ERA's 300 center channel not working if connected as surrounds to ARC/SUB

It doesn’t activate the front speaker but it does make more music come out of them. In Ambient they just emit a bit of sound to complement the ARC. In complete, or full they are set to output all the music, they mirror what the ARC is outputting.

I assume this is different for Atmos which is object based.

in either case, from what I can tell, as long as the 300’s are connected to the soundbar the front driver will not work under any circumstance. Correct me if I’m wrong. Unless it is different when streaming from the service as opposed to HDMI from TV? But movies etc would still lack the front driver.

I think adding 2 One SLs would be great. I love my 5.1 set up although it’s the Beam Gen 2 that I have, plus Sub mini and One SLs. I’m more than happy with that set up for both Atmos and 5.1 surround sound. 

And again, from what I have read on here and Reddit, it seems that the Era 300s for music alone are better used as you are using yours now. 

From what I can tell, the answer is if the era 300’s are connected to a soundbar the front speaker is always off.

I find this very disappointing. Sonos disable lots of features when using a soundbar it seems. For the price you pay I don’t think this is good for consumers, full price paid should equal all features and it should be up to the user if they disable or not. That is just my view.

Sonos, if you are listening, enable the speaker… and the line in and Bluetooth too while you are at it. It’s a bit of a joke.

Hi, I’m new to all this having purchased my Arc, Sub Mini and two Era 300s a fortnight ago.  I’m very much learning and experimenting. My main problem is positioning of 300s as rears because my lounge has limited options.  Immediately behind our two chairs is a bay window with large window sill. 300s could sit there but only be 2’ apart or 60cm so presumably not enough.  So I think I may get some Ones for surround instead?

Main query though is re 300 front driver.  Currently they are configured as surrounds and I understand that when watching Atmos movies that driver is off.  
When I play Apple Music or Amazon Music via the S2 App  ((no tv involved) but all components involved, is that front driver still disabled?  Is the only way to play the 300s fully functioning as stereo speakers?

This is disappointing, I doubt there there is not a way to sonos could tune the front speaker for use as a channel or to complement a channel in the home theatre set up. It’s not like nearly all other home theatre products don’t do this, top end Samsung soundbars have like a billion channels, slight exaggeration. 
in any case sonos should allow a choice. There just feels like something wrong to spend a lot of money on something to have part of it disabled. Part of the cost is to cover the inclusion of that speaker, why am I paying for 12 drivers to only be able to use 10. If this is the case they need to sell a 10 driver model for home theatre use that are cheaper….. is it just me that this would seem logical to?

PSA: For future references, replies, findings etc, use this post:

This is especially punishing on gamers because you no longer can receive precise directional sound from the surround speakers.

For the time being, I have to put the Era 300’s outer speakers close to a wall so it has some clarity to it. Please make an option to turn these speakers on, it would be a shame to have to return these.

ok so basicly, im at the day before getting second era 300 for my bedroom.

Question is - worth to buy and make stereo or not :)? cause o the front channels..

kickass outstanding or regret? I know its Sonos so its not a typical regret :-) I have already beam gen2, sub3 and 2x ones as a living room setup 

I’m still a bit confused as to whether the front channel is working at all for music alone. Has anyone got their 300 set up only as one speaker to play music but can hear the front channel working? I have this exact set up and I still have no sound from the front. I’m tempted to send it back for a refund.

The center channel will never ever fire, regardless of whether you are listening to your TV or music, so long as the 300s are configured as rears. No way to switch that in the app, as silly as this sounds. 

Can someone please help? I’m still learning with Sonos…I have an Arc, gen 3 sub and 2 x Era300s set as surrounds in what I call living room. I am quite happy with the atmos when playing blu ray and up to an extent music. However as the centre driver is effectively ‘disconnected’ in this mode can I create another ‘room”’ (living room 2) to utilise the Era300’s to play stereo music only so it utilises the ‘redundant’ channel and be able to switch between the living room and living room 1? If so how do I go about it? Sorry if it sounds like a stupid question…..maybe this poses a problem with trueplay as you effectively have 2 sets of calibration?

thank you

@Corry P I wanted to follow up with a few more scenarios related to this, because I'm not sure if all of them are features or bugs. I see 3 unexpected behaviours when using the Era 300 as surrounds:

1. ✅ The centre driver is not used. That is understandable if the other drivers are compensating for this.
2. ⚠️ When running these test tones, the left and right rear surround channels are very quiet and muted compared to the rest. This makes me feel like we're missing out on audio coming from those channels. I imagined that on a full 7.1.4 system like this, test tones should sound the sameish on all channels, regardless of which drivers are doing the work.
3. ⚠️ This is the one that seems most like a bug to me: changing the TV Level inside Surround Audio does not change the volume of the left and right rear surround channels. If we break down the channels of 7.1.4:
   • 3 front channels are fixed.
   • 4 top channels can be controlled with Height settings.
   • 2 left and right surround channels can be controlled with Surround settings.
   • 2 left and right rear surround channels cannot be adjusted. Why? This feels unexpected to me, I can't imagine why those channels wouldn't be affected by changing the surround levels.

Hello, 

I’ve just asked the same question under another thread but didn’t quite word it as well. 
I have one Sonos Era 300, set up to play music only. Am I right in thinking the one speaker alone will not produce any sound from the front, but just round the sides?