Sonos' spacial audio specialist is seriously spectacular
The Sonos Era 300 is without doubt the most impressive spatial audio experience of any standalone speaker that I’ve come across. Yes, it’s a bit more expensive than its Apple and Amazon flavored rivals, but that extra outlay gets you a big jump in quality. It’s still a sub-$500 speaker, don’t forget, and you are looking at some serious bang for you buck. It’s not a perfect score because there are a couple of tiny caveats that hold it back - most notably the need for that additional adapter for line-in and Ethernet, and the lack of Google’s Assistant - but it’s the very best Sonos speaker that you can buy right now. And it’s a speaker that will only get better as the catalog of spacial audio tracks and streaming platforms offering Dolby Atmos increases.
Pros
- Incredible sound
- Dolby Atmos
- Great price for performance
- Bluetooth and AirPlay 2
Cons
- Divisive design
- Adapter for Ethernet
- No Google Assistant
Sonos unveiled a duo of new smart speakers at the turn of 2023, and the Sonos Era 100 and the Sonos Era 300 signal not only a new naming convention from the muti-room audio specialist, but a new direction in sound.
Actually, a new multi-direction in sound with the Sonos Era 300, which is Sonos’ first non-soundbar to offer spatial audio.
The Era 300 also comes with a radical new design that instantly sets it apart from any of the speakers in your existing Sonos system.
At $449 / £449, the Era 300 is a high-end Sonos speaker that effectively kills the Play:3 dead and, despite coming in a touch cheaper, has a much bigger claim to the Sonos flagship than its older brother, the Sonos Five.
The Era 300 is by far the best Sonos speaker to date and its performance is quite frankly stunning.
In terms of pricing it is a fair chunk of change more than the $299 / £299 2nd-gen Apple HomePod and the $199 / £199 2nd-gen Amazon Echo Studio.
But those are essentially the Era 300’s biggest rivals in terms of mainstream spacial audio smart speakers and, once you’ve read this review, you’ll find out why we think it’s worth coughing up the extra cash.
Read on for our full Sonos Era 300 review to find out more…
Sonos Era 300: Design and build
The first thing you’ll notice with the Era 300 is the radical new form factor. Unlike Sonos’ previous mid-to-large sized speakers such as the Play:3 and FIVE, the Era 300 isn’t a regular rectangular box; instead it’s a shape dubbed by its makers as “cinched hourglass.”
Available in matte black or white, the Era 300 is unsymmetrically curved outwards from the middle, coming to a conclusion at a huge front facing mesh grill that is, weirdly, pretty imposing. There’s almost a gramophone aesthetic to it.
It therefore may not fit as seamlessly onto your bookshelf or sideboard as older Sonos speakers do; it will definitely be noticed.
Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is up to you. For me, I seem to change my opinion on it every day… some days I look at it and think it’s a thing of futuristic beauty and on other days I think it’s a fugly eyesore.
In either mindset I do like the new top panel design though, which incorporates a new volume slider.
Much more intuitive than the normal tap buttons you get on the top of a Sonos speaker, the slider makes it much easier to achieve a precise desired volume.
As well as the new slider you’ll find the usual array of Sonos touch buttons; play/pause, track skip forward/back and also a button to summon a voice assistant.
On the back is a slick new take on making an electrical chord look cool, along with a physical switch that can turn the microphone off, should you wish to do without Alexa or Sonos’ own voice assistant.
There’s also a USB-C port, which is new for Sonos, but there’s no Ethernet RJ-45 jack, nor a 3.5mm for your line-in.
However, you can get both Ethernet and auxiliary audio involved by plugging in an adapter into that USB-C port on the back. Sonos is offering up a combo adapter for 3.5mm and Ethernet for $25 / £25 or a line-in only one for $19 / £19.
The adapters are a necessary evil to keep things streamlined but it is good news that there’s another speaker available in the Sonos setup to get your vinyl records playing.
Sonos Era 300: Spatial audio
The Sonos Era 300 isn’t actually the first Sonos speaker with spatial audio skills. That honor belongs to the Sonos Arc soundbar and the 2nd-gen Sonos Beam also has Dolby Atmos on board too.
Sonos soundbar showdown: Sonos Beam 2 vs Sonos Arc
Spatial audio is the ‘big thing’ in music right now. It’s actually an umbrella term that Apple initially pushed for the HomePod and AirPods but it essentially means that tracks – whether that be TV or movie soundtracks, or songs – are recorded in the Dolby Atmos format, which offers a multitude of audio channels rather than the standard two you get with stereo recordings.
In the past few years it’s been a big deal in the home cinema world for movies and TV shows; hence the big selling point of Sonos’ flagship soundbar, and subsequently the Beam 2, being their Dolby Atmos smarts.
But it is now, thanks partly to the popularity of Apple’s AirPod range as well as brands like Sony with its 360 Spatial Sound, becoming a big deal in music recording too.
