era 300 front driver clarification

@jonmichael thanks for the input.  I was beginning to think I was the only person interested in watching movies and listening to music on the same system 🤔  

I may well not have bought them either had I known this before, but it certainly does not seem to be advertised on the product page.  Do any other companies soundbar / surround systems have this limitation?

It does seem like it would be a relatively easy toggle to put in.  I’d even be happy if it was a hidden or advanced / developer mode / beta option.

Do any other companies put what they won’t do on their packaging?

Thanks Cory. But this “feature request” has been in the queue for many months. In my experience, a positive decision to add this ‘feature” could be followed by almost immediate implementation. So my best guess is that Sonos does not want to do this, and they hope, in time, we will stop complaining.

I hope I am wrong. But it doesn’t look good to me.

Hi @jonmichael 

The previous feature request was for the forward-facing drivers to be enabled with Home Theatre surround-sound, not stereo music. I know they sound pretty much like the same thing, but they are different enough that they would probably need to be implemented separately, ergo: two feature requests. Besides, with the last one being specifically about surround sound, I just wanted it to be known internally that people (you guys) were asking for something else too.

Perhaps if our product were just an app, this would indeed be relatively easy. This particular feature would need software development on the firmware for three separate hardware products (Arc, Beam (Gen 2) and Era 300), as well as on two apps (Android and iOS) and a significant amount of testing. In addition, we have other feature development, product development and bug fixing to do, and we do not have an unlimited supply of software engineers at our disposal, much as we’d like to.

Please don’t take this as a confirmation that we will implement the feature, however - a feature request is a feature request, even after it has been acknowledged. For what it’s worth, I hope you are wrong too... but you may not be.

I hope this helps.

@Corry P thank you so much for your help with this!  I’m optimistic they will implement it, although I realize it may be a year or so if ever.  Take care!

Hi ​​​@Corry P 

I really appreciate the fact that the Sonos team will consider implementing forward-facing drivers in a surround configuration to be enabled with Home Theatre surround sound and stereo music as well. 
I think that premium speakers such as ERA 300 must have an option that Allows users to manually enable center speakers of the ERA’s 300 if they are added as surrounds to ARC/Beam Gen 2. Every user will be happy to make his own decision to use forward-facing drivers or not. 

To be honest with you I think that the decision that Sonos engineers have taken from the beginning to disable forward-facing drivers when they are added as surrounds to ARC/Beam Gen 2 is totally wrong. Sonos said that that decision is based on many user experience tests, but I think Sonos doesn't cover every user persona that will use  ERA300 you know better from me how many complaints in the Sonos Community / Reddit / Youtube.

The main problem is that Sonos sells an Era 300 as a product with six drivers: Customers who use it and add it as surrounds to ARC/Beam Gen 2 can use only 5 of them because Sonos engineers decided that. Sounds like a car company to sell a sports car with 600ph with a speed limitation of 500 because the engineers decide that is better for you.

Don't get me wrong I like a lot of Sonos products and I will buy a  two Era 300 for my surround system but I can't really understand why I have to pay for a product with six drivers but I have to use only 5 of them. If forward-facing drivers in a surround configuration are not OK then maybe Sonos has to create a similar and cheaper product with 5 drivers for those user personas that will use the speakers only in surround mode.

Adding extra options is not always a good idea. Some users are easily confused - most Sonos users fall under the “have money, but no technical insight”-category. This community probably has more of the other category “have money, some technical insight, and a bit cocky” (if that’s the word - I do think I’m part of this category of users myself).

If the option is available and turned on but actually degrades the experience, as Sonos have said to have found out, some users from category 1 will not reach the full potential of their system. Users from category 2 also won’t, but that would be their choice. More drivers do not always equal better sound.

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@106rallye
I agree with you that most of the users have no technical insight.  
You know that every app or software has default and custom options, so most of the users with no technical insight never try to change something if they do they can easily back factory settings by pressing the button “RESET”

If this extra option will stay off by default for all users ( Sonos recommendation for the best audio experience ) is a win-win situation for both sides.
For example, every TV on the planet has a default preset, and 90% of the users never touch it ( movie, sport, game, etc. - recommended by the company ) but people with technical insight have an option to change that preset according to their own preference.
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I’d counter that argument by pointing at the ‘Wi-Fi off’ feature in the Sonos controller, and the seemingly unending number of users who think that because their soundbar is wired to their LAN, they need to turn it off. Which causes trouble for the soundbar in its attempt to communicate with both the Surrounds and Sub, as they do, across a 5Ghz radio signal. An option that really shouldn’t ever be used, except by the supposed ‘experts’, yet is commonly mistaken as something that should be done.