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Volume levels too high after 15.2 update

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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.

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L

Exactly the same problem here, 1 is too loud and if it was introduced with 15.2 I think it would be possible to reduce the overall volume of Apple Music in an update …

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

AirPlay seems fine, it’s only when directly streaming Apple Music from within Sonos that the volume is so loud. Unfortunately for me, the speakers I use at night don’t support AirPlay. 

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

Sonos just released a new iOS app but it hasn’t solved the volume issue. I suspect we need to wait for a system update unfortunately. 

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

Update 15.3 has just been released with ‘bug fixes’. Unfortunately it doesn’t fix the volume issue, Apple Music playback is still way too loud. 
 

Sonos support have also completely stopped responding to me still and closed my ticket (even though I continually asked them not to as it’s still a problem) so I have no idea what the progress is. They literally don’t care about their customer’s experience, it’s shocking.  

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

Still not fixed, still unable to use my Sonos system like I have done for the past 10 years. What on earth are Sonos doing!?

P

Good morning to you,

I do not know about all speakers in the house but I would say they are all equally suffering from the sound boost. I did not notice when it did start but for sure I cannot have Apple Music + Sonos active for work or when going to bed. Hence, I reactivated my Spotify account and added newest playlist through Soundizz. Using Spotify Connect generates the lowest sound but Spotify through Sonos adds a better sound level control. Maybe Sonos receives a % of revenues from streaming services and this is a manner to increase profits (having users subscribing to more than one musical service) ?

 

Ken_Griffiths

Good morning to you,

I do not know about all speakers in the house but I would say they are all equally suffering from the sound boost. I did not notice when it did start but for sure I cannot have Apple Music + Sonos active for work or when going to bed. Hence, I reactivated my Spotify account and added newest playlist through Soundizz. Using Spotify Connect generates the lowest sound but Spotify through Sonos adds a better sound level control. Maybe Sonos receives a % of revenues from streaming services and this is a manner to increase profits (having users subscribing to more than one musical service) ?

Dunno, we mostly use Amazon Music HD (that’s our primary service) mainly because of its higher quality audio availability on Sonos. The Apple subscription is because that allows access to our iCloud uploaded ‘ripped’ music and it is a good fallback/alternative if "Amazon music is playing on another device”.

We have a 3 month Deezer subscription that was won in a competition and Spotify ‘free’ is installed ..er.. because it’s free.

I’m just not seeing a huge difference in volume-levels  at 1% - yes (of course) there are some differences, but nothing that I would call so significant that it would cause me to switch away from Apple, or any other music service for that matter… so that’s why I wondered if this was just happening on some Sonos products only?

Ken_Griffiths

In the last few days, my Move plays some songs that I’m streaming from my QNAP at low levels and others at high levels, even though the set volume is the same.  I’ve not changed the settings or the music being streamed.

Ah that’s a different issue. Sonos do not apply any volume normalisation to files from any music source and perhaps rightly so in some peoples view.

However, Sonos apparently can and do alter the playback levels using the ITUNNORM or REPLAYGAIN_TRACKGAIN tags in the embedded metadata for a track.

When it comes to general streaming music services though - and this includes things like Plex - it really depends on whether those mentioned tags are passed by the service to Sonos players, or not.

I understand that you can point Sonos to a local Music Library on a NAS or PC etc. and if the tags are present, or you insert them yourself with a Tag editor, like MP3Tag for example, then Sonos will apply the normalisation. 

I hope that helps.

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

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.

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

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.

The issue affects Apple Music which is why you’re not experiencing it.

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

Still no resolution for this.

I ended up chatting in with Sonos support who ran diagnostics and their advice was for me to go through my Apple Music library of thousands upon thousands of songs and delete the files that I've added manually over the years (I began curating a library in 2003) that are .mp3 files and were uploaded (some were not matched) to AM upon subscribing and delete them and redownload/add the Apple Music (AAC) files – not to mention risking losing those songs if I ever chose to unsubscribe to AM. 

I LITERALLY played the same song (my .mp3 variant that was uploaded and not matched AND the Apple Music version) and there is an extreme difference in the volume levels. Yes, I will obviously replace my .mp3 variant of this song with the AM variant, but this should not be the fix that users must audit their libraries for songs with volume inconsistencies. There was NO issue with 15.2 and prior. 

If they can’t pinpoint this, they need to introduce a “sound check” feature or similar for the system. 

I am SO tired of having to use AirPlay (which sucks) to listen to my AM library. 

All of my music is native Apple Music so it has nothing to do with any manually added tracks. They literally have no clue and it’s a joke. 

