Volume normalisation

Thanks for your quick reply . Not spoken to Apple yet however I guess that will be my next port of call.

I suspect if Sonos were to alter the music streams, they might be roasted by some people, and lauded by others. They seem to have taken the stance that they don’t alter things, which makes some sense to me, but puts the onus on the other side. 

This is such a basic requirement for when playing playlists, especially because of the “loudness wars”. I’ve tried all the music services and none of them have any kind of switchable volume normalisation on Sonos, although most of them do on their phone apps. Frustrating that this problem has not been solved yet!

I would like to clarify that any volume normalisation should be a switchable option, just in case it has any effect on sound quality. I would hate to see “audio compression” as used by radio stations being used as in my opinion this sounds dreadful.

Compression can be very useful. Consider the case of listening to music in a car or on a busy street. If you raise the Volume to the point where you can hear the quiet sections, the louder sections will be above the threshold of pain. In my opinion, adjustable compression should be a standard playback feature in the equipment. Unfortunately, “compression” will immediately attract bad press from the audiophile or ease of use commentators. These “experts” have scared equipment manufacturers from including this function in playback equipment. Music producers are very aware of the value of compression. They can easily prove that draconian compression results in more sales because their major audience is typically listening in a poor environment.

It’s all about choice. Why can’t we have options: 1. Totally uncompressed with original volume. 2. Volume normalised without any audio compression. 3. Volume normalised by using audio compression. Surely everyone would be happy! The default setting would be dependant on the piece of audio equipment being sold, but all options would be available. Personally I hate the loudness war and have probably spent less time and money on music because of it. I think music originally recorded in the 60s, 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s sounded great and they shouldn’t have changed things! Thanks for your comments Buzz.

Some more thoughts on this. Audiophiles need to realise that it is really in their interest to get compression options built in to audio equipment - it might just end the loudness wars. Record companies and producers need to realise they might get more sales by pleasing everybody rather than just the majority. I’m sure this is technically possible. Is there a link between falling music sales from the mid nineties and the start of the loudness war? Vinyl is increasing in popularity and they are less compressed due to technical reasons. Maybe music sales are more affected by the loudness war then record companies think. Would streaming services such as Tidal and Qobuz be able to offer the vinyl mixed version as an option I wonder?

I only know Spotify and that they offer this on their phone app. But does it really do the job of allowing playlists play all songs from different albums at close to the same sound levels when played from the phone or via bluetooth to external speakers? Or even via a wire to Sonos unit with line in jacks? If it really did, I would find a way to play Spotify on Sonos this way, instead of casting to Sonos from the phone app - in that mode, anything Spotify does to normalise gets cancelled just as it does when Spotify is selected via the Sonos controller.

From my understanding using a streaming phone app with volume normalisation will carry over to Bluetooth speaker or a speaker wired from the phone headphone socket. I think the volume normalisation is lost once you use Spotify connect on Sonos. Bluetooth looses quality and the wired option is inconvenient and not available on many Sonos speakers. I think the volume normalisation data is part of a music track (replay gain or Apple sound check) but for some reason Sonos does not utilise this data as an option. I think the only way forward is for many Sonos users to ask for this option and convince Sonos that this would be a popular addition and increase the desirability of their products 🙂