Enthusiast II

Answered

Volume levels too high after 15.2 update

170 replies
12392 views

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 PAnswer

Sonos Staff

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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M

maynard

Enthusiast I

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.

if you’re not going to “fix” this what can I do to get lower volume out of my system? If this is by design it is ridiculous. I’ve had Sonos for years and use it for background music when working. It’s now too loud.

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @maynard

As you are using Apple Music, I assume you have an iPhone? If so, you can AirPlay to your compatible Sonos devices (in your case, your Amp or Ones) and group in which ever other speakers you want to hear from. There are reports here that this results in quieter playback.

Alternatively, a different source may play at a more acceptable level for you. Personally, I get your point and agree - but I haven’t experienced it; as I have never used Apple Music, I have never encountered this issue myself.

I hope this helps.

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

M

maynard

Enthusiast I

Thanks for the reply Corry.

Not all my Sonos gear is directly AirPlayable - I’ve been in the ecosystem for more than 15 years.

In any case I don’t want to airplay as I want the background music to remain on when I go out for others to enjoy. Recently my wife has been asking if I could turn down the music to which I’ve replied it’s all the way down. Ended up having to turn it off. It’s all very annoying to have this happen when previously it was working perfectly.

I don’t want to ditch Apple Music which I get with my Apple One subscription.

This really needs to be rectified.

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @maynard

I understand. All I can really do is pass along your feedback, which I will.

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

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Neksio

Lyricist III

Hi @maynard

I understand. All I can really do is pass along your feedback, which I will.

I can only emphasize this once again: the problem isn’t Apple Music new algorithm, we all understand that new codecs require new code to handle them and sometimes it just isn’t possible to do it the old way.

The PROBLEM is that we couldn’t play our favorite music silently enough, there just isn’t enough notches in Sonos interface.. zero notch is silence, first notch is WAY WAY to loud for some of us.

Maybe we should rename this thread to “Bug in volume control / volume limit”?

Volume limit from Sonos settings looks like it was created to solve our problem, but it is bugged (by accident or by purpose)

Volume Limit 100% - notches are: 0% -1% -2% - 3%, etc
Volume Limit 050% - notches are: 0 - 0 - 1 - 1 (instead 0 - 0.5 - 1 - 1.5)
Volume Limit 025% - notches are: 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 1 (instead 0 - 0.25 - 0.50 - 0.75 - 1.00)

Could you please at least clarify that it is expected behavior or there is something wrong in “Volume / Volume Limit” settings?

I really liked my Sonos, but since this problem started, I switched to Homepod and rarely turn on my Sonos anymore..

C

CxxC

Lyricist I

I paid a lot of money for my Era 300, and I can’t use it in the bedroom at night because volume 0 is silent and volume 1 is far too loud. I don’t understand how anyone would make this intentional behavior.

I’ll likely get rid of this speaker and get a HomePod now, because Sonos lacks the most basic function of a speaker: volume control.

A

AppleMusicLover

Lyricist I

I paid a lot of money for my Era 300, and I can’t use it in the bedroom at night because volume 0 is silent and volume 1 is far too loud. I don’t understand how anyone would make this intentional behavior.

I’ll likely get rid of this speaker and get a HomePod now, because Sonos lacks the most basic function of a speaker: volume control.

Thats also my fact! I am using Sonos for years now and build up a great music system in my household for lot of money. Now i am using Apple Music which addIn is provided by Sonos - thats a buying argument - and i noticed, that if i am using a source like TuneIN, i am able to fall asleep while i am playing some sleep tracks from there on Sonos Volume Level up to 4! If i do so on Apple Music, i am not able to fall asleep on Sonos Volume Level 1!! So if that is not a bug, maybe the fact that Sonos has no available Normalize Option is a fact for a bug!? So i would also appreciate if Sonos would be able to “fix” that bug as soon as possible as we are already having this bug since 18 Month now! This is not a appropriate reaction time for this level of company! Thanks.

Ken_Griffiths

I’m not getting this issue (strangely) I have Beam, One Surrounds & Sub Mini in the main bedroom and I ran a test using the dB meter App on an iPhone XR. I played Apple’s ‘Pop in Spatial Audio’ playlist and got the results (as attached screenshots).

The quiet bedroom averaged out at 30dB and the playlist playing on the Beam HT averaged 32dB at 1% volume level. The Beam HT was set at all default settings. My room clock (which I removed from the bedroom prior to test) gives a similar 32dB reading (it’s not that loud either) - so I’m not finding this too loud to listen to at night - in fact I would likely set the music output at a higher volume level to drift off to sleep to and that’s whilst playing on a full HT setup.

The phone that took the reading by the way was positioned approx. 6 feet away from the Beam at the same height as the Beam (middle of bed) and I sleep about 10-11 feet away from the Beam with the surrounds on the two bedside tables.

It would be interesting perhaps to see what readings other people are getting in their rooms, perhaps from their same, or different, Sonos speakers.

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

First big question here is which music service or source are you using.

All my Sonos, 6 kinds, all have nearly inaudible audio at setting 1. Using Amazon or the Music Library.

T

Tom_69Author

Enthusiast II

Thanks for the reply Corry.

Not all my Sonos gear is directly AirPlayable - I’ve been in the ecosystem for more than 15 years.

In any case I don’t want to airplay as I want the background music to remain on when I go out for others to enjoy. Recently my wife has been asking if I could turn down the music to which I’ve replied it’s all the way down. Ended up having to turn it off. It’s all very annoying to have this happen when previously it was working perfectly.

I don’t want to ditch Apple Music which I get with my Apple One subscription.

This really needs to be rectified.

I’d also like to echo this sentiment, I’ve been with Sonos for over a decade and have mixed airplay capable speakers and am an Apple One subscriber. The fact this is being ignored as a valid design change is staggering and I have actively held off buying any new static Sonos speakers until this Apple Music issue is fixed (I’m in the market for 2x Era 100 style speakers and 2x soundbars).

I still cannot believe Sonos are treating their customers so badly and implement design ideas without testing.

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