Good afternoon, 

@Corry P 

I have my Era 300's inverted and tuned them with trueplay and they sound great.  I've checked audio to ensure left and right sounds were accurate and it seems correct. 

I also called Sonos customer support and they said they ran diagnostic and could see the trueplay set up ensuring the left is left (even inverted) and right is right.  

One suggestion would be that the Sonos App displays that they're inverted to help the confusion for installs.  

Thanks

Trevor

I recently became interested in the recommended positioning of the Sonos Era 300 speakers, and I must say I'm quite puzzled. Sonos' suggested setup, as documented here. Seems to contradict any recommended layout for Dolby Atmos, which can be found here: https://www.dolby.com/siteassets/technologies/dolby-atmos/atmos-installation-guidelines-121318_r3.1.pdf.

After purchasing a pair of Era 300s, I decided to run some tests and found that the recommended positioning appears to be less about clever engineering and more about a sacrificing choice made by the designers. It seems that the priority was fitting the speakers behind a couch in a small apartment, which led to the decision to place the rear left and right firing speakers furthest from the listener, as seen here: https://imgur.com/KNXFdcY. Unfortunately, this makes the speakers incompatible with certain setups, such as this one: https://imgur.com/Q0p7CxQ, as the speakers output to the reverse positions.

To solve this problem and achieve better sound for cinema, the speakers must be turned around, resulting in an aesthetically unappealing setup, as seen here: https://imgur.com/zydvtz1. It's disappointing that the product's quality has been sacrificed due to this decision. A simple solution would be to enable switching the left and right speaker firings via software. In my opinion, the lack of this feature is borderline moronic.

Hi @tjwilliam07 

I’m not sure what aspect of the inverted configuration is not yet supported by the software, but I am glad to hear you are happy with the results so far! Thanks for sharing.

Edit: In a senseful setup, you would have thought Sonos was aiming for something like this:  https://imgur.com/kQWv40y. Unfortunately, it seems that the outer speakers are performing as their rears in dedicated Atmos test tracks, and the outer speakers are performing as rears. Hence, they are reversed for some crazy reason.  

Edit edit: Well, this is more interesting. Someone in another forum had mentioned re-pairing the surrounds. After going through this, I have new results. The surrounds are now working as expected where the outer channels are the left/right and inner channels are rears making it possible to place against the wall. From this, and other posts I've been reading, it sounds like there's a few bugs that can occur upon pairing leading to undesirable results. The current recommendations are far from ideal in most homes that do not have a couch with a wall/outlets behind/near it and I would highly advise Sonos to look into that further.

Hi @thecodingart 

I’m glad to hear there’s been an improvement for you! Thanks for sharing.

Removing and adding surround speakers has always been a valid troubleshooting step to try when the surround speakers aren’t behaving as expected, but we are of course investigating such reports regarding Eras.

Regarding one of the posts above:

I have my Era 300's inverted and tuned them with trueplay and they sound great.  I've checked audio to ensure left and right sounds were accurate and it seems correct. 

 

I also called Sonos customer support and they said they ran diagnostic and could see the trueplay set up ensuring the left is left (even inverted) and right is right.  

The above seems to imply that True Play has the potential to accidentally swap the left and right firing speakers. A software toggle or some visual indicating the configured layout in the app would be super helpful in identifying these situations and potentially course correcting them, but I would like to know what criteria is used to determine which sides fire rears/surrounds on the Era 300s?

Hi @thecodingart 

I think you’ve misunderstood - though it’s also just as possible that I have misunderstood you. I think one or both of the following points will give you an answer, either way.

It is not a case of the speakers swapping being a left speaker or a right speaker, but that when a speaker is flipped upside-down, the right of the speaker becomes the left of the speaker and vice versa. The speaker being aware of this is down to it’s accelerometers (not TruePlay), so when these tell it that it has been flipped, the software must react and flip it’s concept of which side of that one speaker is which, not which speaker it is in the Home Theatre configuration. It took me a wee while to type this paragraph as clearly and unambiguously as I could, so I can easily see why it was not done in the quoted text, or perhaps not clearly explained to the author during a support phone call.

This whole process is independent of TruePlay, but when TruePlay is performed on a flipped speaker, TruePlay has to be aware of the orientation to compute the changes to be made, and to apply them properly. TruePlay cannot swap the speakers from being left to being right, or vice versa.

I hope this helps.

Just to be clear, and in case anyone reading this missed it when I said it earlier, inverted mounting of Era 300s is not yet supported by the software.

