Sonos has taken the wraps off its new Era range of speakers, with the new, smaller Era 100 replacing a rather popular, well-received but now long-in-the-tooth Sonos One.
But the bigger launch – and the bigger question mark – is the new Era 300. This is an entirely new product, designed from the ground up and specifically for the playback of spatial audio.
Spatial audio has gained massive popularity in recent years, featuring in Dolby Atmos-soundtracked movies, TV shows and now music. It relates to Dolby Atmos’s ability to record content in more channels than the traditional two channels, giving more freedom to creators and offering – for listeners – a more immersive experience. For most of music – which has been in good ol’ stereo for a good few decades – that’s quite a big change.
There are plenty of songs and albums being remastered from stereo and/or upmixed into spatial audio, but there is a new influx of artists creating new music specifically in spatial audio/Dolby Atmos music – but there’s no way to really hear back that music at home in a dedicated speaker, says Sonos. (Although we would add: the spatial audio-supporting Apple HomePod 2 exists).
As Sonos’ principal product manager Ryan Moore stated during our press briefing: “The goal with Era 300 was really to create the best standalone spatial audio experience of any single speaker.”
So Sonos went about fixing this problem. Enter the Sonos Era 300.
- Sonos promises the Era 300’s spatial audio isn’t a ‘gimmick’ – here’s why I believe it
- Dolby Atmos Music: everything you need to know about the spatial audio tech
Sonos Era 300: price
Sonos has priced the Era 300 on the premium end, clocking in at £449 / $449 / €499 / AU$749. That’s quite a hefty sum to pay – in comparison, the closest rival HomePod 2 costs £299 / $299 / AU$479.
It’s £50/$100 shy of Sonos’s most expensive wireless speaker, which is still the Sonos Five at £499 / $549 / AU$700. The big difference here is Sonos Five delivers stereo music; Sonos Era 300 can deliver mono, stereo and, most importantly, spatial audio.
Meanwhile the smaller, cheaper Era 100 will cost £249 / $249 / €279 / AU$399. Both speakers are available for pre-order now and will be available to buy on 28th March.
Sonos Era 300: build and design
We got our first glimpse of the Sonos Era speakers during a press briefing in Sonos’s offices in Santa Barbara, USA in February 2023. The new Sonos Era 300 has an unusual shape – a “cinched hourglass” design, to be specific. With the spatial audio playback as its focal point, that meant a new and unusual arrangement of drivers and amplification that would fire out sound in all directions to deliver that ‘immersive’ audio experience – while still keeping a familial look that fits into Sonos’s family of speakers.
Inside the Era 300 are six drivers: four tweeters (one forward-firing, two side-firing, one upward-firing) and two woofers (angled left and right for stereo playback) – with custom waveguides that fire sound out forwards, upwards, left and right to surround you with music. Each of the six drivers is also powered by its own class D amplifier.
That upward-firing tweeter is Dolby Atmos-specified, loaded into a directional horn, and reflects sound off the ceiling when playing Dolby Atmos music.
In person, the Era 300 actually not as awkward or bulky as the initial images suggested. The quirky design makes it stand out, but in a good way, compared to other traditional designs on the market. Sonos’s design team ensured that the profile is still fairly svelte with a very clean design – apart from the Sonos logo on the grille, there aren’t any buttons or displays on the front. And the finish – in matte black or matte white – fits in neatly with the rest of the brand’s products.
One thing that had to change – both in the Era 300 and the smaller, stereo Era 100 – was the on-unit interface on the top of the products. Both now have a volume slider (or a “trough” as Sonos calls it) to better guide people to using it as a gesture control.
The touch-capacitive buttons for playback are fairly subtle, too. We didn’t get to actually use the speakers during our demo, so how the new controls operate in daily use is something we’ll be sure to test when we get official review samples in.
On the Era 300, the upward-firing driver needing space to fire out sound meant the control panel had to be moved a touch forward (not in the middle as originally intended) and also meant moving the cinch point – hence the unique design.
Sonos Era 300: features
Apart from spatial audio – which we’ll get into more detail shortly – the biggest news is that the Sonos Era 300 and Era 100 speakers can play music over wi-fi (of the wi-fi 6 variant) and Bluetooth. It’s the first time Bluetooth has been included in Sonos’s mains-powered speakers (having featured only on portable Roam and Move models), and we’re told it’s the Bluetooth 5.0 version and supports the standard SBC and AAC codecs. (Note: spatial audio can only be played over wi-fi, not Bluetooth).
AirPlay 2 streaming returns as well as Sonos voice control and support for Alexa (you can also turn the mic off for full privacy). Also new is a USB-C port for wired connection to sources like turntables. You will need a specific Line-In Adapter and Sonos Combo Adapter separately if you want to go the wired route, and on the downside, these accessories are apparently not included in the box. You’ll have to buy them separately via Sonos, but on a small upside, the adapters will cost just £19 (which isn’t too costly compared with certain other brands’ add-ons) and will be available in black or white to match both Era speakers.
