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Sonos Era 300 placement in surround set specifically for my room

  • 8 December 2023
  • 13 replies
  • 4874 views

Hi there community. So recently I bought the arc, sub mini and two era 300 speakers. I was wondering about the following two:

 

-Did I place the era 300s in the best way possible for my room? They are facing forward and not in an angle towards the seating position which is in the middle of the couch. Not sure if I should turn them inwards towards the seating area.


-When I sit in the middle of the couch, often I realize that the right speaker is somehow louder than the left one. Support did analyse a diagnostics report but couldn’t find anything. My theory is that it’s because it’s next to the window, sounds bounces back. Trueplay tuning on/off doesn’t matter. I have the surround sound in the app set to 8. Any tips for this?

 

The speakers are far enough from the wall behind and also the sides have enough room according to what is advised in the manual, so that’s not it :)

 

 

-any tips for wall mounting is also welcome :)

 

Check out the pics of my room :)

13 replies

Ken_Griffiths

Because the Era 300’s send the TV surround audio out via their outer-side drivers, I can see why the audio reflecting back off the window might cause you to perceive the audio as being louder on the right rear channel … this is one reason why I would like to see the ability to balance the audio manually, but some say that Trueplay tuning should resolve these things. I’m not sure that it does in some listening environments. I will personally continue to campaign for a Sonos HT ‘balance’ option. 

Anyhow it’s a nice room and Home Theatre setup, but maybe the reflective surfaces are your issue. My thoughts would be to use wall mounts, or floor stands perhaps, but because of the Window and no option to switch the Era’s to use the front facing drivers, or to balance the surrounds, my thoughts are you might get better results here with Era 100’s or Sonos One/SL’s instead (angled towards the sweet-spot) and they may hopefully improve things for that environment and be easier to wall mount too. Then use the Era 300’s either as a front stereo pair for music and a wider front soundstage or maybe use them elsewhere in the Home.

G
Userlevel 5
Badge +8

Following instructions on Peter Pee’s YouTube video on era 300 speaker placement worked out well for me.

Ken_Griffiths

Here’s the link to that… FYI

 

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

So if anyone reads this post with the same question… I finally figured it out and I have amazing Dolby atmos sound! So basically the era 300’s are still facing the wall of the tv, not turned inwards. Only difference now is that I placed them a little higher and on stands, directly next to the couch. The era 300’s are on ear level now. What I realized is that true play tuning doesn’t do good for the Dolby effect in this setting!! I tried tuning several times, also according to the instructions of Peter pee on YouTube. Seems like true play tuning works really nice for music, but not for movies. That’s why I also want to see a feature soon from Sonos to separate these things in the app!! What’s also weird, is that the Dolby works much better when I select +3 meters for the surrounds, when they are actually not. When I select 0,6 to 3 meters, I realized that the atmos effect is much less. 
 

to clarify, I was able to test all the sounds on my Xbox with the Dolby app, the official Dolby atmos test videos. Now I can finally say I’m overwhelmed by the effects. 
 

So here are my settings for this type of room and according to my personal taste. 
 

trueplay off! (At least for movies)

EQ base and treble set to 6

loudness on

Audio surround speakers: for tv +6 for music +3

music range : full (I guess it’s like this in English, I use the Dutch version off the app)

Distance to speakers: more than 3 meters

audio sub: just do your personal taste 

Heights audio: +8


hope this works for others as well. Now I can clearly hear thunder sounds in the Dolby test video over my head and the ball that’s goes around, I can clearly hear passing behind my head as well (Dolby natures fury test video).Last night I watched the horror movie: smile on Netflix, I was blown away by the atmos effect. The moment when u indeed get a smile on your face… 

G
Userlevel 5
Badge +8

So if anyone reads this post with the same question… I finally figured it out and I have amazing Dolby atmos sound! So basically the era 300’s are still facing the wall of the tv, not turned inwards. Only difference now is that I placed them a little higher and on stands, directly next to the couch. The era 300’s are on ear level now. What I realized is that true play tuning doesn’t do good for the Dolby effect in this setting!! I tried tuning several times, also according to the instructions of Peter pee on YouTube. Seems like true play tuning works really nice for music, but not for movies. That’s why I also want to see a feature soon from Sonos to separate these things in the app!! What’s also weird, is that the Dolby works much better when I select +3 meters for the surrounds, when they are actually not. When I select 0,6 to 3 meters, I realized that the atmos effect is much less. 
 

to clarify, I was able to test all the sounds on my Xbox with the Dolby app, the official Dolby atmos test videos. Now I can finally say I’m overwhelmed by the effects. 
 

