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?

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

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

Show previous replies

N

Neksio

Lyricist III

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

C

codeman318

Lyricist III

Still having this issue as well. However, I have noticed that files coded as MPEG or .mp3 are the culprits of being too loud. Apple Music and iTunes purchases (AAC, m4a) files have consistent volume when played via AM through the Sonos App.

N

Neksio

Lyricist III

Small update from Sonos support:

“Devices that do not support the Atmos format have received "boosted volume" to be more consistent with Apple Music volume.”

Can anyone confirm that this problem is only with speakers without Atmos?

They also said that they are working on it (and that many users already reported this problem)

--
Bohdan

O

officier

Lyricist III

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%.

C

codeman318

Lyricist III

Small update from Sonos support:

“Devices that do not support the Atmos format have received "boosted volume" to be more consistent with Apple Music volume.”

Can anyone confirm that this problem is only with speakers without Atmos?

They also said that they are working on it (and that many users already reported this problem)

--
Bohdan

In my experience, Atmos tracks have lower volume than non-Atmos so it wouldn’t make any sense for Sonos to boost volume for non-Atmos speakers. I don’t listen to Atmos except on Apple TV occasionally with Beam/Surrounds/Sub.

Playing Apple Music throughout my system on the Sonos App, the volume of every song is inconsistent but notably files that I have pinpointed to being .mp3 vs the apple standard. However, I never had ANY volume issues until 15.3.

Airplay is also a pain because it takes FOREVER for music to start playing everywhere for me. When it works, it’s great. But when it doesn’t, it’s a headache. Sonos needs to fix all of these issues ASAP.

O

officier

Lyricist III

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%.

I mean the normal volume in the App. Even at 1, it is too loud.

T

Tom_69Author

Enthusiast II

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

I didn’t say any of those things. Sonos is our service provider so as a consumer it’s irrelevant whether it’s an apple fix or a sonos fix, sonos need to fix it ASAP as their service to their consumers is broken.

It’s not a valid excuse to say ‘but it’s apples problem’.

R

Ralpfocus

Prodigy III

so @Tom_69 how do you propose that Sonos fix Apple’s bug.

If a bus provider cannot run a service to its scheduled timetables because the bridge over the local river is broken would you expect the bus company (my service provider) to mend the bridge?

T

Tom_69Author

Enthusiast II

so @Tom_69 how do you propose that Sonos fix Apple’s bug.

If a bus provider cannot run a service to its scheduled timetables because the bridge over the local river is broken would you expect the bus company (my service provider) to mend the bridge?

Not fix the bridge no. They’d liaise with the party responsible for the route as a matter of priority though and divert buses until it was fixed. However, it’s a bad analogy as we’re talking about software.

The bug is in Sonos’ music service addin for Apple Music, so it’s Sonos’ responsibility to fix it in conjunction with Apple.

The point I’m making is that we can’t shrug this off and say it’s apple’s fault. As consumers we need to hold Sonos to account for screwing up a key part of their solution.

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community