FEATURE REQUEST: Add option to enable "Center speakers" for the ERA's 300, if they are added as surrounds

“Peter Pee” -- a big Sonos Products Youtube influencer has done a review on the Era 100 and 300’s. 

I left him a message on one of his latest videos. Thought I might share the post here, I’ll report back on his response, if he does:
 

Coming from the Sonos One's as my previous surrounds, I've lost rear directional clarity for Music, movies, and the most affected, gaming.

Sono's tech from their community have openly confirmed that when you connect the Era 300's as surrounds, the front tweeter is disabled.

I have the cash ready for a pair of 300s, but I will leave it in my PayPal account until this is settled. I am pretty happy with my Arc/SubGen3/One SLs system. I certainly have no desire to drop a grand on speakers that will actually degrade the SQ. So I wait.

Error

My One’s which the 300 replaced sound much better in everything but Atmos !! This is not what I expected when I paid $1000 for the upgrade … obviously not using the center channel is causing this … why didn't Sonos tell us this before release? I have the arc ,2 subs and now 2 era 300”s and I'm disappointed !! Might be time to move away from Sonos

My plan was to replace a pair of Ones I had as surrounds for an Arc and Sub with a pair of Era 300s, which arrived last weekend.  After doing some more testing, I think I’ve concluded that I’ll hold on to the Ones for now and pair them as a group with the Arc/Sub/Era 300s when listening to non Atmos music.  It’s not the ideal situation, but it covers all bases for now, and hopefully Sonos will issue a future software update that will make better use of the Era 300’s center speakers when in surround mode.  
 

I’m still amazed that this never came up during any of the product reviews right when the Era 300 came out.  It jumped out at me within 5 seconds of listening to music and I’m not super anal about this stuff.  It was just so obvious that I was worried I had done something wrong in the initial setup. 

I know I already posted but I can’t help but feeling duped by Sonos and YouTube reviewers who never mentioned this before release !!!!! The more I listen the more upset I get … they have to come out with an update to fix this problem !!! 

I agree 100%. No reason to have all speakers working in single and stereo (2) mode, then neuter it in Surround mode.

Funny thing is even during atmos supported media the front tweeter and inside speaker still don't work.

The “tech influencers/youtubers” not mentioning this issue is something, that is the worst about this whole situation in my opinion.

But it at least shows how out of touch with “reality” most if not all of them are. I get it when there is for example not enough time, which could be this case, but i somehow can’t believe, that in 24 to 48 hours folks like u and me pointed out this and some other issues without having the “influence” behind them and yet, they could not do it, just baffling.

Sometimes the common sense and trying the product for yourself is all you need, because these reviewers are what they are.

I will most likely return mine if this doesn’t get an update. Why the heck did I pay $900 to use these as surrounds when I can’t get all drivers for music playback?  
 

This feels like a huge oversight and an extremely lazy engineering choice.  These speakers seem designed to be used as a stereo pair, not surrounds.  Sonos should be up front about this so people don’t keep getting disappointed.  
 

Let’s say hypothetically the surrounds actually do sound best without the front drivers.  Even in that case, did you really think customers wouldn’t complain about this?  There is a negative psychological effect when you pay for something expensive and don’t get full potential functionality out of it.  Seems like whoever designed these should have considered this, really not that hard to predict backlash for this.

Following up on the message above.

If you want trully 7.1 immersion there is definitely a software piece that needs to process all three drivers positionally. 

E.g → Something’s moving from the side to the back - today this is achieved trhrough psychoacoustics with ones, they adapt volume to make you feel “surrounded” and do a great job at that.

Now with the ERA 300s the least I was expecting was some sort of algorithmic processing that for both 5.1 and 7.1 sound sources (most TV shows and most content and games) it would use all three drivers to give a fuller sense of directionality and sound movement.

Sonos, this is the least I’d expect to get the Eras. Ironically I already have the stands and upgraded to an Arc to pair with the 300s, but looks like i’ll be going back to a more basic system (Beam Gen 2) and ones until this is resolved.

Worst part is, how have we not received any sort of commitment from engineering at this point?
I know how tech companies are doing nowadays, I myself work for one. But please, arrange something with your product and engineering team and come up with a future solution so that we can know whether we should make the expense or not.