So here are my settings for this type of room and according to my personal taste. 
 

trueplay off! (At least for movies)

EQ base and treble set to 6

loudness on

Audio surround speakers: for tv +6 for music +3

music range : full (I guess it’s like this in English, I use the Dutch version off the app)

Distance to speakers: more than 3 meters

audio sub: just do your personal taste 

Heights audio: +8


hope this works for others as well. Now I can clearly hear thunder sounds in the Dolby test video over my head. Last night I watched the horror movie: smile on Netflix, I was blown away by the atmos effect. The moment when u indeed get a smile on your face… 

Not that surprising a slight tilt makes no difference given the surrounds are 10 feet away

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

So if anyone reads this post with the same question… I finally figured it out and I have amazing Dolby atmos sound! So basically the era 300’s are still facing the wall of the tv, not turned inwards. Only difference now is that I placed them a little higher and on stands, directly next to the couch. The era 300’s are on ear level now. What I realized is that true play tuning doesn’t do good for the Dolby effect in this setting!! I tried tuning several times, also according to the instructions of Peter pee on YouTube. Seems like true play tuning works really nice for music, but not for movies. That’s why I also want to see a feature soon from Sonos to separate these things in the app!! What’s also weird, is that the Dolby works much better when I select +3 meters for the surrounds, when they are actually not. When I select 0,6 to 3 meters, I realized that the atmos effect is much less. 
 

to clarify, I was able to test all the sounds on my Xbox with the Dolby app, the official Dolby atmos test videos. Now I can finally say I’m overwhelmed by the effects. 
 

So here are my settings for this type of room and according to my personal taste. 
 

trueplay off! (At least for movies)

EQ base and treble set to 6

loudness on

Audio surround speakers: for tv +6 for music +3

music range : full (I guess it’s like this in English, I use the Dutch version off the app)

Distance to speakers: more than 3 meters

audio sub: just do your personal taste 

Heights audio: +8


hope this works for others as well. Now I can clearly hear thunder sounds in the Dolby test video over my head. Last night I watched the horror movie: smile on Netflix, I was blown away by the atmos effect. The moment when u indeed get a smile on your face… 

Not that surprising a slight tilt makes no difference given the surrounds are 10 feet away

What do u mean? What tilt? I didn’t tilt anything. Only changing the settings on the app made the difference, that was my point. :)

G
Userlevel 5
Badge +8

Just meant “not seeing a difference from not applying Peter Pee’s suggested small tilt is understandable especially if your speakers are significantly distant "

J

So if anyone reads this post with the same question… I finally figured it out and I have amazing Dolby atmos sound! So basically the era 300’s are still facing the wall of the tv, not turned inwards. Only difference now is that I placed them a little higher and on stands, directly next to the couch. The era 300’s are on ear level now. What I realized is that true play tuning doesn’t do good for the Dolby effect in this setting!! I tried tuning several times, also according to the instructions of Peter pee on YouTube. Seems like true play tuning works really nice for music, but not for movies. That’s why I also want to see a feature soon from Sonos to separate these things in the app!! What’s also weird, is that the Dolby works much better when I select +3 meters for the surrounds, when they are actually not. When I select 0,6 to 3 meters, I realized that the atmos effect is much less. 
 

to clarify, I was able to test all the sounds on my Xbox with the Dolby app, the official Dolby atmos test videos. Now I can finally say I’m overwhelmed by the effects. 
 

