Answered

ERA 300 as surrounds missing front firing driver

37 replies
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I am using the Arc, 2 subs with 2 Era 300. Using Apple Music as recommended by Sonos. When playing ATMOS content I get a better special experience compared with my Sonos One’s which is expected.

Era 300 is not doing a good job in my opinion when playing stereo content and I figured out that Sonos disables the front firing driver when the Era 300 is setup as rear surround sound. Why? I pay for all speakers and have not even an option to turn the front driver on :-(. It would be better to give user an option and similar to the heigh volume adding a front volume and control the volume.

Any help is appreciated.

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Corry PAnswer

Sonos Staff

Hi @greenyneu & @Maciunio PL

I recommend you both add your voices to the main feature request thread regarding this query, if you haven’t already.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

M

Maciunio PL

Lyricist II

+1

@SONOS - can you tell us about your plans?

Corry PAnswer

Sonos Staff

Hi @greenyneu & @Maciunio PL

I recommend you both add your voices to the main feature request thread regarding this query, if you haven’t already.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

P

Paul gavin

Lyricist I

Hi I just bought the two 300 speakers am not happy at all centre speaker not working I got them for only surround sound and no centre speaker working a joke

T

Traveller

Er - are you saying they aren’t working properly? The centre drivers aren’t supposed to be in use for surround duty. As I understand it, the 300s work properly with surround using the other drivers. The front drivers are for stereo, where, obviously, they are essential.

if you listen to stereo on your Eras, or for Atmos as surrounds, what do you identify as missing? From my experience, if you switched on front drivers, you could lose the proper surround effect, and add some muddiness. I’m really not sure what the point would be of adding something just for the sake of it.

Richard

V

VNL

Trending Lyricist I

Er - are you saying they aren’t working properly? The centre drivers aren’t supposed to be in use for surround duty. As I understand it, the 300s work properly with surround using the other drivers. The front drivers are for stereo, where, obviously, they are essential.

if you listen to stereo on your Eras, or for Atmos as surrounds, what do you identify as missing? From my experience, if you switched on front drivers, you could lose the proper surround effect, and add some muddiness. I’m really not sure what the point would be of adding something just for the sake of it.

Nowhere has this been mentioned and people are finding this out as they go along, I think this is the point OP was trying to make. Since the top/side speakers are firing in all directions, it IS very noticeable that the front one is missing as the sound is VERY low.

Ken_Griffiths

Er - are you saying they aren’t working properly? The centre drivers aren’t supposed to be in use for surround duty. As I understand it, the 300s work properly with surround using the other drivers. The front drivers are for stereo, where, obviously, they are essential.

if you listen to stereo on your Eras, or for Atmos as surrounds, what do you identify as missing? From my experience, if you switched on front drivers, you could lose the proper surround effect, and add some muddiness. I’m really not sure what the point would be of adding something just for the sake of it.

Nowhere has this been mentioned and people are finding this out as they go along, I think this is the point OP was trying to make. Since the top/side speakers are firing in all directions, it IS very noticeable that the front one is missing as the sound is VERY low.

Clearly though it’s ‘by design’ and quite likely adding the front driver into the mix is going to muddy the surround sound audio channels and maybe narrow the stage - I don’t find the sound low at all compared to when I swap-out the 300’s for Ones - the 300’s are much better sounding and definitely not lower in volume.

K

KenKool

Lyricist I

I noticed the missing front driver as well with my current set up: Era 300s as rear surrounds along with Sonos Arc and Sonos Sub.

I removed the surround sound set up and stereo paired my Era 300s for comparison purposes.

I grouped this set up with my Arc and Sub and i could hear the fronts on my 300s when streaming regular music thus adding more volume compared to my previous set up. However, when playing spatial audio, the sound was much better when my 300s were set up as rear surrounds.

The same applies to watching Dolby Atmos movies. Just sounded so much better in terms of separation and flow.

I will tell you this. I think the stereo paired 300s grouped with my Arc and Sub did sound better when playing my turntable.

So with all that being said, i do appreciate the flexibility that comes with these speakers. So if I want to spin some vinyl, I can easily make a quick change to my set up to satisfy my listening experience. So far, my wife and i love these Era 300s. We have been rocking Sonos since 2014 and we love them!!

W

Woodlake91

Contributor I

I noticed the missing front driver as well with my current set up: Era 300s as rear surrounds along with Sonos Arc and Sonos Sub.

I removed the surround sound set up and stereo paired my Era 300s for comparison purposes.

I grouped this set up with my Arc and Sub and i could hear the fronts on my 300s when streaming regular music thus adding more volume compared to my previous set up. However, when playing spatial audio, the sound was much better when my 300s were set up as rear surrounds.

The same applies to watching Dolby Atmos movies. Just sounded so much better in terms of separation and flow.

I will tell you this. I think the stereo paired 300s grouped with my Arc and Sub did sound better when playing my turntable.

So with all that being said, i do appreciate the flexibility that comes with these speakers. So if I want to spin some vinyl, I can easily make a quick change to my set up to satisfy my listening experience. So far, my wife and i love these Era 300s. We have been rocking Sonos since 2014 and we love them!!

hey, just finding this!

I only use my Sonos arc,| sub, and era 300’s for music, and when I figured out the front drivers can’t be used when listening to music, I was super bummed.

did you find a workaround somehow!

i am not tech savvy, just curious if I understood what you wrote

P

Piranha88

Lyricist I

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I just “upgraded” my Ones to era 300s yesterday with the Fathers Day discount… and they are being returned tomorrow. Yes they sound better with Atmos, but for music they need the center driver to compete with my ones. I tried them in stereo with one sub and they sound great, and probably better with my 2nd sub, but of course the app wouldn’t let me add it. Anyway is it really that hard to add the option of the center driver when not listening to Atmos??

Ken_Griffiths

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I just “upgraded” my Ones to era 300s yesterday with the Fathers Day discount… and they are being returned tomorrow. Yes they sound better with Atmos, but for music they need the center driver to compete with my ones. I tried them in stereo with one sub and they sound great, and probably better with my 2nd sub, but of course the app wouldn’t let me add it. Anyway is it really that hard to add the option of the center driver when not listening to Atmos??

Are you using the Era 300s as Home Theatre surrounds then, or as a stereo pair?

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