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Volume normalisation on Sonos?

  • 21 October 2020
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I just noticed that my Sonos system adjusts the volume automatically between loud and quiet songs. I haven’t noticed this before. It is extremely annoying, and especially noticeable when I play an album where the songs run into each other. The system also inserts a little gap between the songs. ALSO extremely annoying. I tried playing the same music files on another player, and there is no difference in the volume and no gap between the songs on that player, so it’s not the files that are ripped that way, it is the Sonos system that plays around with the volume. Like I said, I’ve never noticed it before. What has happened? Where do I turn it off?

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Best answer by Corry P 11 February 2021, 13:51

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27 replies

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Hi

I've been experiencing the volume change problem on our new shop installation, agreed very annoying. There is a “volume normalisation” slide/button in settings which I hoped would work but I couldn't get it to work. It seems somehow connected to the “only play local” (or words to that effect) slide but I haven't been able to find a working combination. You might give them a try. 

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Where in the settings do you find that slider? I can’t find it.

E
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“Playback/Offline mode” and “Normalize volume” and both in the Spotify settings. The cog in the top right of the screen.

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There is also “Gapless playback” feature in the same Spotify settings you might try.

controlav
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Wow there are huge threads of folks demanding volume normalization, and here you are complaining that you have the feature. You can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Sounds like this is a Spotify-only feature.

Author of the leading independent Sonos app for Windows, the only Sonos app for Xbox, and a Sonos app for iOS
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Agreed. However having the feature in Spotify and getting it to work while playing music through Sonos is the problem. It's certainly not intuitive.

K

Does it even work through Sonos? How do you make that happen?

And even in Spotify it doesn't work that well for playlists.

E
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I've been trying to get it to work through Sonos, to no avail unfortunately and agreed, it doesn't work that well in Spotify.

C
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“Playback/Offline mode” and “Normalize volume” and both in the Spotify settings. The cog in the top right of the screen.


I’m not playing from Spotify. I’m playing my own music files from my NAS.

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So, to clarify:

This is NOT a question about Spotify, this is a question about Sonos.

I’m playing my own music from my own local NAS. The only player involved is the Sonos Controller. I can find nothing in the Sonos Controller to turn on or, more importantly, turn OFF volume normalisation.

Imagine how annoying when you’re listening to an album where songs run into each other, let’s say The Beatles’ Abbey Road (or any progressive rock album ever made), and having the volume jump up and down between the seamlessly interconnected songs.

A

“Playback/Offline mode” and “Normalize volume” and both in the Spotify settings. The cog in the top right of the screen.


I’m not playing from Spotify. I’m playing my own music files from my NAS.

In that case, I’d like to know how to turn it  ON - what version of the software are you using?

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Sorry for the confusion. As controlav said above, there are many threads of people asking for Sonos to provide a normalisation feature. Our setup is playing locally/diagnosed Spotify through Sonos speakers. We are having no success getting this Spotify feature working with the Sonos speakers but it works fine when playing Spotify through UE Boom speakers. It works for both local and streamed songs. Sounds like you need Sonos to add the feature. Sorry

M
Userlevel 2
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So, to clarify:

This is NOT a question about Spotify, this is a question about Sonos.

I’m playing my own music from my own local NAS. The only player involved is the Sonos Controller. I can find nothing in the Sonos Controller to turn on or, more importantly, turn OFF volume normalisation.

Imagine how annoying when you’re listening to an album where songs run into each other, let’s say The Beatles’ Abbey Road (or any progressive rock album ever made), and having the volume jump up and down between the seamlessly interconnected songs.

 

i think this is something that i too have noticed happening a lot more recently.

along with an overall increase in the volume of music.

i have had my amp set at a particular volume for years, and now, music via my nas > connect sounds louder than it used to and so have had to adjust my amp levels, and wonder if this is related to this problem.

if there is an under the covers configurable option that can toggle such an function then i would happily switch it off.

m.

 

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Sounds like you need Sonos to add the feature.

Actually, what I want Sonos to do is take it AWAY. :smile:  The volume has suddenly started normalising by itself, and I DON’T want it to.

K

 

Imagine how annoying when you’re listening to an album where songs run into each other, let’s say The Beatles’ Abbey Road (or any progressive rock album ever made), and having the volume jump up and down between the seamlessly interconnected songs.

But does this not mean that normalisation is not happening?!

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Imagine how annoying when you’re listening to an album where songs run into each other, let’s say The Beatles’ Abbey Road (or any progressive rock album ever made), and having the volume jump up and down between the seamlessly interconnected songs.

But does this not mean that normalisation is not happening?!

No, it means that normalisation IS happening.

Normalisation means that the volume of a quieter song is increased so that the difference in volume between it and a louder song is evened out. This might be good to have if you’re riding in the car, for example, where a quieter song wouldn’t be heard over the traffic noise, or if you’re streaming a playlist consisting of songs from different albums that may be mastered very differently.

At home, however, you generally (at least I) want to listen to the music as it was recorded and meant to be listened to. There is a reason a quiet song is quiet, after all. And, of course, this is ESPECIALLY the case when you are listening to songs from one and the same album. There is absolutely no need for normalisation when you’re listening to songs from a single album in a quiet location, like in your home. Then you want to listen to the music as it was intended to be played. Having the volume jump up and down between songs without you asking for it is EXTREMELY annoying.

