I purchased two Era 300s on 1/31/2024 as replacements for two 1SLs surrounds and mounted them inverted to the wall behind my sofa. I can confirm with a 7.1.4 audio test I downloaded that the Era’s left and right channels are inverted as well when upside down. However, the improvement over the 1SLs is significant. Also, during a movie, it is very hard to tell the difference. The channel inversion becomes a bit more noticeable in PS5 games when enemies are behind you (if that serious about gaming, use some quality headphones). I look forward to the updated software to correct the left/right channels when inverted, but overall very satisfied with upgrading to the 300s. 
 

P.S. I can also confirm that the Era height speakers fires directly down on me, which sounds much better than the Arc that bounces the height off the ceiling. Note that I ran true play and it ran just fine; it did not pick up or notice that my speakers were inverted and did improve the sound dynamics  I then adjusted both height level and surround level volume to my liking and now my room truly feels like movie theater sound. 

Note after some extensive testing with downloadable Atmos trailers and Atmos movie scenes, the reason I can’t tell the difference in the inverted left/right Era side channels is because I don’t think sound engineers are putting a lot of time into separating those channels too often. I can hear the difference between the height channels and side channels. However, I think the sound engineers appear to put their efforts toward placing the sound in the back left or back right speaker and height for each rather than breaking down to the back left (left & right channel) and back right (left & right channel) with height for both as well. Either that or the software that sound engineers use to blend the separate left&right channels for a single back speaker does it in a way that it hardly becomes noticeable. I think video games do sound placement automatically which is why a bit more noticeable there. 
 

In summary, I know technically inverting the 300s are inverting the left/right channel as well, but for watching movies, it is extremely hard to tell the difference. Plus the downward firing height channels are simply amazing relative to upward bouncing. 

Does anyone at SONOS know when trueplay tuning will be available for inverted ERA 300’s? This is very frustrating for me as I recently upgraded from Play:1 to ERA 300 rears on a ARC. They are inverted due to being mounted too close to the ceiling for standard installation. When I contacted support because trueplay kept failing they didn’t understand why and kept blaming it on wireless interference even though I told them my Era 300’s were inverted. They had me test trueplay multiple times and it failed at the very last step every time. Trueplay was only successful when they had me remove the ERA 300’s from that zone. Seems like they didn’t know about the inverted Era 300 trueplay limitation.

Hi @Nate S 

I can’t give exact dates, but I’ve been told it will be soon - in the first half of this year, hopefully.

This, I think, is the first time I’ve heard of TruePlay not completing just because Era 300s had been added, however - perhaps a reboot of the Arc will help.

See this post for an example report of someone successfully completing TruePlay, even with Eras inverted:

I hope this helps.

The trueplay worked for me with the inverted 300s and I did a few times. I even downloaded a sound decibel app to balance the sound just the way I want. Depending on where you hold your phone during tuning, you can get certain speakers to be louder or quieter. 

Thanks ptrick73, good to know it works for some. Maybe I’m not walking far enough behind them for the app to fully calculate the levels. My living room and dining room are one large area but I haven’t walking out of the living room space during trueplay. I’ll try it out today.

Hi all,

We also recently installed a sound systems with inverted 300s. No matter what I’ve tried trueplay doesn’t want to complete. After completing the walking around portion it always says “problem communicating with speaker.” I can complete trueplay with one 300 on it’s own, and a stereo pair, and a beam and sub on their own, but not with the 300 as a surround pair. Rebooting beam didn’t work either. Any advice is welcome!

Hi @harktheharreld 

Sorry to hear of the issue you’ve had with tuning your Arc+Era 300 setup. 

If rebooting the Eras, the Arc and your phone do not help (or, if you have another iPhone/iPad to try and doing so does not help), I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

I hope this helps.

I recently purchased the Arc, sub and Era 300’s for a basement home theater. The Era’s have to be inverted due to my room configuration. Trueplay does not work with the Era’s inverted. I can get it to work with just the Arc, just the Era’s, or the whole system with the Era’s not inverted.

