Sonos Era 300 Review – SoundGuys

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Sometimes you just want to be completely immersed in your music, so much so that you wish you could inject it into your bloodstream. While this may not be possible, you can get pretty close with a surround sound speaker system in a room with good acoustics. The new Sonos Era 300 is a great contender for a standalone spatial audio speaker or addition to your Sonos home theater or surround sound system.

About this Sonos Era 300 review: We tested the Sonos Era 300 over a 1 week period. I was running firmware version 15.1.1 and the Sonos app was running version 15.1.1. The company provided the drive for this review.

What you need to know about the Sonos Era 300

The audio quality of the speakers is quite good thanks to its four tweeters and two woofers.

Sonos Era 300: $449 USD / $559 CAD

The Era 300 sets itself apart from legacy Sonos products thanks to its Dolby Atmos compatibility. It’s a surround sound speaker and uses its six drivers to project sound in every direction, meaning it sounds great no matter where you are in the room. With Era 300 you can enjoy the spatial audio included with Amazon Music or Apple Music. If you already have Sonos speakers, you can use the Sonos app to connect the Era 300 to your existing network or pair it with a soundbar to create a surround sound system. The app can also control which Sonos speakers are grouped for playback, and you can adjust volume levels for TV playback separately from music. Basically, it’s a complete smart home addition.

The Sonos Era 300 is a powerful speaker packed with high-tech software. You can set it up with Amazon Alexa or Siri. It also has its own proprietary assistant, Sonos Voice Control, which performs some functions other assistants can’t, like grouping and ungrouping Sonos devices and directing your Sonos ecosystem to play audio in different rooms.

What is Sonos Trueplay audio?

Sonos Trueplay is a software feature that works like echolocation to measure room acoustics and maximize the sound quality of your speakers. The Sonos app will walk you through the setup process which involves shaking the phone around the room for a few minutes to calibrate the speaker.

What’s good about the Sonos Era 300?

Once the Sonos Era 300 is set up, it’s easy enough to control.

Controlling the Sonos Era 300 is a breeze, whether you use touch controls, the Sonos app or a voice assistant. The touch controls on the speaker feel very responsive, and the volume slider feels plush. Sonos’ proprietary voice assistant works well and reliably picks up the wake-up phrase even when the music is playing loud and I’m standing across the room. The speaker has a microphone mute switch on the back which should help with privacy issues. The app is navigable and relatively simple to use, and you can use it for firmware updates and organizing your Sonos ecosystem.

The Sonos Era 300’s out-of-the-box sonic signature is a little too heavy, and vocals get a bit overwhelmed by low-frequency instruments, resulting in many songs sounding unclear. However, when I use the Sonos TruePlay feature to calibrate the speaker to the room, the sound quality improves significantly. The speaker projects a satisfying amount of sound to every area of ​​the room.

Listening to Sabrina Carpenter’s Nonsense with Trueplay tuning disabled, the song sounds lackluster. Engaging Trueplay tuning smooths out the bass response a bit and boosts the vocals, giving the song a little more punch. On Tomorrow by Shakey Graves, turning on Trueplay tuning prevents the guitar from drowning out the singer’s voice, while retaining the style in which the song was produced. The speaker is designed for surround sound and effectively directs sound around the room with audio that sounds great from any angle.

Sonos Era 300 is not a portable speaker and must remain connected.

The in-app equalizer is useful for tailoring the sound signature to your taste, though it only has sliders for bass and treble levels and a toggle for volume. The volume switch automatically adjusts the frequency response of the speakers based on playback volume, to account for how our ears pick up different frequencies at different volumes. You can also set a maximum volume limit and adjust audio compression in the app.

The Sonos Era 300 gives you access to free music on Sonos radio and is also compatible with virtually all music streaming services out there. Just add your favorite streaming service to the app and you’re good to go. The speaker works via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, is Apple AirPlay compatible and has a 3.5mm auxiliary input port, so even if your favorite streaming service isn’t supported by the Sonos app you’ll still be able to to use it.

The all-metal construction of the Sonos Era 300 feels very sturdy and I’m confident it could handle being bumped into, although you shouldn’t worry about that as it’s meant to be placed in one spot permanently. It doesn’t have an official IP rating, but it’s resistant to humidity, so you can install it in the bathroom if you need a soundtrack for your showers.

What’s wrong with the Sonos Era 300?

The Sonos Era 300 uses both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

When you download the Sonos app, you need to create a Sonos account with your email address, and you need to enable location tracking to set up the speaker. This is a bit invasive and seems unnecessary to me, but people with serious privacy concerns probably aren’t looking into getting voice-activated smart speakers anyway.

There are also some issues with the Apple AirPlay feature – I still can’t stream YouTube to the speaker even when it says it was connected to AirPlay. I also sometimes have problems with the connection issue when I directly connect the speaker to Spotify – the Spotify app often doesn’t track the song playing even though the music is playing through the speaker. This was a fairly minor flaw, but it raises some concerns that the software could present problems in other ways.

Sonos Era 300 specifications

The Sonos Era 300 has a lot going for it, and we thought it would be helpful to put all of its specs in one place for you.

Sonos Era 300

To measure

160x260x185mm

Weight

4.47kg

Sound Specifications

4 tweeters: 1 upward, 2 lateral, 1 direct 6 amplifiers: class D2 woofer: lateral

Audio inputs

3.5mm to USB-C input via Sonos Line-In adapter

Wireless audio connection

Bluetooth 5Wi-Fi 2.4/5GHzApple AirPlay 2

Streaming services

All are free Sonos Radio and TuneIn compatible

App

Sonos App (iOS/Android)

Checks

Touch controls and volume slider

Price

$449 USD

Sonos Era 300 review: Should you buy it?

Sonos Era 300 is compatible with Dolby Atmos and Apple AirPlay.

The Sonos Era 300 is a good quality speaker and definitely something I’d recommend if you want the luxury of surround sound while still having to pay for and set up an individual speaker. Its Dolby Atmos compatibility and Trueplay technology make for superb sound quality, and the fact that you can customize the sound signature in the app means anyone can tailor it to their liking. You could definitely get the Era 300 as a standalone speaker, but its surround sound capabilities will definitely improve if you pair it with other Sonos speakers for a complete smart home system. However, the Era 300’s $449 USD price tag doesn’t come cheap, and it may be difficult to justify an even larger investment in additional speakers.

Sonos Era 300

Sonos Era 300

Dolby Atmos Sound quality Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and aux

The Sonos Era 300’s funky design helps it project high-quality sound throughout the room. It is compatible with Dolby Atmos, works with almost all streaming services and its voice control functionality works very well. If you can afford it, this is a great speaker to add to your Sonos ecosystem.

If you’re looking for alternatives to the Sonos Era 300, we recommend you take a look at the Bose Home Speaker 500. While it’s not a spatial sound speaker, it has great sound quality and can be connected to other Bose speakers in a multi-system. speaker. Dolby Atmos aficionados should also consider soundbars like the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) ($443 at Amazon).

Frequently Asked Questions about the Sonos Era 300

How do I turn on the Sonos Era 300?

When Sonos Era 300 is plugged in, it is always on. Just stream audio from your device to the speaker or unmute it with the voice assistant wake-up phrase and you should be good to go.

How do I pair a new Bluetooth device to Sonos Era 300?

To pair a device with the Sonos Era 300, make sure you enable Bluetooth in the device settings. Press and hold the Bluetooth button on the back of the speaker until you hear a beep and the speaker will enter pairing mode, indicated by a flashing blue light. Choose Era 300 from your device’s Bluetooth menu and it should connect and connect automatically the next time you use it.

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