Contributor I

Answered

Minimum Volume is too loud to enjoy background music

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The minimum volume on a Play 1 for instance (volume level 1) is too loud to let the music play as background.
It's "no music" or "too loud music" on volume level 1 Nothing in between. Ideally I could lower the music volume like an old amplifier. It's as simple as that. We use the Sonos system on the lowest volume side and the minimum volume is just way too high. I'm surprised that nobody else raises this.

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Ryan SAnswer

Retired Sonos Staff

Hi everyone, starting today with Sonos 9.2 there's the ability to use the mobile controller for Android or iOS to set a maximum volume for each of your Sonos players. The reason I bring it up in here, is that if you have the maximum volume set at 50%, the whole volume bar will still go from 0-100, but 100% will now reflect what your volume limit is set to. This has the added benefit of being able to get more granular control of players at low volume, as the volume steps will scale up or down with the max volume.

So, if you never set your players above a certain volume, this is a great chance to improve the control at lower volumes. Play around with it and see if this helps.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

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GabrielLogan

Enthusiast I

Because minimum volume on Roam is fine, what about other new product such as beam gen2 or Arc? Someone having new products could comment on this?

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Ha Rald

Lyricist I

Ive got 2x Sonos 1, and having the same issue, the minimum volume is too loud!!!

Ken_Griffiths

Ive got 2x Sonos 1, and having the same issue, the minimum volume is too loud!!!

Is that at 1%, or are you using an Assistant to set their minimum volume, which is in whole integer increments and that therefore may mean a setting of 10%?

I personally find a setting of 1% (via the Sonos App) for a Sonos One is fine and I actually choose to set the volume slightly higher than that in my bedroom at night. I have the pair on the bedside tables too (bonded to a Beam) and I would even say 1% is possibly too low for my own needs.

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Sounding

Trending Lyricist I

I have a similar problem. But it’s more to do with the increments than the lowest volume.

We have Amazon Flex linked to Sonos Playbar. This works okay. But volume increments on Playbar are from 0 to 100 using the Sonos app.

If I use the up and down volume buttons on my iPhone the volume increases by small amounts. It starts off in units of 1 or 2, but higher up the scale the increments are larger. That’s fine with me, and I can use the scroll bar to control in small steps (1 especially at higher volumes is fairly subtle.

However, if I use Alexa to control volume 1 is now seems to be equivalent to 10. So the steps are quite large. And an increase from 2 to 3, is quite a lot. We already have the maximum limit set to 75% which is mostly to avoid the kids setting the volume too high. But helps a little with the volume controls.

However, it would be better if Alexa had more refined steps. I’m sure a few months ago, I could control Sonos using Flex with for example: Set volume to 23. This was ideal as the 1-100 scale is far more usable. Other posters have also mentioned having that more refined control in the past.

Can this be added (or re-added!) to Alexa. Or, have a choice in settings to have 1-10 or 1-100, if there is a need. Changing from 1-10 to 1-100 shouldn’t have any particular issues,. Naturally if it was the other way round, it could blast out music unexpectedly. In fact, that is exactly what happened to me. I had previously used Alexa to say volumes as say 10. But suddenly 10 became full volume. Not ideal when kids are asleep.

10 steps is not enough. Give us 0 - 100 please Amazon /Sonos

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dsv1986

Lyricist I

Because minimum volume on Roam is fine, what about other new product such as beam gen2 or Arc? Someone having new products could comment on this?

Recently bought a Sonos Amp, wish I read all this before.. lowest volume is way to loud. Would not recommend Sonos to anyone because of this

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Sounding

Trending Lyricist I

Have you tried reducing the max volume in the Sonos app settings?
I’ve done that for Playbar and One.

Might help?

Ken_Griffiths

If I say to my Sonos speakers “Hey Sonos, set the volume to one percent” I find I struggle to hear the audio clearly from 5 or 6 feet away and that’s using the larger Sonos Arc TV speaker, without altering the volume-limiter from its default 100 setting. Sonos have to cater for everyone I guess and one percent seems fine with my level of hearing things.

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Sounding

Trending Lyricist I

If I say to my Sonos speakers “Hey Sonos, set the volume to one percent” I find I struggle to hear the audio clearly from 5 or 6 feet away and that’s using the larger Sonos Arc TV speaker, without altering the volume-limiter from its default 100 setting. Sonos have to cater for everyone I guess and one percent seems fine with my level of hearing things.

I suspect the issue might be more for those people who have Sonos devices which don’t have built-in voice control. For example, we have Playbar connected to Flex to enable Alexa.
When I posted above, I could only use 1 to 10. So, 1 is 10%. So, moving from 3 to 4, is already at 40% which is fairly loud eg at nighttime.

Flex doesn’t seem to be recognising any commands now so can’t recheck!

Ken_Griffiths

If I say to my Sonos speakers “Hey Sonos, set the volume to one percent” I find I struggle to hear the audio clearly from 5 or 6 feet away and that’s using the larger Sonos Arc TV speaker, without altering the volume-limiter from its default 100 setting. Sonos have to cater for everyone I guess and one percent seems fine with my level of hearing things.

I suspect the issue might be more for those people who have Sonos devices which don’t have built-in voice control. For example, we have Playbar connected to Flex to enable Alexa.
When I posted above, I could only use 1 to 10. So, 1 is 10%. So, moving from 3 to 4, is already at 40% which is fairly loud eg at nighttime.

Flex doesn’t seem to be recognising any commands now so can’t recheck!

Volume level 1 though is actually a limitation of Alexa and represents a 10% volume level - this is something Amazon do, but both the Sonos App and their own SVC assistant has more granularity and as mentioned a 1% volume level can be selected. It’s perhaps Amazon that needs to be canvassed for this change, I think. If using an S2 setup, the easy answer maybe to add a ‘Roam’ or ‘One’ to the setup with SVC installed alongside Alexa and then have the best of both (and a nice new shiny speaker too). S1 users though will need to use the App and/or volume limiter.

S

Sounding

Trending Lyricist I

If I say to my Sonos speakers “Hey Sonos, set the volume to one percent” I find I struggle to hear the audio clearly from 5 or 6 feet away and that’s using the larger Sonos Arc TV speaker, without altering the volume-limiter from its default 100 setting. Sonos have to cater for everyone I guess and one percent seems fine with my level of hearing things.

I suspect the issue might be more for those people who have Sonos devices which don’t have built-in voice control. For example, we have Playbar connected to Flex to enable Alexa.
When I posted above, I could only use 1 to 10. So, 1 is 10%. So, moving from 3 to 4, is already at 40% which is fairly loud eg at nighttime.

Flex doesn’t seem to be recognising any commands now so can’t recheck!

Volume level 1 though is actually a limitation of Alexa and represents a 10% volume level - this is something Amazon do, but both the Sonos App and their own SVC assistant has more granularity and as mentioned a 1% volume level can be selected. It’s perhaps Amazon that needs to be canvassed for this change, I think. If using an S2 setup, the easy answer maybe to add a ‘Roam’ or ‘One’ to the setup with SVC installed alongside Alexa and then have the best of both (and a nice new shiny speaker too). S1 users though will need to use the App and/or volume limiter.

Not sure if I am missing something - but we have Sonos One with Alexa, and asking for volume to 1 actually sets to 10%. Similarly asking for 1% sets to 0 (muted). 5 (%) = 50%.
Besides that is on Play One. I don’t seem to be able to use One to set Playbar volume.

Any ideas?

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