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Hi all,

I noticed that my arc ultra has completely different levels when streaming music (I use Tidal) vs when I watch TV.

When I watch TV my volume is typically around 20-25, depending on the content. But with music, I need 60-70 to sound roughly at same volume level IF the music is streamed directly to the arc ultra.

However, if I send music to my tv’s Tidal app, the volume is back to normal, the sound seems fuller (more bass) and I'm back at 20-25. Same goes if I use the Tidal app on my appletv.

This suggests that sonos is applying different settings when streaming music, which is not completely new (my sonos amp also does this). However, it seems that the difference on the ultra is much much more pronounced, which makes me wonder if there's some latent issue?

 

 

 

I wouldn’t think so. Sonos plays what is handed to it, essentially. Or it used to, I’m not sure about the Arc Ultra, but since it uses the same software as the rest of their line, it wouldn’t make much sense to be different. So it plays at whatever the volume is that is set on the TV and handed to it by the TV when connected. When it is handed data from Tidal’s servers, it plays the stream at the relative volume designated by the Tidal server and modified by your setting of the volume on the Arc Ultra. 
I think what you’re perceiving is merely the difference in the two ‘inputs’ to the Arc Ultra, one from the TV via CEC (HDMI-ARC or HDMI-eARC), versus digital streams via the internet.

If Sonos wanted to investigate further, they’d likely need some hard data submissions via diagnostics from you. In my experience, it is hard to hand an engineer anecdotal data and ask them to look for a potential bug. 

If Sonos wanted to investigate further, they’d likely need some hard data submissions via diagnostics from you. In my experience, it is hard to hand an engineer anecdotal data and ask them to look for a potential bug. 

I have tried other amplifiers with hdmi input in the past (e.g. wiim amp) and they do not exhibit the difference in volume levels that the sonos amp does.

There's some evidence that there are indeed two sound profiles, one for music and one for tv:

https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/huge-different-spotify-via-sonos-app-v-s-spotify-app-on-tv-6861115

And some evidence of other users noticing this issue especially with arc ultra:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1ghg8kw/arc_ultra_only_playing_from_4_speakers_when/

Unfortunately, without the ability to compare frequency responses in both cases (I can use REW from hdmi input, but not when with Tidal 😀), I can't think of a way to back up my anecdotal evidence (but I believe I can hear a difference, and it's not even close).

 

I'm having the same issue on my beam gen 2, the volume is really low on Amazon music and apple music when streaming from the Sonos app. As you say I have to increase the volume to 60 or 70 odd to be comparable with e.g. YouTube music over Arc from the TV. 

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