So here are my settings for this type of room and according to my personal taste. 
 

trueplay off! (At least for movies)

EQ base and treble set to 6

loudness on

Audio surround speakers: for tv +6 for music +3

music range : full (I guess it’s like this in English, I use the Dutch version off the app)

Distance to speakers: more than 3 meters

audio sub: just do your personal taste 

Heights audio: +8


hope this works for others as well. Now I can clearly hear thunder sounds in the Dolby test video over my head and the ball that’s goes around, I can clearly hear passing behind my head as well (Dolby natures fury test video).Last night I watched the horror movie: smile on Netflix, I was blown away by the atmos effect. The moment when u indeed get a smile on your face… 

Really nice setup! I’m receiving my Era 300s in a couple of days and cannot wait. My living room has a very similar room shape, with a big window on one side and an open space to the other one. You ended up placing the rears in stands and next to the sofa instead of behind?

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

So if anyone reads this post with the same question… I finally figured it out and I have amazing Dolby atmos sound! So basically the era 300’s are still facing the wall of the tv, not turned inwards. Only difference now is that I placed them a little higher and on stands, directly next to the couch. The era 300’s are on ear level now. What I realized is that true play tuning doesn’t do good for the Dolby effect in this setting!! I tried tuning several times, also according to the instructions of Peter pee on YouTube. Seems like true play tuning works really nice for music, but not for movies. That’s why I also want to see a feature soon from Sonos to separate these things in the app!! What’s also weird, is that the Dolby works much better when I select +3 meters for the surrounds, when they are actually not. When I select 0,6 to 3 meters, I realized that the atmos effect is much less. 
 

to clarify, I was able to test all the sounds on my Xbox with the Dolby app, the official Dolby atmos test videos. Now I can finally say I’m overwhelmed by the effects. 
 

So here are my settings for this type of room and according to my personal taste. 
 

trueplay off! (At least for movies)

EQ base and treble set to 6

loudness on

Audio surround speakers: for tv +6 for music +3

music range : full (I guess it’s like this in English, I use the Dutch version off the app)

Distance to speakers: more than 3 meters

audio sub: just do your personal taste 

Heights audio: +8


hope this works for others as well. Now I can clearly hear thunder sounds in the Dolby test video over my head and the ball that’s goes around, I can clearly hear passing behind my head as well (Dolby natures fury test video).Last night I watched the horror movie: smile on Netflix, I was blown away by the atmos effect. The moment when u indeed get a smile on your face… 

Really nice setup! I’m receiving my Era 300s in a couple of days and cannot wait. My living room has a very similar room shape, with a big window on one side and an open space to the other one. You ended up placing the rears in stands and next to the sofa instead of behind?

Hi! They are actually place kinda similar, only difference is that they are now on the stands next to the couch. Distance to the wall back is about 2 to 3 cm. True play does not work for my room, I find the Dolby atmos experience worsening with true play. For music it’s nice tho. I would advise to use the soro app so you can preset settings for different kind of situations, like live tv, movies and music. It’s a pity the Sonos app doesn’t allow this by default but the Soro app works amazing. :)

R

Following instructions on Peter Pee’s YouTube video on era 300 speaker placement worked out well for me.

That’s great to hear! Peter Pee’s tips on speaker placement must be spot-on. Did you notice any significant improvements in your audio experience with the Era 300?

B
Userlevel 1
Badge

So if anyone reads this post with the same question… I finally figured it out and I have amazing Dolby atmos sound! So basically the era 300’s are still facing the wall of the tv, not turned inwards. Only difference now is that I placed them a little higher and on stands, directly next to the couch. The era 300’s are on ear level now. What I realized is that true play tuning doesn’t do good for the Dolby effect in this setting!! I tried tuning several times, also according to the instructions of Peter pee on YouTube. Seems like true play tuning works really nice for music, but not for movies. That’s why I also want to see a feature soon from Sonos to separate these things in the app!! What’s also weird, is that the Dolby works much better when I select +3 meters for the surrounds, when they are actually not. When I select 0,6 to 3 meters, I realized that the atmos effect is much less. 
 

to clarify, I was able to test all the sounds on my Xbox with the Dolby app, the official Dolby atmos test videos. Now I can finally say I’m overwhelmed by the effects. 
 