Happily, the power cable input, the Bluetooth pairing button and switch for turning the mic off are neatly hidden away at the back.
Playback, multi-room grouping and more can be done through the Sonos S2 app, which we’ve always found to be well-featured, seamless in use and the ability to control all your music from one place a neat solution, especially if you play music from a variety of streaming services. Again, we didn’t get a chance to play with the app during the demo but we expect it to be as friendly and simple to use when we recently reviewed the Sonos Five.
Both speakers can also form stereo pairs. The Era 300 (and Era 100) supports playback of 24-bit/48kHz hi-res music from Qobuz and Amazon Music. It’s worth noting that the Era 100 is designed for stereo playback (as opposed to the outgoing Sonos One’s mono output), but doesn’t support spatial audio playback like the Era 300. Why? The Era 100’s small form factor simply doesn’t do justice to spatial audio, says Sonos, and wouldn’t contain the specific six-driver acoustic architecture designed for the Era 300.
Sonos Era: sound – first impressions
We were given a brief audio demo during our press briefing of the Era speakers. It’s usually impossible to get a clear picture of what a product really sounds like in a press launch environment and we would reserve full judgement until we get the speakers into our familiar dedicated What Hi-Fi? listening rooms – the same caveat applies here. Additionally, the room we were given the demo in sounded slightly bright too, which had an effect on the speakers’ playback.
Still, we were played a handful of Dolby Atmos tracks on the Sonos Era 300 speaker, from Paul McCartney, Imagine Dragons and Finneas (A Concert Six Months From Now, the live version). As far as first impressions go, the Era 300 certainly sounded large-scaled and wide. There was a good sense of space and it had a full, rich tone. Voices were clearly heard and not swallowed by the rich, plump bass, and while detail and clarity are hard to judge in a demo – it certainly did sound clean. Again, the bright-sounding room and lack of comparison in our demo leaves the Era 300 still a bit of a mystery on the audio front.
How it will fare against the five-star Apple HomePod 2 (which also uses AirPlay 2 and supports spatial audio) remains to be seen, too.
There’s also the small matter of where you can play spatial audio/Dolby Atmos music tracks from on the Era 300. Sonos has always been rather platform-agnostic – a fairly open approach that meant regardless of what device or streaming service was used, it could be played using a Sonos product. That was a key pillar of its popularity.
However, there’s a small caveat with the Era 300. At launch, Sonos states that the Era 300 “currently supports Dolby Atmos Music via Amazon Music Unlimited” only. That means if you’re using Tidal and/or Apple Music for spatial audio playback (which are the five-star services that What Hi-Fi? uses when testing), you’ll be missing out – to start with.
In reply to our question on this matter, Sonos seemed to confirm that this will be resolved soon: “Today, Era 300 does not support Dolby Atmos Music on Tidal. Over time we will continue to add more listening choices and partners but we don’t have further information to share today. We’ll be adding support for spatial audio via Apple Music soon.”
Putting the music playback aspect aside, there’s also big news for AV fans: the Sonos Era 300 can be used as Dolby Atmos surround speakers, delivering multi-channel (three channels) rears for the first time. These can be used in conjunction with the Sonos Arc and Beam Gen 2 soundbars and a Sub to create a maximum 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos home theatre experience.
The Era 100 can also be used as rear surrounds, minus any Atmos action, but compatible with a wider array of Sonos sondbars: Arc, Beam Gen 1 and Gen 2, and the cheaper Ray.
In our demo, we were shown clips from A Quiet Place and Top Gun: Maverick. While we got a decent impression of the sense of space, dramatic tension and the effect of missiles flying overhead, we couldn’t hear the full effect of the Era 300s used as rear surrounds from where we were sitting. It’s one we’ll reserve judgement on until we have them in our dedicated listening rooms for a proper listen.
Sonos Era 300: initial verdict
Sonos’s aim for home listeners to get even a taste of how Dolby Atmos music can sound in the studio is an exciting one. The Era 300 (and the new Era 100) is a bold move from the audio company that feels fresh and confident – although we’re curious to see if it convinces us that spatial audio really is the next evolutionary step in audio.
Of course, we’d still expect the speaker perform as well with stereo music as with spatial audio (and in an AV setup), but the addition of Bluetooth, the quirky design and promise of a seamless Sonos experience in the new Era range all add up an enticing experience. We can’t wait to explore more and listen to the Era 300 fully in our listening rooms.
MORE:
Here’s everything you need to know about Sonos
Read our Apple HomePod 2 review
Sonos Era 300 vs Apple HomePod 2: how do these smart speakers compare?
Sonos Era 100 vs Sonos One: which smart speaker is better?