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I took delivery of 2 x Era 300’s yesterday to be used as rear speakers with my Beam (Gen 2) and Sub (also Gen 2). I just wanted to provide some early feedback for those who may be interested.

Set up was incredibly easy after removing the existing speakers (Play:3’s).

Naturally, I wanted to experience some music in Dolby Atmos and I went straight to Amazon Music and Apple music to add some albums to ‘My Sonos’. I realise that the Atmos content will improve over time but as an aside, there wasn’t too much for me to choose from as a ‘Classic Rock/Progressive Rock’ fan. The best sounding albums I have found so far in Atmos are ‘Brothers In Arms’ and ‘Rumours’. Identifying Dolby Atmos albums when searching for an artist’s album is also another story and needs to be improved by the streaming companies. Apple does have a dedicated Atmos section you can access from their app so that’s probably the easiest was of finding Atmos content at the moment. I enjoyed the Atmos mixes of those two albums but I must admit that I was hoping for a little more from the experience. Perhaps it’s because I’m not familiar with the format and it may take some getting used to.

However, when I reached for some physical media, that’s when I really started to appreciate the Era 300. To pre-qualify this, I can’t play Dolby Atmos discs because I don’t have a Blu Ray player that is capable. As such, I listened to a number of discs in standard DTS 5.1 surround sound. Wow! A real stand-out was Tears For Fears’ ‘The Seeds Of Love’ album. It’s always benefited from its production values and sounds great in stereo. However, the surround content on the disc actually shocked me when played through the Beam/Era 300’s, it was that good and has literally taken the audio in that room to another level.

In summary, I still need to be convinced around streaming Atmos but at present, playing physical media in non-Atmos surround sound has been a revelation. I can well imagine how a Dolby Atmos Blu Ray disc would raise the bar even higher. It’s a big tick in the box for me with regard to the Era 300!

Interested to hear the experience of others with a similar set up.

Did you already add the playlist of Chris Welch ‘Era Spatial Audio’ or Zach Larsons’ ‘Atmos’? Hopefully more to your ‘rock liking’. 

BTW not all Atmos songs are top notch ‘quality’ but you can defintely hear the difference between 2.0 and the Dolby Atmos experience. 

Hope it helps?

The extra hop via the S2 app to stream native Dolby Atmos is a kind of a learning curve 😉. Still need to get used to it → that constant swapping between Apple Music and the S2 app. But once you can listen to a Dolby Atmos track it sounds and feels completely next level. 

Did you already add the playlist of Chris Welch ‘Era Spatial Audio’ or Zach Larsons’ ‘Atmos’? Hopefully more to your ‘rock liking’. 

BTW not all Atmos songs are top notch ‘quality’ but you can defintely hear the difference between 2.0 and the Dolby Atmos experience. 

Hope it helps?

The extra hop via the S2 app to stream native Dolby Atmos is a kind of a learning curve 😉. Still need to get used to it → that constant swapping between Apple Music and the S2 app. 

Many thanks for the tip! I didn’t see those but I can imagine that Chris Welch’s playlist would be to my liking. I’ll check them out after work.

I haven’t integrated the Era 300s into my home theater set up yet (my stands are coming tomorrow) but I currently have two Era 300s paired in my living room with no sub. The Abbey Road album in Atmos sounded really good. They really fill the room noticeably different than my Play 5s. Previously, I checked out Rush’s Moving Pictures Atmos tracks with my Arc home theater setup (with One SLs as rears). I recall being surprisingly turned off by the excessive reverb.  It seems a lot of people panned that particular Atmos album mix. Anyway, I listed to those Moving Pictures Atmos tracks with the two Era 300s and although the excessive reverb was still apparent (duh), it was just more enjoyable to me.  I have a cue of about a dozen Atmos albums waiting for me…but I am mostly excited about getting the Era 300s into my home theater for my blu-rays.

I got mine yesterday, hooked up surrounds to my arch and gen 1 sub and was a bit disappointed.  I replaced play 1 as surrounds with era 300 and was expecting a big upgrade, that didn’t happen.  It makes me think something is buggy, I didn’t configure something correctly or this is just not that big of an upgrade.  I tested using Black Panther on Disney+, the Atmos notice in the app was missing until I rebooted the arc.  Once I saw the atoms symbol, I cranked everything up, expecting to hear earth shattering sound all around me.  That did not happen.  I had to tweak the surround sound settings and crank the tv volume up to 10, just to hear the background noise.  The era’s are right behind my couch, 1 ft behind and spaced around 6 ft apart, nothing blocking the speakers.


Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot?  It feels like a got a lemon.  I’m not giving up and am excited to get these working, just need some ideas on how to get these working. 

Just a couple more observations since the OP that may be helpful for some; I found that turning OFF Trueplay makes for a much more natural sound when listening in Dolby Atmos. Also, under the Surround Audio > Music Playback, I found a real improvement when I selected “full” instead of “ambient”. This puzzled me as there is actually an “N.B.” stating that “this setting doesn’t apply to Dolby Atmos Music Playback”. It made a massive difference. I listened to ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ (2023 mix) after making these adjustments and the difference in the experience was quite substantial.

I’m new to Sonos.  Bought Arc and Sub Mini first and suitably impressed. Quickly bought two 300s.  My lounge is basically 4 metres square. Arc is on a large sideboard that is 106 cm tall and 2 metres wide. Behind Arc is 65” LG OLED C8 with ARC rather than eARC. Initially I placed the 300s behind me in an Ariel bay I think it’s called.  So these weren’t ideally positioned being immediately behind, with 2” separation. Set them up as surrounds.  Attempted Dolby Atmos Music via Apple & Amazon but they sounded odd with sound sort of reverberating in and out?  Trueplay on or off made no difference.  Adjusted applicable settings to no avail.  In the end I decided to move them to the sideboard and use as my stereo/Atmos speakers.  Arc & Sub for tv etc.  The 300s are great stereo speakers and I’m unsure about spatial music?  The main difference I hear is that it’s louder and more bass?  Can’t say I’m hearing anything that differently?  They are very good stereo speakers though.

Just a couple more observations since the OP that may be helpful for some; I found that turning OFF Trueplay makes for a much more natural sound when listening in Dolby Atmos. Also, under the Surround Audio > Music Playback, I found a real improvement when I selected “full” instead of “ambient”. This puzzled me as there is actually an “N.B.” stating that “this setting doesn’t apply to Dolby Atmos Music Playback”. It made a massive difference. I listened to ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ (2023 mix) after making these adjustments and the difference in the experience was quite substantial.

 

Quick update; I’ve found that turning True Play “Off” is better whilst streaming Dolby Atmos content but when playing Dolby Atmos content from a Blu Ray disc, it appears to sound better with True Play “On”.

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