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“Playback/Offline mode” and “Normalize volume” and both in the Spotify settings. The cog in the top right of the screen.


I’m not playing from Spotify. I’m playing my own music files from my NAS.

In that case, I’d like to know how to turn it  ON - what version of the software are you using?

S1 11.2.3 57381090

T

I’m new to Sonos and I’vejust noticed this myself - playing from my own music, a quiet tracks blends into a louder one but there’s a sudden drop in volume which is not supposed to happen. The tracks have been normalised ie quiet tracks made louder, loud tracks made quieter. Whilst desirable if playing different tracks from different sources, absolutely not wanted when playng an ablum of continuous music. This feature needs to be turn of an on-able. Is it? 

Corry P
Userlevel 7
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Hi @captainknut 

Sorry for the delay.

Sonos does not apply volume normalisation to files from your Sonos Music Library, but Sonos does alter the playback level using the ITUNNORM or REPLAYGAIN_TRACKGAIN tags in the embedded metadata for the file. 

I would say that normalisation was applied to the tracks by the CD ripping software (if you even ripped the tracks) on a track-by-track basis. This may be called “peak search" or similar in the options, if not "normalisation”. If this is the case, other (non-Sonos) players may read the recorded metadata (labelled ITUNNORM when ripped by iTunes) and apply it, thus rendering the tracks to the same volume and making it appear that Sonos is varying the volume when it isn’t. iTunes uses a different normalisation algorithm so the effect is different (not varied) when playing there.

I recommend re-ripping the albums affected (or just one, to test), making sure that normalisation is not activated in the ripping software. If you don’t see the option, it may be an idea to use different software - maybe the community can suggest some?

If you can find a program that will strip the ITUNNORM tag from your tracks, that will also suffice, and presumably be much quicker and easier - maybe someone here can suggest software?

 

Edited: technical clarification

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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Yes, you are correct - it is the Sonos app that reads and applies the ITUNNORM tag from iTunes. I tried deleting the tag from a sample album, and the normalisation disappeared. So I then proceeded to remove the tag from my entire music collection in one humongous batch job (~40,000 songs).

But I am reading straight from my local collection to Sonos, no other players are involved, so it is demonstrably so that it is the Sonos app that reads and applies the tag. And since that is the case - surely it should be possible to incorporate a setting in the Sonos app for the user to choose whether he/she wants the tag applied or not?

ratty

Sonos does not apply volume normalisation when playing files from your Sonos Music Library.

You might want to check this out. I’ve had REPLAYGAIN_TRACKGAIN tags on my FLAC library for 12+ years, and Sonos still reacts to them. This was as originally designed, and documented at the time. (That article has now been pulled.)

It’s most discernable on gapless albums where there’s a marked transition in gain tag value between adjacent tracks. Mike Oldfield’s The Songs of Distant Earth is a good example, with swings of 6-7dB between certain tracks.

 

Corry P
Userlevel 7
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Yes, you are correct - it is the Sonos app that reads and applies the ITUNNORM tag from iTunes. I tried deleting the tag from a sample album, and the normalisation disappeared. So I then proceeded to remove the tag from my entire music collection in one humongous batch job (~40,000 songs).

But I am reading straight from my local collection to Sonos, no other players are involved, so it is demonstrably so that it is the Sonos app that reads and applies the tag. And since that is the case - surely it should be possible to incorporate a setting in the Sonos app for the user to choose whether he/she wants the tag applied or not?

Sonos does not apply volume normalisation when playing files from your Sonos Music Library.

You might want to check this out. I’ve had REPLAYGAIN_TRACKGAIN tags on my FLAC library for 12+ years, and Sonos still reacts to them. This was as originally designed, and documented at the time. (That article has now been pulled.)

It’s most discernable on gapless albums where there’s a marked transition in gain tag value between adjacent tracks. Mike Oldfield’s The Songs of Distant Earth is a good example, with swings of 6-7dB between certain tracks.

 

Thanks @captainknut and @ratty, I am indeed checking that out. I will update my earlier post once I get some clarification.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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Sonos does not apply volume normalisation when playing files from your Sonos Music Library.

I think the confusion lies in the fact, on the one hand, that Sonos does not analyse the tracks by itself to apply its own normalisation - which is true - and the fact, on the other hand, that Sonos reads and applies normalisation that has been analysed by another application during ripping and then saved in the files, which is also true.

Or, in other words, the difference lies between analysing the files and calculating the normalisation, which Sonos does not do, and applying normalisation info that is already saved in the files, which Sonos does do.

Corry P
Userlevel 7
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Thanks again @ratty and @captainknut. I spoke with an engineer and got clarification - it was a technical communication error. “Applying normalisation” refers to actually scanning files and setting the tag embedded in them (or adjusting the levels during encoding/ripping), which Sonos does not do. 

Exactly as @captainknut said minutes before I posted this, and I didn’t notice. :grin:

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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Which brings us back to the question - shouldn’t it be possible to add a setting in the Sonos app to let the user choose to read/not read the tag info? The effect would simply be the same as stripping/not stripping the actual tag from the file, which obviously works.

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