When multiple rooms are grouped, the Group Volume control currently changes the individual room volumes in a way that alters the balance between rooms.
For example:
- Living Room: 100%
- Kitchen: 80%
The Kitchen is intentionally set to play at 80% of the Living Room volume.
If I increase or decrease the Group Volume, I expect Sonos to scale both rooms proportionally so that the relative balance is maintained. Instead, Sonos recalculates the individual room volumes, which changes the listening balance and requires manual correction every time.
This is especially noticeable in open-plan homes where multiple rooms are grouped permanently and each room has its own preferred volume level.
Suggested improvement
Please add an optional setting:
“Preserve Relative Room Volumes”
When enabled, the Group Volume slider should scale all grouped rooms proportionally while maintaining their relative volume levels.
Example:
- Before: Living Room 100%, Kitchen 80%
- Group Volume -20% → Living Room 80%, Kitchen 64%
- Group Volume +10% → Living Room 88%, Kitchen 70%
This would make Group Volume behave much more predictably and would significantly improve the user experience without changing the current behavior for users who prefer the existing implementation.
I believe this should be an optional setting, so existing users who like the current behavior are not affected.
Additional information:
I’ve narrowed this down a bit further.
- Source: Apple Music (played directly through the Sonos app, not AirPlay)
- Two grouped rooms with individual volumes set to 40 and 34
- After changing to another track, adjusting the Group Volume no longer preserves the relative balance. For example, the volumes become 40 and 36.
This appears to happen consistently on my system and may indicate that changing tracks affects how Group Volume calculates the individual room volumes.
