Sonos Era 300 wall mount positioning

Hi Corry P - thanks for the guidance - I have a similar situation / question. 

I have a Beam Gen2 and two Sonos 1’s as surrounds. I am considering upgrading my surrounds to the ERA 300’s.

My surrounds are currently mounted on the side walls, pointed at the listener on the couch, which sits in the middle of the room. My family room is an ‘open setup’ with no rear wall (the back of it opens up into the kitchen).

Would I be better off mounting the 300’s on the side walls pointing at the couch (the way that my Ones currently are), or would it be better to hang them inverted from the ceiling in the back of the room, facing the front wall that has the TV/Beam?

Thanks for your advice!

Hi,
thank you a lot @Corry P !
Just another question, would it be better to mount them at the same height as the Arc?
Anyway, I’d like to do some tests before drilling the wall even because after this thread I’m a bit scared of the front facing driver (center channel) of the 300s and I hope it’s just a bug that can be solved with a firmware upgrade (Many users have encountered this issue, in my case I still waiting for put the Era on the wall).

@Corry P 
Thank you again.
Well, I’d like to put them at head height but I can’t because of the headrest, so like I said in OP I’ll put them over the armrests of the couch, above the head rest (since you also confirmed it to me), then i’ll try to leave 30cm from speakers to the sofa like in the photo you sent me.
For the centre channel I hope in a future update to be working in surrounds as it works in a stereo pair.

I am the OP the of “ERA's 300 center channel not working if connected as surrounds to ARC/SUB” 

So could u please explain, why marketing materials are stating, that there are 6 drivers, specifically, center, side left, side right, upfiring, and 2 side woofers and yet u are knowingly omitting the center channel in the surround setup? I am kinda really not fan of this fact.

Well thanks for your reply.

Wouldn’t be good to inform users about this decision somewhere in the app after ERAs are added as surrounds? I guess i (and few other users who already noticed this) won’t be the last. I get it when the creator decides what is best for the user, but when user is testing the feature and the feature doesn’t work as it should and user is not informed anywhere how it should work, well then the confusion occurs. 
 

So wouldn’t u consider adding this information somewhere to the ERAs surround setup?

And @Corry P - maybe add some info on the pinned Era 300 Post on this site?

Just so those who are using them in this way, don’t think there is something wrong with their speakers.

@Corry P 

I don’t want to “reach”, but couldn’t there be a toggle to enable the “center driver” for example only for music?

Something like the Surround Audio — Music Playback feature.

So at least in music scenarios, ERAs are not “crippled” in surround setup. Because in “stereo” standalone mode without ARC, they sound much better in my opinion.

Hi @Majo133 

Perhaps - I recommend you start a new topic making this point and it will be marked as a feature request. Thanks!

I understand why someone would want the center channel always in use, whether it’s objectively or subjectively better audio or not, simply to fully use what they paid for.  However,  I’m not exactly crazy about the prospect of development spending a lot of time setting up an alternate mode for these rears where it processes the audio differently, send different audio to different speakers, as well as the impact on trueplay tuning.  It does seem like it would be a good idea to use the front speaker for ‘ful ‘ stereo streaming sources.  I’m of mixed mind on this, but not having heard the speakers yet (arriving today) and intending to use the speakers as a pair rather then surrounds, I suppose I don’t have much of a dog in the fight.

Thanks Corry - appreciate the clarification.

One follow-up question - when inverted orientation is supported, will it be on a ‘per speaker’ basis, or will both speakers in the pair need to be oriented the same way?

In my room, one of the two surrounds is going to need to be mounted up high, but on the other side it will be most easily place on a counter at normal height. Do you know if this will be possible, or if both speakers in the pair will need to be inverted together?

Hi @JackThr1ll3r 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

My room is quite big, my sofa height is 1.10m with headrest included. I was thinking to put the speakers above the armrests of the couch (wall mounts), a little over the ear level (this because of the headrest, I think it will “block” the sound somehow) so from 1.10m up, would that be a good thing to do?

I don’t see why not - sounds good to me (pun intended).

If you can somehow test things before drilling holes in the wall, I would recommend it. Compare locations and decide based on what sounds best to you.

Then it comes the distance from wall to the couch, I can leave up to 1 meter of space. What would you do if you were me? 

I don’t think you’d need a full metre. Again, I recommend trying things out and sticking with what sounds best to your ears (those are the ones that count). The following picture from our product page certainly doesn’t show a metre’s separation:

Remember not to angle the 300s towards the listening position - they should both face the wall the TV is against (as shown) as they are capable of channelling sound in the correct direction themselves.

I hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy your new speakers!

Doesn’t having these speakers setup this way contradict almost every Dolby and Sound calibration guideline?

https://www.dolby.com/siteassets/technologies/dolby-atmos/atmos-installation-guidelines-121318_r3.1.pdf

https://youtu.be/zLxVEHjWrt4

I fail to see how the above position would replicate center/side surrounds in a proper setup and would not want audio bounding on my left/right walls in this manner for left/right surrounds.

Hi @Music Nut 

The current wall mount for Era 300 makes this possible.

Quite possibly. If the speakers are tilted too far, they will stop playing. As support for inverted mounting hasn’t yet been added, the inversion will likely be seen by the speakers as an invalid tilt angle.

Also, TruePlay Tuning for inversion hasn’t yet been coded for.

I hope this helps.