Music volume too loud at one percent on Sonos five stereo pair since app update

Have you tried setting Volume Limit in System Settings > room > Volume Limit?

I have my One stereo pair set to 40 % and at night time listen at 4 % volume. 
 

Edit: link to app guide:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/guides/sonosapp#to-system-settings-intro-passport

Hi. Thank you for your response. On reading your post, I thought maybe you misunderstood what I was asking, but I followed your steps just in case. This doesn't work as the problem is that when my speakers are on the lowest volume possible, it is still too loud. What you were suggesting is that I should limit the maximum volume.

  What I want to do is make the minimum volume quieter. It doesn't work. Thanks for trying to help though. 

Hi,

That’s odd. When I adjust the Volume Limit setting, the sound that I hear from the speakers outputs at much lower volume. The output volume scales with that setting for me. I had the exact issue before as in the volume even at 1 % was too high. Then I put the Volume Limit to 40 % and now it’s ok. What happens if you put the Volume Limit setting to e.g. 20 %? 

https://support.sonos.com/en/article/setting-a-volume-limit-on-sonos-products

“Note that the Now Playing screen will still show a full volume slider but will adjust to the limit you set. If you set a product's max volume to 50%, sliding the volume bar all the way to the right will output a volume of 50% instead of 100%.

Any volume limit you set will apply to line-in autoplay as well as any alarms you’ve set.”

Edit: have your grouped that stereo pair with some other speakers, i.e. could the group volume affect them and play it louder bypassing that setting?

Hi. I tried your suggestion again and it really does not make a difference.

 If I put my speakers on one percent and set the volume limit even to 50%, anything lower than that and there is just nothing. They're just seems to be a massive difference between no volume at all and the very minimum that you get. I have even tried turning the volume up and then setting the volume limit, but as soon as I take it down to one percent after resetting, it's still loud and then as I said previously, there is nothing.

 I've seen others complaining about this Regarding home theatre systems and it seems that the Problem would also be happening with the fives.

I don't like total silence while I'm working, but this really is a big distraction and I can't listen to anything at all because it's just too loud. I am totally blind and as well as having to listen to the customer on the phone, I'm also having to listen to whatmy screen reader is output via synthetic speech.

 my screen reader is outputting via synthetic speech. 

Edit: for some users force quitting the new Sonos app and relaunching had helped make the Volume Limit setting stick when there was an issue that the Volume Limit setting would always return to 100 % when going back from the menu. I suspect you’ve tried that as well or with another controller? (if there still is an issue in the app is that sometimes the Volume Limit returns back to 100 % after lowering it)

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Hi. That seems unfortunate there’s such a big difference with the way that feature/volume is implemented on the fives.

I adjust that Volume Limit setting when music is playing so it is easier to try to find the optimal relative volume. I needed to tinker with both that setting and the actual volume to find the optimal output volume. 

So, e.g. a volume limit of 40 % and actual volume at 4 % would be way too high on the fives? 

I have noticed that on my system Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music and Sonos Radio have slight variation how loud songs sound so need to change volume. Your preferred service should have the low volume you need but was just thinking if there are any big differences depending on the music source.  

I’m a bit wary of unplugging and plugging back in the fives as with the new app some users have had issues of speakers not being recoginized or gone missing. But, if you’ve not done that and would be willing to take the risk, I’d try that - just to see if it makes any difference on the fives.

Would you have a chance to contact the Sonos support if they could solve the issue? 

I hope you’ll find a way. I also prefer to have background music as it helps to concentrate so understand the importance for you. 

Hi

If you can’t get the volume to work properly on your Fives you have two options: The first one I don’t recommend as it should only be done at the behest of Sonos Tech support:

1 Factory reset the speakers (not recommended)

2 Call Sonos Tech support (recommended)

@Kezza2673 Hi, I see that in another thread it is written that Sonos is aware of an issue where the Volume Limit setting reverts back to 100 % after a few seconds when trying to change. They are investigating, no estimate for a fix but suspect it will be soon. In that thread some users said that for them it got fixed by logging out, removing the app, installing it again and logging in. So if your issue is similar then either doing that or waiting for a fix should hopefully soon fix the issue.

Mentioned thread below:

CorryP’s post on 4 Sep 2024 there:

”Thanks for bring this thread back to my attention!

Apologies - I forgot to update the thread with what we discovered.

So, back when it was reported, we were able to reproduce this issue in our own testing. We are investigating, but have no estimate for when fix might be put in place (I do suspect it will be soon, however).

I hope this helps.

Edit: Big thanks to those who supplied diagnostics - they were very helpful!”

Hi. Not sure if this issue relates to mine or not, but clearly there's some really odd behaviour going on in terms of volume limits and minimum volume levels.

 not sure if this issue relates to mine or not, but clearly there's some really odd behaviour going on in terms of volume limits and minimum volume levels. I guess uninstalling and reinstalling the app might help, but I'm afraid if I do that it might not find my system.

Tried signing out, uninstalling and reinstalling the app with no difference.

Tried signing out, uninstalling and reinstalling the app with no difference. Next step, technical support. Thanks to everyone for their assist with this though.

Yet another discovery.  Since the volume has decreased after playing what I wanted using just the nere-installed sonos app, it has corrected on the volume when using my echo device too.  Now all I need is volume normalisation and my life will be complete.   

I recall that when the volume limit was introduced many years ago) it recalibrated the volume bar so that (for example) if the limit was set to 60% then position 40 on the bar would give you 24% of the “true” maximum.  So far so good.

We all assumed that this meant the minimum volume would  decrease to 40% of the original minimum, thus resolving several threads complaining that at volume 1 the music was too loud.  Disappointment followed.  The reduction was “truncated” so that the minimum remained the same.  So in my example, volume settings 1, 2 and 3 would all give you the same as 1 on unlimited volume.

Can’t remember the technical reason for this.  

I don’t recall ever seeing that this has changed. 

Correction to my previous post.  After a bit of experimentation, it actually works slightly differently.  In my example, the speaker is in fact silent at volumes 1 & 2 .  You get the same volume at 3 on the limited volume as you get a 1 on the unlimited volume.