So here are my settings for this type of room and according to my personal taste. 
 

trueplay off! (At least for movies)

EQ base and treble set to 6

loudness on

Audio surround speakers: for tv +6 for music +3

music range : full (I guess it’s like this in English, I use the Dutch version off the app)

Distance to speakers: more than 3 meters

audio sub: just do your personal taste 

Heights audio: +8


hope this works for others as well. Now I can clearly hear thunder sounds in the Dolby test video over my head and the ball that’s goes around, I can clearly hear passing behind my head as well (Dolby natures fury test video).Last night I watched the horror movie: smile on Netflix, I was blown away by the atmos effect. The moment when u indeed get a smile on your face… 

Really nice setup! I’m receiving my Era 300s in a couple of days and cannot wait. My living room has a very similar room shape, with a big window on one side and an open space to the other one. You ended up placing the rears in stands and next to the sofa instead of behind?

 

M
Userlevel 1
Badge +2

So if anyone reads this post with the same question… I finally figured it out and I have amazing Dolby atmos sound! So basically the era 300’s are still facing the wall of the tv, not turned inwards. Only difference now is that I placed them a little higher and on stands, directly next to the couch. The era 300’s are on ear level now. What I realized is that true play tuning doesn’t do good for the Dolby effect in this setting!! I tried tuning several times, also according to the instructions of Peter pee on YouTube. Seems like true play tuning works really nice for music, but not for movies. That’s why I also want to see a feature soon from Sonos to separate these things in the app!! What’s also weird, is that the Dolby works much better when I select +3 meters for the surrounds, when they are actually not. When I select 0,6 to 3 meters, I realized that the atmos effect is much less. 
 

to clarify, I was able to test all the sounds on my Xbox with the Dolby app, the official Dolby atmos test videos. Now I can finally say I’m overwhelmed by the effects. 
 

So here are my settings for this type of room and according to my personal taste. 
 

trueplay off! (At least for movies)

EQ base and treble set to 6

loudness on

Audio surround speakers: for tv +6 for music +3

music range : full (I guess it’s like this in English, I use the Dutch version off the app)

Distance to speakers: more than 3 meters

audio sub: just do your personal taste 

Heights audio: +8


hope this works for others as well. Now I can clearly hear thunder sounds in the Dolby test video over my head and the ball that’s goes around, I can clearly hear passing behind my head as well (Dolby natures fury test video).Last night I watched the horror movie: smile on Netflix, I was blown away by the atmos effect. The moment when u indeed get a smile on your face… 

Really nice setup! I’m receiving my Era 300s in a couple of days and cannot wait. My living room has a very similar room shape, with a big window on one side and an open space to the other one. You ended up placing the rears in stands and next to the sofa instead of behind?

Yes I did. They are on ear level now. I advise to use the Soro app! You can set different settings for stereo, 5.1 and Dolby, since Dolby has a little latency and lip sync issues, you can add +3 for syncing with tv audio, it’s amazing. You may find that when you use as a speaker distance +3 meters for both, the right speaker might be dominant since the sound bounces from the window and the left speaker sound doesn’t. So I watch stereo now with left speaker +3 meters and right speaker 0.6 to 3. That balances out the sound better, but for Dolby movies you shouldn’t since item placement with Dolby atmos will be wrong. Feel free to ask anything!

 

R

Because the Era 300’s send the TV surround audio out via their outer-side drivers, I can see why the audio reflecting back off the window might cause you to perceive the audio as being louder on the right rear channel … this is one reason why I would like to see the ability to balance the audio manually, but some say that Trueplay tuning should resolve these things. I’m not sure that it does in some listening environments. I will personally continue to campaign for a Sonos HT ‘balance’ option. 

Anyhow it’s a nice room and Home Theatre setup, but maybe the reflective surfaces are your issue. My thoughts would be to use wall mounts, or floor stands perhaps, but because of the Window and no option to switch the Era’s to use the front facing drivers, or to balance the surrounds, my thoughts are you might get better results here with Era 100’s or Sonos One/SL’s instead (angled towards the sweet-spot) and they may hopefully improve things for that environment and be easier to wall mount too. Then use the Era 300’s either as a front stereo pair for music and a wider front soundstage or maybe use them elsewhere in the Home.

For optimal placement of your Sonos Era 300 speakers in a health-focused room, position them at ear level and ensure they're placed behind or beside the main seating area to create balanced surround sound. Consider the room's size and shape to adjust speaker distance for even sound coverage, and use calibration tools to fine-tune audio settings. Aim for a setup that enhances relaxation or motivation, depending on the room's health-related activities.

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