M1 MacBook Pro volume drops on its own

I received my mbp 13 a couple of weeks ago and I have had an issue since day 1 where the volume will drop on its own when listening to music over the internal speakers.

I am using Apple Music and streaming audio with the volume set between 25-50%. What happens on a daily basis is that I will start to play a song and the sound will drop approx 10% after 1-2 sec. It only seems to happen with the first song and then works fine from there.

if I start playing music for the first time today and the volume is set at 50%, the song will start and the sound level takes a noticeable dip after a sec but the volume slider does not move onscreen and the 50% volume is now quieter than when the song started. I can turn the volume up and down, but the baseline stays at the reduced level.

any thoughts? Thanks