I don't know when the difference occurred, but I have recently noticed that Shaw might have tweaked the sound mode settings.  The three options available are Stereo, Auto Detect and Expert Mode, and I have always had it set to Expert because when I did that, the volume output seemed to be about 2 or 3dB louder.  

I noticed the other night that the volume output wasn't as loud, so I checked to make sure that I still had the sound mode set to Expert Mode in the off chance that something funky happened and the settings reverted back to the default Auto Detect.  There had been no change, so I tested just switching it to Auto Detect, and that's when I noticed that there was no difference in the volume output, which lead me to believe that Shaw might have changed something in a FW update?  

As another test, I went into my AVR settings, and turned on Loudness Management, which would previously produce a drop in the volume output.  With the Xi6 cable box set to Expert Mode, turning on Loudness Management in my AVR yielded no difference in the volume output, either, which is another reason why I think Shaw changed something. 

Can someone from Shaw confirm/deny this?