Hi @Dogdad 

Thanks for your post!

In my own, personal experience - which only recently has included Sonos - in which I’ve not listened to a TV’s internal speakers for over 20 years, this is completely normal. Stereo-mixed audio will tend to be louder than 5.1, and high definition codecs such as Dolby Digital + or DTS-HD have a higher dynamic range than standard Dolby Digital and thus can sound even quieter. It’s worth noting that not a single Hollywood director has ever been concerned with how their movie’s audio will sound at home - they aim for the cinema experience, and cinemas crank the volume so there’s no problem hearing even quiet dialogue, and if there is an explosion effect that you feel in your chest cavity, all the better.

I often find myself adjusting the volume for each YouTube video, movie or TV programme I watch, and did so long before Sonos was a part of my Home Theatre system.

Many, including myself, find volume normalisation very distracting and it cannot be in any way described as an accurate rendering of the original audio - it is much better to compress the dynamic range. This can be done in the Sonos app by turning on Night Mode in the Now Playing screen. This will reduce the difference between quiet and loud audio on the track, and will be most noticeable with Atmos or McLPCM audio tracks.

The Arc has recently received a new “tune-up” to make the dialogue clearer than it was before. Due to this, the TruePlay tuning needs to be performed again. If you’ve already done this since the update, it might be worth trying again.

I hope this helps.

Perhaps that will change with the boom in watching Netflix and the rest?

I have long since given up on the dialogue thing; I use and and am now used to English subtitles for English movies and getting used to that has this benefit - it allows one to use English subtitles for non English movies, leaving the audio in the original language. I find that to be a much better way of watching those movies, than via the dubbed in English versions, which are terrible almost all the time. The only exception was for TV series like Norsemen, where the English version was shot in English, by the same Norwegian cast.

What you’re telling me I already know. My point is watching a movie on Netflix.. not switching between tv or a streaming service. I didn’t have to constantly change volume before the trashy unnecessary 14.12 update. As far as true play, it was suggested by SONOS to not do this till they come out with a fix.  The Arc tune up was not necessary for most.