M

Still not fixed. Best Service! 

T
Userlevel 5
Badge +4

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.

I provided readings earlier in the thread to evidence the difference in Apple Music volume, here is some data for 1% volume on one of my Play:One’s. Levels were captured using live listen on my iPhone 12 Pro and Airpod Pros.

I loaded BBC Sounds and turned on Radio 1, the song playing was ‘Freemasons - Love on my Mind’ so I measured the audio and then played the same song from Apple Music.

BBC Sounds: 17dB

Apple Music: 30dB

Whilst I fully appreciate it’s personal preference as to what volume people can withstand for sleeping, in our household no-one can sleep with music blasting at 30dB. When you have been listening to your entire Sonos system for over 10 years at a certain level you really get used to it, only to have that volume level near enough double with a poorly designed update from Sonos.

For reference, to get BBC Sounds to hit the same volume as Apple Music, I had to put the speaker volume on 9%.

 

G
Userlevel 1

Bump. Still no fix and Sonos support won’t provide an update. This has massively dented my faith in Sonos having been a customer for over 10 years - they’re leaving so many people unable to use their systems with this issue. 

One week more then I give away my Sonos speakers and buy another brand brcause I really think that music is importsnt in my life though Sonos don´t think so.

G
Userlevel 1

On monday I will order 3 Apple HomePod and start lleaving Sonos. I dont see any other solution if Sonos dont see the problem. Anyone who have better suggestions on speakers?

G
Userlevel 1

And Sonos want me to by more Sonos speakers at 15% discount. What a laugh!

J
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

On monday I will order 3 Apple HomePod and start lleaving Sonos. I dont see any other solution if Sonos dont see the problem. Anyone who have better suggestions on speakers?

I’m new to Sonos and very much an Apple fan, having multiple products over the years.  Undoubtedly the Era 300s are far superior to Homepods.  I have two black second generation Homepods just two months old if you’re serious about buying some.  Also got an older White original model.

Corry P
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

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
Airgetlam

It certainly suggests the issue is likely to be on the Apple side, since Sonos uses the same software for every stream. I wonder if something changed on Apple’s servers with the rollout of their classical music service, which was essentially simultaneous with Sonos 15.2. 

Bruce
G
Userlevel 1

I have exactly the same problem. The Sonos-support yesterday could have told me this! Nothing works and I hope they come with an update very soon because this is annoying.

C

I was going to upgrade my speakers but If this isn’t fixed soon I will have to seriously consider an alternative to Sonos!

O
Userlevel 2

How ironic, I just got 3 months free of Apple Music from Sonos when I bought two new Era 100 speakers… and now it does not work properly. Even at volume = 1, getting complaints from the family :(

Ken_Griffiths

How ironic, I just got 3 months free of Apple Music from Sonos when I bought two new Era 100 speakers… and now it does not work properly. Even at volume = 1, getting complaints from the family :(

Do you mean the voice-control volume-1 level, or actual volume-1 in the Sonos App, as the two are entirely different volume levels - I struggle to hear volume-1 in the Sonos App at say a distance of 5-6 feet in a quiet room. Anyone in another room would never hear it in our Home.

The Alexa voice assistant (just as an example) works in integer numbers, each representing a volume increase/decrease of 10%.

N
Userlevel 2

Right. Sonos surely controls Apple’s engineering efforts, or has access to making code changes on Apple’s servers. Got it. 


[sarcasm on]
Right, because Apple’s engineers forced Sonos to release faulty 15.2 and then 15.3 and then 15.4 and then 15.5..
And for sure it is Apple fault that Sonos don’t have more granular volume control.
[sarcasm off]

Before 15.2 everything was ok, I was using my Sonos speaker 99% of my listening time (and occasionally Alexa)

Now Alexa time is 95%.. and Sonos only to check if this “feature” is fixed..

Did some tests yesterday - the same track and my very unprofessional dB meter:
Sonos (Apple Music API mode) at the LOWEST possible volume 1/100 is roughly equivalent of Alexa at volume 16/100.

WAY WAY too loud..

Bugs happened but it is really that hard to add a few notches on volume control? I always missed more granular volume control on my Sonos but now lack of this made my Sonos almost completely unusable..

I know, I am a new user here, no replies history, for sure some Troll from the Internet. But I really liked my Sonos.. And now only that left is frustration and anger…. HOW hard it could be to add a few notches to Volume control.. Especially that users demands this feature for years (at least according to various reddit/internet threads which I followed trying to solve this problem).

-- 
Bohdan

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