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Tom_69
Enthusiast II
March 28, 2023
Answered

Volume levels too high after 15.2 update

Good evening,

 

My system updated to 15.2 today and following this update, all of my speakers’ volumes are easily double what they were before. 
 

I run one of my Play 1’s at volume 4 at night and have done for years, but volume 4 is now way too loud and even setting it to 1 is very loud. 
 

I have 2x Play 1’s, 1x Play 3 and the latest Five and it’s the same on all of them. 
 

I’ve had to set a volume limit of 50% on each speaker but now all of my volume references for me and my family are all over the place which is incredibly annoying. 
 

Any ideas?

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    Corry P
    Corry PAnswer
    Sonos Staff
    August 23, 2023

    Hi @Tom_69 et al

    Thank you @Tom_69  for bringing it to our attention that we did not yet update this thread - this was an error on our part, and apologies for the lateness.

    With the advent of spatial audio from Apple Music becoming available to play on Sonos devices, Apple expressed an interest in actioning a change due to the volumes of stereo tracks being inconsistent with each other and with tracks from other music providers. In line with this, and with long-standing requests from our customers to apply volume normalisation to tracks, we have added to our speakers a response to the normalisation figures provided.

    The current behaviour of the sound volume is intentional and by design. Due to the way we now utilise volume normalisation metadata from Apple Music in update 15.2, average loudness is now better aligned between different tracks. Some stereo tracks may appear louder than before and some stereo tracks may appear quieter as a result, but as I said this is expected behaviour.

    Knowledge of these changes were not widely distributed internally, hence the reason why we raised this as a possible "bug" on the basis of everyone's experience on this thread. We aim to improve this in the future to minimise the chance of this sort of misunderstanding happening again.

    I understand this is not ideal for everyone, and as such I have internally raised as a feature request the option to disable this normalisation process at will from within the Sonos app.

    "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
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    170 replies

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    Grubble
    Lyricist III
    October 1, 2023

    I finally solved my problem after all months with too loud on level one. I had to get one speaker that managed AirPlay because Play1 and my playbar is too old. Then I start the music from my iPad (you can use any Appleproduct) in the Music-app with AirPlay to that speaker and after that I can manage all speakers with the Sonos app and with Sonobit on my Applewatch. Now level 14 is my normal and 6 is very very low level on the music.

    visse
    Lyricist I
    October 1, 2023

    It is just ridiculous that there is no fix from Sonos in sight for this topic. The volume level is completely unusable at the moment. When I start playing music let’s say on level 20 it is sometimes very quiet (probably because I used AirPlay or a different music service before, like @Grubble just mentioned). As soon as I move the volume slider it reset to this awful behavior, where level 20 is unbearable loud.

    I also tried the volume limit feature. Now when I set the volume to 4 it is too loud. Setting it to level 3 the music is completely muted. Come on, that can not be the intended behavior.

     

    Please Sonos fix this. Before 15.2 everything was just fine.

      thkl
      Lyricist III
      October 14, 2023

      Hi @Corry P ,

      it has been a while since this issue came up. And the volume thing for Apple Music is still completely broken. Is there a slight chance that Sonos will fix this ? I cannot use Apple Music later on the day cause even at level 1 !! volume the speakers are still blasting the music out. 
       

      best

      thomas 

        Ken_Griffiths
        Ken_Griffiths
        October 14, 2023

        Hi @Corry P ,

        it has been a while since this issue came up. And the volume thing for Apple Music is still completely broken. Is there a slight chance that Sonos will fix this ? I cannot use Apple Music later on the day cause even at level 1 !! volume the speakers are still blasting the music out. 
         

        best

        thomas 

        Is this just a glitch for some users? - if I set Apple Music to play at 1% volume on a stereo pair of One’s in our Kitchen, then at their centre position approx. 4feet away from each speaker my dB meter App gives a reading of 41dB - I would have no issue playing music at that level at any time of the day.

        So just curious, what reading do you get with such an App?

        I get an average of 38 in the room when no music is playing from a ticking clock and fridge hum noise.

        So it seems I’m certainly not seeing/hearing the reported Apple issue here. 

        thkl
        Lyricist III
        October 14, 2023


         

        I’ve took some measurements.. quite room is about 25db with music on volume level 1 is about 45db … 

        No music …

        Music on lvl 1

         

        Maybe it depends on the speaker configuration. I am using a Playbase with 2 Play1 as rear speakers and a sub connected. The equalizer is set to 0. 

         

        best Thomas

         

        Ken_Griffiths
        Ken_Griffiths
        October 14, 2023

        I found this chart below online earlier this evening. The average Home noise is shown as being 40dB … I’m not personally finding Apple Music all that loud at the 1% level in the current App - certainly nowhere near the level that would perhaps stop me using the speakers at any time of the day, as they most certainly are not ‘blasting out’ here.

        Any quieter, I would suspect the ‘Average Home Noise’ would likely take precedence. It’s why I was wondering if this is a thing that is only affecting some users and perhaps not everyone?

         

         

          Tom_69Author
          Enthusiast II
          October 17, 2023

          This is still not fixed in update 15.9. 

           

          Any updates on progress for fixing it @Corry P ?

            jack021
            Lyricist I
            October 18, 2023

            Do we have to email Apple for a fix or it's Sonos that can fix it. Thanks.

            Corry P
            Corry P
            Sonos Staff
            October 19, 2023

            Hi @Tom_69 

            As explained in my previous post, the current behaviour is by design, so we are not attempting to “fix” anything.

            Feature requests can take a long time to actualise, and as this one goes against the intended behaviour, there is no guarantee any changes will be made at all.

            "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
            musicbear
            Trending Lyricist I
            October 22, 2023

            I’m not sure if this is related, but the symptoms are similar.  I’m using QNAP and streaming my own music and using the Sonos folders options with MOVE.  About one week ago, I started having the issues outlined above on Sonos MOVE, but for my own music library and not a service.  Is this related and is there a fix?

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