Its not peculiar to the Hummy box. Its something mindless advertisers do.
Its not actually that the ads are louder but the sound levels are compressed, making the quiet bits almost as loud as the loud bits - its something public address systems have been doing for ages in order to uniformly "punch" varying voice levels above the background.
Plenty about it on the Internet:
http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/faq/name/why-do-adverts-sound-louder-than-the-programme/id/400290070
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7388473.stm
https://www.theguardian.com/media/organgrinder/2008/may/07/noisyadsthereisnothing
https://lifehacker.com/5984091/automatically-lower-the-volume-during-loud-commercials-with-an-arduino
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1498890/ITV-told-to-turn-down-the-volume-on-adverts.html
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September 2017