Replacing Sonos One surrounds with Era 100 setup question

Just remove the One speakers then add the 100s.  Run Trueplay when you’re done.

Do you expect a big advantage in using Era 100’s?

I did a Play 1 to Era-100 swap a while back. Not a lot of difference as 5.1 TV surrounds or in ambient music mode, seemed a bit better in full mode music. Didn't test with an Atmos source though.

I found adding the Eras, with useful temporary Room names and giving the old surrounds useful names once removed reduced my confusion level. Not essential, just handy.

I saw someone on reddit recently claim that switching from Sonos One’s to Era 100s made a huge difference.  However, I don’t know that you can really make a good comparison between the 2 setups unless you ensure all the configs are identical, trueplay turned off, and source identical.   It’s entirely possible that the users previous trueplay tuning just wasn’t that good (ad the new one is significantly more to your liking. While the Era 100 does have the additional tweeter, I don’t think surround setups take advantage of that in any way.

I really should have done an A/B/C test between the Play 1, One SL and Era-100 when I had them all, but my ears just aren't good enough to report reliable testing results.

I replaced OneSLs with Era 100s and didn’t notice a big difference. But then, my ears are probably as reliable as Stanley_4’s. :)

I can’t argue the point with any certainty as I no longer have  a Sonos One. That said the angled Tweeters in the Era 100 may offer a slight improvement even in surround mode. Top pic is Era 100.

They definitely sounded better. Just not a “big” difference as surrounds. Didn’t listen to them otherwise.

If you listen to any Dolby Atmos music save your bucks and get the ERA 300 pair.

The Era-300s are great but only if you can position them close to properly, my 100s sound better than the 300s in the locations I had to put them.

Interesting.

​@Stanley_4 has posted pictures of where his Era 300’s are/were mounted which would definitely give the edge to the Era 100’s. Although in his defense I think he mentioned as it being a need to keep peace 😂

Ahhhh.  My wonderful wife puts up with the 300s on stands 7-8 feet behind me.  I also took over the dining room with a KEF LS 50WII system.  I think secretly she likes the sound.

Now I want to see ​@Stanley_4’s pic. 

Era 300s are getting multiple ‘channels’ of audio for dolby atoms, where as any other speaker used as surrounds only gets a single audio channel.  So it definitely has the advantage there.

To be clear, when I say a speaker in single audio channel, I mean that each tweeter is playing the same audio, even though there are multiple tweeters.  Same if there are multiple woofers.

Where I wanted the 300s to go wasn't spousally approved, she didn't like them there and had other plans for the space. We briefly discussed wall mounting, actually acceptable sonically, but a brief "hold them up there" got another hard no. Not unreasonable as the Play 1s on my original Arc sounded reasonably good and her "why not similar speakers in the same space" had merit. Swapping for 100s that were intended for another room was a win-win for both spaces.

I listen to the kitchen 300s a lot more than I do my Arc Ultra and 100s and given the ever increasing number of Atmos tracks and the decrease in movies I watch I'm not unnhappy.

Big L shaped room with tne tv at the center of the L and seating in the corner.

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Got my Sonos Era 100s today and the sound’s definitely better. It really stands out when playing music in Full mode, you get a much wider, more blended sound that fits way better with the Arc Ultra.

Haven’t had the chance to test anything else yet. I’ll try to watch a movie later and let you know how it goes.