I called tech support and spent two hours on the phone with them, an hour of which was with the Level 2. Neither of them had any idea this was an issue and didn’t know why it wasn’t working. I was told my issue would be raised to engineering and I would get an email letting me know the status. There has been no contact from Sonos since my call. Both technical service reps were very friendly and patient but I find it very frustrating that two minutes of searching on here produced more information than what tech support knew. 
 

I also find it very frustrating and misleading by Sonos to know that Trueplay isn’t compatible with inverted Era 300’s but advertise this as the proper way to install them for low ceilings. RTA (Trueplay) can make the difference between a good sounding home theater and a great sounding one. It’s a major reason why I purchased this system. Had I known of this issue, I would have bought a competitor system. 
 

Do better Sonos. Please fix this issue and communicate a date when consumers can expect a fix. 
 

Ditto. Resetting, different phones, none of it’s worked for me. And that’s with two different systems. One based around arc and another around a beam, both with inverted 300s. Both have the trueplay issue I mentioned, and you seem to have. Haven’t had a chance to talk to support yet, but I think you saved me some time!

I have the same issues with an arc, but i know I was able to true play them when I first got my 300 when they were released. I am not sure what has changed since then…. I wonder if the 300 inverted support will be released with the new app? Hopefully when they do, they also allow the center speaker to be turned back on when playing music and paired in surround. 

Everything I’ve read is that the ‘new app’, being released tomorrow, is a UI refresh, not a rewrite of any underlying capabilities. While I expect the normal amount of ‘bug fixes’, I’m not expecting extreme changes such as you’re hoping for. We will find out soon, though. I could be wrong….

I agree unfortunately…. Hopefully now that they have deployed this update, they can get to some of the lower priority items requested. 

Just a quick update on this since new update is out. I can now not even get trueplay to start. When it gets to bit about playing test tones after flipping phone the “continue” button doesn’t work. I’ve tried closing the app and restarting phone. Nothing works. So trueplay still isn’t working but for a new reason now  

side note: looks like 300 auto trueplay and quick tune are scheduled for later this month, so maybe a fix will be added then. Assuming new app is cooperative by then. 

Have you found any other issues with the new app? I’ve read some of the other threads of peoples feedback and decided not to update the app. 

I’ve only messed around a little. I do like the new look, but certainly has some other minor issues. Depends how much you rely on the app for your playback. Biggest one I’ve noticed is you can only “replace queue” now instead of adding individual songs, albums, playlists, etc to an already in playing queue either next or at end. Weird omission. I’ve been using windows app to manage that anyway, or I just use Tidal or Apple directly, but definitely needs fixing. 
 

Other than the true play not having any other issues. In fact, I’m having better overall responsiveness both in app and in playback. But I don’t use radio functions too much, and seen some are having issues there though Sonos looks to be aware of that. Early days still so take all with grain of salt. 
 

Will update to say I have discovered quite a few issues now, including trueplay not working at all for any speaker. Can’t remove speakers from system, along with the many other issues others are reporting. Best to avoid updating if you can.

Did the latest update fix any of the issues you were seeing? I’m assuming fixing trueplay to work with inverted surrounds is now even lower on their priority list. I’m still holding off on the update for now. 

Actually most recent update seems to have resolved the issue on both my systems! Update previous it worked on one, but then got stuck during it on other, but only after finding a working around to trueplay not working. This most recent update has resolved all those issues, plus it completes as expected.

Trueplay completes with the inverted Era300’s?

Yes! At least for me on new app with latest updates. Did it this morning with no issues. 

Good to know. Thanks!

Hi @Corry P,

Could you please help to check if TruePlay already support inverted-mounting Era300’s?

I purchased a pair recently and successfully add into surrounding system but failed on TruePlay…

BTW, my system is beam gen2 + sub mini in a small room.

Many Thanks!

Hey @bruce93, welcome to the Sonos Community!

For now invert-mounted Era300’s are not Trueplay supported, but I have forwarded the issue for clarification.

Hi Gabriel Z,

Thanks for your confirmation!

Kindly keep us post if any update. Many of us are looking forward this function badly.