Sonos enters the field of spatial sound with two new speakers. I received the largest of them for review, the Era 300, and as usual I was not disappointed with what the smart audio manufacturer has to offer. The speakers are sold by the official importer Bug.
From the first glance, it is clear that Sonos is doing something a little different than usual. While we are used to talking about the solid design of the company’s products, the Era 300 is anything but solid. This is a speaker that is hard not to notice as soon as you enter the room whether you choose the white or black color. It is quite large and heavy, while the “hourglass” design gives it a rather unique look.
As of this writing, I have not decided what I think about the design of this speaker. There is no doubt that he has a part, but I am not sure that I like his part. To his credit, most of those who saw the speaker at my place did admire the design, so Sonos must have done something right here.
As usual with Sonos, you won’t find too many buttons and connections, while on the back there is a small connection for the power input, a Bluetooth pairing button, a USB Type-C input and a switch to turn off the microphone. The microphone in the speaker is intended for sound calibration and for using the voice assistant. All those who care about their privacy can turn off the microphone and disable its operation.
The top panel has the touch buttons for playing music and a slider for controlling the volume, although you will perform most of the operations on your smartphone.
Those who are familiar with the company’s speakers are also familiar with the initial connection process, using the company’s app. The process takes a few minutes, at the end of which the speaker is connected to the home network and to the other Sonos speakers you have at home (assuming you have them). From here the activation and control is simple, all that remains is to connect to the streaming service you subscribe to and you are ready to go.
By the way, for the first time in Sonos products, the Trueplay Calibrating the sound according to the room is also available for Android users, perhaps a sign that Sonos finally understands that there is a world outside the apple ecosystem. In any case, it is a welcome and good step that they finally did it. The result, by the way, is noticeable and as soon as I activated the Trueplaythe improvement in sound was noticeable.
The Era 300 is the first Sonos speaker (along with the smaller, more standard Era 100) to support in spatial sound (Spatial Audio) which is designed to surround you with sounds from wherever you are in the room. In order to benefit from this option, you will have to use Apple’s or Amazon’s music services, only the latter is not available in Israel, so at the moment the only option is to use Apple’s service. It is my understanding that Spatial Audio should also reach other streaming services in the future, but it is not clear which and when.
how does that sound Wonderful!
In the demonstration that the importer Bag performed for us, we were played, among other things, the song of Lizzy McAlpine the great one, who and her album, Five Seconds FlatI only found out thanks to the demo and it immediately got a place of honor in my daily playlist.
The chilling opening song of the album, Doomsday, surrounded me from all sides and, as Sonos states, from anywhere in the room it sounds great. The same can be said about Welcome To The DCCthe new (tremendous one must say) single from Nothing But Thieves which demonstrates the capabilities of the Spatial Audio even in more rhythmic music. I moved to- The Tipping Point of Tears For Fears And the Era 300 continued to impress me with its accurate sound quality and impressive spatial sound. It’s hard not to admire the achievement of Sonos, who managed to produce a single speaker here whose sound manages to fill a small to medium room without effort.
What I particularly liked about the Era 300 is the fact that all frequencies, from the lows through the mids to the highs, are all heard clearly, with no frequency being overemphasized. If you still like to emphasize a specific frequency, you can always change the sound in the application.
The Era 300 can also be used as a surround speaker in a Sonos home theater system. Although I couldn’t check it at my house, since I don’t have the Arc or the Beam They are needed to fulfill the role of the front speakers in the system, but in the same demonstration that I mentioned earlier, we were also allowed to hear the speaker fulfill this role and the result was absolutely impressive. I don’t think I would invest NIS 3,700 in such a pair For surround sound, but those who are willing to do it will enjoy a very impressive surround sound system, especially if the role of the front speakers is played by the excellent Arc.
For the first time in a non-portable Sonos speaker, the company also integrated Bluetooth connectivity. According to the company, it did this after it was convinced that the new technology standards are advanced enough so that the audio quality and the quality of the connection will provide an optimal user experience.
Why is this good, beyond the possibility of connecting external devices that do not support the Sonos application? Let’s say you’re watching a video on YouTube and you want to hear through the speaker, until now you couldn’t do that with a Sonos speaker and now you can. In the comparison I made between the network connection and the Bluetooth connection, the decrease in audio quality is there, but the Era still manages to sound great and there is no doubt that this is a useful addition, especially for those who use YouTube and other platforms that are not supported by the Sonos app in normal mode.
By the way, the Type-C connector allows the connection of external devices that do not have any wireless connectivity, but in order to do this, a special adapter is needed that is sold separately.
Another innovation that Sonos presents is stereophonic sound from a single speaker, which was not present in previous models.
In conclusion
The Era 300 is a great speaker. It looks good (even if I’m personally less connected), it’s easy to use and above all it sounds great. It’s not the cheapest, when it’s on sale right now At a launch price of NIS 1,750 (instead of NIS 1,850), but you will have a hard time finding a speaker at this price that provides better value for its price, So the price is justified. As a single speaker in a small to medium room it will give you a wonderful audio experience and even in a large room, but not very large, it should be enough for the average user.
Sure enough, Sonos does it again!
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we loved
- Great sound
- Effective spatial sound
- A variety of connection options
We liked less
- A design that will not necessarily suit everyone