Sonos Era 300

Wireless Smart Speaker

Sonos Era 300

Wireless Smart Speaker
$449.00
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Overview

Sonos Era 300 delivers an unmatched spatial audio experience from a single compact speaker, with breakthrough audio performance that places listeners at the very heart of their music and movies.
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Brand new to the entire Sonos lineup is their first Dolby Atmos-enabled speaker with dedicated up-firing drivers, the Era 300. Unlike any speaker they’ve designed before, this one stands out from the rest of the Sonos family with its unique “hourglass” shape.

Learn more about Dolby Atmos & Spatial Audio

Sonos Era 300

Internals

The Era 300 is equipped with six class-D amplifiers that deliver impeccable power to its four tweeters. Positioned strategically, the forward-firing mid tweeter takes the lead in providing a seamless center image, while the pair of side-firing tweeters works harmoniously to create an expansive stereo separation, evenly spreading the sound across the room. The up-firing tweeter is uniquely placed in a directional horn to project the sound upward, bouncing it off the ceiling to reproduce realistic Dolby Atmos content with precision. To optimize stereo playback and minimize distortion, two woofers are thoughtfully spaced around the sides, producing a consistently smooth and satisfying bass.

Another interesting feature that Sonos has implemented with the Era 300 is the far-field microphone array that uses advanced beamforming and multichannel echo cancellation for quick and accurate voice control and Trueplay tuning.

Design

Obviously, this design stands out in the world of speakers. Whether you like the aesthetic of it or not, Sonos has designed stunningly intricate acoustic architecture that is elegantly encased in an hourglass design that accentuates every angle, proportion, and perforation to optimize the direction and dispersion of sound, enveloping you in a truly immersive audio experience.

What's truly exciting about Sonos' debut of their first-ever spatial audio speaker is the unwavering conviction of their CEO, Patrick Spence, who views it as the future of music production. This confidence is reflected in Sonos' initiative to provide Era 300 speakers to production studios worldwide, enabling them to accurately experience how their spatial audio music will sound in a customer's home. It's evident that the spatial audio revolution has gained significant momentum, and we anticipate its continued growth and expansion.

These speakers will work on a bookshelf, a TV credenza, or on their custom floorstands or wall mounts.

Sonos Era 300

Setups & Performance

Listening to spatial audio music tracks on the Era 300 is surprisingly fun. While it’s not the same as a full dolby atmos home theater with 6 dedicated in-ceiling speakers, which we totally were not expecting it to be, it definitely filled the room with a way more immersive experience than any of the stereo soundtracks. Now currently, to do this testing, we used Amazon Music HD. This is the only music service that supports Spatial Audio on the Era 300 but Sonos reports that Apple Music should be coming soon.

It’s a very clear difference when you switch on and off the Dolby Atmos feature in Amazon Music. With Dolby Atmos turned on, the up-firing driver really filled the room with a more 3D soundstage no matter where you were standing. With Dolby Atmos turned off, sitting directly in front of the speaker was the best spot to enjoy the stereo soundstage. So, we actually see the spatial audio feature being really neat for immersion but also for filling your room with more sound if you are having a party where people are constantly moving around. When we paired two of them together, it was about 10X more immersive. This allowed us to use them as a stereo pair with forward-facing tweeters, and the second up-firing driver seemed to fill the gaps in the height channels with a more effortless, punchy sound. Add a sub, and this is a really fun music setup that we guarantee you’ll get lost in your favorite atmos track.

We immediately wanted to test this in a home theater setup, but we were disappointed to see that pairing two Era 300’s together is not an option. We think this would be a really cool setup instead of a soundbar, but for now, you’re going to need an Atmos-enabled Sonos soundbar, such as the Beam (Gen 2) or the Arc, to utilize the Era 300s. We opted for the Sonos Arc and placed two Era 300’s as the rears on each side. Now, this is a mind-bending setup for Sonos, and we have never before been able to experience anything like this from them. Using the Sonos One or the new Sonos Era 100’s as rears will not add any additional atmos channels. However, adding two Era 300’s to the Arc, will bring your channel count from 7.0.2 to 7.0.4! Add in a subwoofer or two and it will make it a 7.1.4 home theater setup! (7.1.4 is max channel setup even with two subs because they are not discrete channels) Now that is a setup that will blow your mind.

We immediately tested some of our favorite Dolby Atmos movie scenes and WOW!, this setup rocks. We will go as far as to say that it may be the best soundbar with wireless rears setup that we have ever tested. The height effects are brilliantly recreated, and the overall surround sound is realistic and immersive. Nothing sounded small or harsh, and adding the extra atmos channels in the back of the room made the car zooms in 6Underground fly across the ceiling and feel like you almost needed to duck to get out of the way. In A Quiet Place, when the monster creeps downstairs, it’s like you can point to where it is in the room above you with pinpoint accuracy. Super well done!


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