At a briefing for the Era launches we were told by a Sonos executive that 80 of the top 100 Billboard tracks in the US are available in Dolby Atmos.
You can get spatial audio tracks streaming on Sonos using Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music also offers spatial audio to Sonos users as well. There’s no spatial audio on Spotify yet unfortunately and Sonos isn’t yet offering Tidal’s array of Dolby Atmos tracks, which is a shame.
Finding spatial audio tracks isn’t the easiest right now but will, without doubt, get much simpler (and probably become the default) in the coming months and years.
For now, look out for curated playlists and collections where spatial audio or Dolby Atmos is mentioned.
You’ll know that you’re listening to a spatial audio track when you see the Dolby Atmos icon appear on your Sonos app, as per the example below:
Annoyingly it’s only Amazon Music where you get this visual confirmation that you’re on an Atmos track, you just have to trust it’s a spatial audio mix if you’re listening via Apple Music.
It’s worth noting that when you group an Era 300 with a non spatial audio speaker such as a Sonos Ray or One, there is a silent pause that you don’t normally get on Sonos. That’s because it’s changing the stream from a Dolby Atmos one to a ‘normal’ one; you can’t stream spatial audio to your Era and have a non-spatial version of that track synced on other speakers.
It’s also worth noting that spatial audio is only available when streaming via Wi-Fi; Bluetooth or AirPlay playback will result in the track being ‘downgraded’ to a ‘normal’ stream.
What that stream is exactly depends on the speaker and the source; Apple Music over AirPlay reverts to lossless, for example.
Sonos tells us that it will soon, via a software update, allow users to toggle in the Sonos app to enable or disable spatial audio playback.
As with any Sonos speaker, the first thing you’ll want to do once you’ve added the Era 300 to your Sonos system is to maximize its performance by performing the Trueplay ritual.
However, it’s not just iPhone users who are catered for now. The big news for Android users is that they can finally get in on the Sonos Trueplay action, sort of.
In the Sonos app on Android users will now see a Quick Tune option that optimises the sound of the Era 300 with just a single button push.
Proper, old-skool, Trueplay will still get you the optimal performance but it’s great that Android users are at least considered now.
That hourglass form factor of the Era 300 allows for six class-D digital amplifiers working alongside four tweeters pinging off in all directions for Dolby Atmos action (one forward-firing, two side-firing, one upward-firing.)
Getting super technical and that upward-firing one is Dolby Atmos-specified, designed to reflect sound from your ceiling when playing Atmos music. You can actually adjust the height of your ceiling within the Sonos S2 app for optimal reflection
There’s also a pair of woofers (angled left and right for stereo playback) to maximize the low-end output, which are angled left and right to support stereo playback.
What this all means, in your living room, kitchen, office or wherever you place your Era 300 is a phenomenal sound performance.
I’ve heard Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles about 8 billion times in my life. I’ve never heard it sound so good as it does in spatial audio on the Era 300.
That all familiar, almost magical, acoustic guitar starts fairly central before George’s “do, do, do, do, do,” seems to come from the ceiling. The opening lyric from George is back at the front and center, and then Paul’s backing is above me and in the far corners of the room.
It’s both weird and awesome in equal measures.
And that’s a song that has obviously been remastered for spatial audio; reverse-retro-fitted so to speak.
Listen to a track that was mixed in Dolby Atmos, so therefore has spacial audio at the forefront of its existence, and the effect is even more mesmerising.
Clash by Dave and Stormzy, mixed natively in spatial audio, absolutely throws you around the room with the drum loops bouncing off all directions and their lyrics playing off each other from various standpoints.
The sound is not only huge and room filling but it also uses the contours, walls and ceilings of your room to pepper you with sound from all directions.
It almost doesn’t seem real that this 360 sound is coming from a standalone speaker that sits stationary on a shelf.
Sonos Era 300: Going further
Like the Sonos Roam or Sonos Move, the Sonos Era 300 is both a Bluetooth and a Wi-Fi (6E) speaker and it also an Apple AirPlay 2 speaker, as well.
In terms of voice assistants there’s no sign of Google’s Assistant but you can access both Amazon Alexa and Sonos’ own voice assistant (which is limited to just musical playback requests and actions.)
Obviously, at $449 / £449, the Era 300 is a high-end Sonos speaker that is more than capable of filling a room on its own but you can also set it up as a Sonos stereo pair or use it in a Sonos surround sound setup.
In fact, it’s the first Sonos speaker that delivers multichannel surround sound, if you sync it with an Arc or a 2nd-gen Beam.
So if you want to really go all out, you could throw a couple of Era 300s together as the rear speakers of a true multi-channel 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos experience in a surround sound setup, when paired with an Arc and some Sonos Subs.
A cheaper (but very much still not-cheap) awesome setup would be a couple of 300s as rears with a Beam 2 and the new Sonos Sub Mini.
Personally, I think using the Era 300s as dedicated rear speakers is a massive overkill in 99% of home cinema setups but if you’ve got the cash and the correct room then why the hell not?
