Hi

Although you can create a stereo pair with two Era 300’s they cannot be paired with a Beam Gen2 as such. They can be grouped with a Beam Gen2 to play along with it for music. They can later be ungrouped to act again as an independent stereo pair separate from the Beam.

Era 300’s can be bonded to the Beam as surrounds in a Home Theater setup. Coincidently, when playing music through the Beam Gen2 they will also play along in the rear. 

To your post title your options are:

• Beam Gen2 bonded with two Era 300’s as surrounds 
• Beam Gen2 bonded with two Era 100’s as surrounds 
• Beam Gen2 bonded with two Era 300’s as surrounds and grouped with two Era 100’s when playing music
• Beam Gen2 bonded with two Era 100’s as surrounds and grouped with two Era 300’s when playing music

No, a Sonos home theater setup with a Beam consists of the Beam, up to two Subs or one Sub Mini, and a maximum of two surround speakers. Nothing more can be added to this setup.

Thanks for clarification.

I have a Beam Gen 2 setup with a Sub and 2 Ones. I’m strongly considering replacing the Ones with a pair of 300s. My question/concern is using the line in to add a turntable.

One review mentioned this won’t work with the home theater setup. But if the system is set to ungroup for music would that solve the issue? This is the deciding factor for me since getting my vinyl out of storage is an important factor in purchasing a pair of Era 300s.

 Along those lines would a Bluetooth turntable work? I’d rather use line-in but if Bluetooth is the only option I may still do it.

When used as surrounds, both the line-in and Bluetooth features are disabled on the Era 300s. Not sure what “ungroup for music” is, but you would have to remove the Era 300s as surrounds in the Sonos app to enable the Bluetooth and line-in feature.

However, you could go with the addition of a Roam, and use the bluetooth function to connect your turntable to it, and then group that Roam with your other Sonos speakers.

There’s a rumor out there that the next version of the Move will allow that too, although the current version does not. I have hopes. 

The simple fact is the nature of the connection of a surround and Sub speaker is completely different than a normal Sonos speaker. This is why they have to turn off the various things (bluetooth, line in, subwoofer output on the Amp) when it’s connected as a surround device. 

I will have to check with a product expert. If adding a pair of $900 speakers to my system defeats half (or more) of the reason I want them there is very little chance Sonos gets the sale. Seems like a very badly missed opportunity here. 

What makes you think you need a "product expert", the information is readily available.  Besides, the people answering here are far more qualified to be "product experts" than any big box sales or 1st level support person.  I fully expect you to come back here and apologize to the dedicated volunteers who tried to help you when you hear from your "product expert", if you find one.

 Why ask the question to the community if you're just going to reject the answer when it's not the answer you wanted?

In a home theatre setup, the speaker connected to TV sends audio to the other speakers in the room. What you want is for one of the surround speakers to take on this role, which completely changes how the speakers talk to each other, adding dev and test costs, etc, raising the cost of the product. It's not like Sonos arbitrarily turned off the feature for no reason, thinking no one would care.