The front-facing drivers on the Era 300s are disabled when used as surrounds. This might be why the surround audio sounds less pronounced with 5.1 audio as the Era 300s rely on reflecting sound off of walls rather than playing the audio directly toward the listener. I have experienced this with my Era 300s too. This issue has been discussed here:

I would perform Trueplay tuning again and make sure the mics on the phone are clean.

Saves me money as I thought they were expensive for just surrounds not paying 1k for just atmos content 

Guessing dts 5.1 is the same?

Shame that era 100 don't have upfiring drivers maybe era 200 coming?🤪

OK I'll read that but basically everything 5.1 and below there is basically no sound. It got to the point I had to put my ear up to them to see if they were even on. Not sure what sonos was thinking doing that as not everything is atmos or spatial. I wouldn't have even advertised them as surrounds tbh.

Well this sucks! I was just going to save money on a new tv in hopes to spend it on two era 300s to replace my ones as surrounds. I guess I’ll spend the extra $1000 on the tv and wait for Sonos to figure it out. ‍♂️

I was considering buying 2 ERA 300's to replace my Fives in my Home Theater setup (Arc and 2 Fives as surrounds). However, I use this setup for music as much as TV. I use Amazon Unlimited for HD music. Having no front facing drivers in this setup is a deal breaker. I am glad I found this information before purchasing the ERA 300's.

Sonos, are you ABLE to add the option to use the front facing drivers in this setup? If so, are you WILLING to add this feature? Why are they disabled in this setup? 

cc: @Corry P

The amount of threads about this issue is pretty high. I know you've acked some of them but just flagging that this issue is a deal-breaker for many of us. 

Hopefully we can hear an announcement soon to make a decision.

Thanks!

I know it’s an ‘unsolicited opinion’, and I’ve stated this before, but Sonos MO is not making announcements about future enhancements or changes to how the speakers operate.  It’s probable that if Sonos decides to turn on the center speaker, you won’t hear about it to the firmware upgrade is available, or maybe days before hand.

If this is vital  to you, and you have not bought an Era 300, don’t go buy one till you hear the feature is available. If you have the Era 300 already, then don’t convince yourself that Sonos is definitely going to make changes despite a lack of commitment on their side, and go past your return window.

Why would Sonos be willing to do anything about this when they refuse to do anything about the phantom power drain issue that makes the Move almost unusable for its purpose??

A $400 mobile speaker that literally cannot hold a charge - by design - and requires you to keep it on its base 24/7 or it WILL NOT be ready to use when you want to use it.  A speaker whose “power off” doesn’t actually mean it is powered off…

Sonos won’t add an option to make the Era 300 work in 5.1 setups any differently than it does today…

You can power off the Move by pressing and holding down the power button for about 5 seconds until you hear a descending chime. Or enable Battery Saver in the Sonos app so the Move will automatically power off after about 30 minutes of being idle.

Not to be a jerk GuitarSuperstar, but this is 100% untrue in practice.  I am well aware of how to “power off” the move.  I said as much in my post - I’m not putting it to sleep, I am powering it off.

You can power the Move off, by following those instructions and you will hear the power off chime as indicated.  However, if you leave your Move in that state for a week and try to power it on and use it, you will find the battery completely drained down to 0%.  This is not a bug that can be fixed with a firmware update as this condition has existed with the Move from day one and no firmware update has fixed it and Sonos will not take ownership for it.

All Move owners should be offered refunds for a defective product or have their Move replaced with a new unit that has been fixed.  Had I known about this phantom power drain I would not have spent $800 on a pair.  I have to know at least four hours in advance of when when I want to use them so that I can charge them, or they will not be usable.  And leaving them on the charger all the time destroys the battery...

I have actually tested this before. I completely shut off my Move and removed it from the charger one night before I went to bed. The battery was at 43%. When I turned the Move back on the next morning 8.5 hours later, it was still at 43%.

FYI… Sonos says leaving the Move on the charger doesn’t destroy the battery.

@LilHammer99 Why start this discussion in an unrelated thread?