are describing. And for around the same time now. I don’t use the description “unusable” lightly - but I can’t use my system like this. It’s ridiculous to not be able to simply play a playlist of music without completely unpredictably blasting my house when I’ve got very young children. I’ve been searching and was really glad in a way to see it’s not just me. Really hoping Sonos notices and responds. It seems to be only with Amazon music? Definitely no button presses. For me a song will randomly begin playing at full volume at the change over of the tracks.