I believe I was misunderstood earlier, but I do believe you answered my question. There are others in Reddit and various other communication channels reporting that the inner/outer speakers were swapped without the Era 300s being inverted, or even performing True Play. From your comments, it sounds like the build in accelerometers are the hardware component that can trigger a swap like that. Hypothetically, if there was a bug or defect in the unit, it would likely be around the accelerometer functionality hardware/software wise or a bug in the initial pairing as surrounds. 

I do believe there should be a visual showing if this “switch” is active or not within the application for debugging and awareness purposes. Especially to point out if an issue is occurring unintentionally. 

Hello to all,

any suggestion on how far from the listener should be the ERa300 positioned having them hanged on the wall just behind the couch?

Hello, sorry for my English, I'm French. Just to warn you that I received the 2x Era 300 when they came out, and I mounted them on the ceiling with the inverted brackets, and it's just too good. The trueplay setting is done, and after several tests of movies in dolby atmos and also with atmos testers I can tell you that it plays super well. I'm delighted. Personally, I would strongly recommend this inverted positioning because the vertical sounds descend directly to the ears and are not attenuated or broken by reflection on the ceiling.

Vous avec une photo de votre installation en place ? Je serai intéressé d’installer une paire en inversé sous plafond. 

 

Merci beaucoup cela me rassure sur ma futur installation. Pouvez-vous me faire un retour d’expérience à l’occasion ? Merci beaucoup

 

Merci beaucoup cela me rassure sur ma futur installation. Pouvez-vous me faire un retour d’expérience à l’occasion ? Merci beaucoup

j’ai déjà fait mon retour dans le précédent message. Ce système monte à l’envers est vraiment très très bon.

les effets sont précis et puissants en atmos,

Testé sur plusieurs films comme MAD MAX , Ready player One, le dernier Batman, Dune et free guy.

faudrait juste que je test aussi sur Bohemian Rhapsody pour essayer un film musical atmos.

je pense que cela peut être super.

 

Merci beaucoup cela me rassure sur ma futur installation. Pouvez-vous me faire un retour d’expérience à l’occasion ? Merci beaucoup

j’ai déjà fait mon retour dans le précédent message. Ce système monte à l’envers est vraiment très très bon.

les effets sont précis et puissants en atmos,

Testé sur plusieurs films comme MAD MAX , Ready player One, le dernier Batman, Dune et free guy.

 

faudrait juste que je test aussi sur Bohemian Rhapsody pour essayer un film musical atmos.

je pense que cela peut être super.

Parfait merci à toi très interessant comme installation. N’hésite pas à faire un retour après un bon Bohemian Rhapsody

 

Bonjour,

a quelle distance duplafond l’avez vous monter?

Et les cables, comment les avez vous chachè?

Merci

Bonsoir,

j’ai monté mes Era à 25 cm du plafond.

mes câbles sont cachés à l’arrière des enceintes, enroulés autour des pieds muraux.

et les prises électriques sont elle aussi caché juste derrière les pieds muraux en hauteur.

Hi,

I have mount my Era at 25 centimetres than the ceiling.

And my cables are hide arround the mount system and I have one wall plug in the same place than the mount system.

Merci….ah la chance d’avoir 2 prises en hauteur!!!

I must admit that positioning the ERA300 up side down gives more the sensation of being the “audio” form the upper drivers directly to the listener while in “normal” position the sound goes to the ceiling (few meters far ) and bouces back to the listener….so in this case the sound must , per instance, move trough 2 m + 2 m before reaching the listener...and so getting “lost”.

In the up side down positionning the sound reaches the listener just from a distance of 2 meters…

Correct?

Yes, this is what I think.

the sound is more direct and the vertical effects better also.

And what about positioning them not up side down bit a mid height of the wall.....so the sound still bounces on the ceiling but at less distance than just at ear level...?

Yes what about it,

- is mid height bib inverted than high heigh inverted?

- if inverted how doe you know if you need to swap the speakers? Is it still surround or atmos

Hi @Corry P ,

a question for you, I have my 2x Era 300 (surround) hanging on the wall upside down and since the last update of the sonos application, I have always had a message asking me to straighten them. something I don't want. could you do something, update the application, so that the inverted mode is finally taken into account, or at least that the application does not force the normal direction on us. THANKS.

Hi @Chuck XM 

Thanks for reporting.

So we can be sure of several things, could you please take the trouble to submit a support diagnostic and reply here with the number given, and please include in your reply a screenshot of the message you see in the app and a photo of your Era 300s in-situ? I’ll be happy to take a look at the situation for you. Thank you!

hi Corry, ok thank you, I will send you all information when I come back at home after my summer holiday week.

have a Nice day.