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Mike H
Retired Sonos Staff
March 7, 2023

Introducing Era 300

Related content:Hardware
Introducing Era 300

Hi all,

Today we introduce Era 300: an unmatched spatial audio experience with Dolby Atmos for listeners and creators alike.

Era 300

Unprecedented for a single compact speaker, Era 300 boasts six powerful drivers that direct sound left, right, forward and upward, delivering a breakthrough audio performance featuring Dolby Atmos that places listeners at the very heart of their movies and music.

  • Designed for spatial: Era 300 wraps its beautifully complex acoustic architecture in an elegantly cinched hourglass design, with every angle, proportion and perforation enhancing the direction and dispersion of sound to truly surround you.

  • Surreal surround sound: Era 300 is the brand’s first speaker that delivers multi-channel surround sound when used as home theater rears. Movie fans can pair two speakers with Arc or Beam (Gen 2) to create a supercharged Dolby Atmos experience that draws them deeper into the action.

  • Deep music industry collaboration: Sonos worked closely with its community of leading artists and creators - including Sonos Soundboard members - to meticulously fine-tune Era 300 so listeners can enjoy sound straight from the studio that’s true to the artist’s intent. 

Era 300 from the back

 

Premium, responsible design that keeps everyone in mind

Building on Sonos’s timeless acoustic-driven design aesthetic, Era 100 and Era 300 are responsive to the challenges facing our environment—and better for everyone who interacts with our designs, featuring a bold new UI and innovations that will help them last longer, use less energy and make use of recycled materials in each product. 

  • More sustainable sound: Era 100 and Era 300 are made with post consumer recycled (PCR) plastic and packaged in 100% sustainably sourced paper, while also engineered to reduce power consumption with under two watts idle power consumption and a new advanced sleep function.

  • Built to last: Designed to live in your home for years, both speakers are built for serviceability by reducing the use of adhesives and transitioning to screws for easy disassembly and repair.

  • Bold, new UI: Era 100 and Era 300 feature an intuitive new user interface, including a new capacitive volume slider for simple control that complements quick and private control of your music with Sonos Voice Control, the Sonos app, Apple AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth®.

  • Upgraded connectivity: Stream all the audio you care about using WiFi or Bluetooth, and directly connect other audio devices such as a turntable using an auxiliary cable and the Sonos Line-In Adapter.

  • Expanding Trueplay to more listeners: Using the microphone array in Era 100 and Era 300, Trueplay optimizes the sound for the unique acoustics of your space with just a tap in the Sonos app. Available to both Android and iOS users.

Era 300 will be available for pre-order on sonos.com today, and globally starting March 28 2023 for $449USD, £449, €499 and $749 AUS. For more information, please visit Sonos.com

Read the full press release for Era 100 and Era 300 here.

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122 replies

Mr. T
March 8, 2023

So if you have two Era 300’s paired with a sub for a really nice Atmos listening experience and you are streaming the same music to other non spatial audio enabled Sonos zones at the same time does the signal just revert to stereo for the zones that can’t handle it? 

Exactly, yes.

Really? So Dolby Atmos continues to play on the Era 300s?

Avid Contributor I
March 8, 2023

Given that the Era 100 and 300 have USB-C ports (which are digital), wouldn’t it be possible to connect these speakers to a TV ARC port using a HDMI-USB-C cable?  The Sonos 5s only had an AUX line in which is never ideal because of audio lag.

The lag isn’t entirely cause by limitations of the 3.5mm analog jack requiring conversion to digital, but also the requirement for a buffer to be created to keep the multi-room audio synchronised. I presume that hasn’t changed.

so there are 2 steps for the 5s.  But a sound bar has the one step (as what would be the case in the set up I described) - if you classify the speaker pair as “TV” then it should function the same as the sound bar does then.  Should be a straight forward software tweak, surely.  

Corry P
Sonos Staff
March 8, 2023

Given that the Era 100 and 300 have USB-C ports (which are digital), wouldn’t it be possible to connect these speakers to a TV ARC port using a HDMI-USB-C cable?  The Sonos 5s only had an AUX line in which is never ideal because of audio lag. 

The USB ports on Era models cannot be used as digital inputs at present.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Corry P
Sonos Staff
March 8, 2023

So if you have two Era 300’s paired with a sub for a really nice Atmos listening experience and you are streaming the same music to other non spatial audio enabled Sonos zones at the same time does the signal just revert to stereo for the zones that can’t handle it? 

The entire group would revert to stereo playback.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
Corry P
Sonos Staff
March 8, 2023

So if you have two Era 300’s paired with a sub for a really nice Atmos listening experience and you are streaming the same music to other non spatial audio enabled Sonos zones at the same time does the signal just revert to stereo for the zones that can’t handle it? 

Exactly, yes.

Really? So Dolby Atmos continues to play on the Era 300s?

Apologies - I had to seek confirmation on this and there was a misunderstanding.

Playback would continue in stereo for the entire group, including the Era 300s.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
March 8, 2023

If a line in source needs the Sonos adapter, what does the on body USB socket do on its own with no adapter?

melvimbe
March 8, 2023

Given that the Era 100 and 300 have USB-C ports (which are digital), wouldn’t it be possible to connect these speakers to a TV ARC port using a HDMI-USB-C cable?  The Sonos 5s only had an AUX line in which is never ideal because of audio lag.

The lag isn’t entirely cause by limitations of the 3.5mm analog jack requiring conversion to digital, but also the requirement for a buffer to be created to keep the multi-room audio synchronised. I presume that hasn’t changed.

@Corry P, can you confirm this?  When the USB-C is used for aux input, will it have the standard 75 ms delay that other aux input (Port, Amp, Five) currently have? 

What is the delay for bluetooth input?

Danny
Corry P
Sonos Staff
March 8, 2023

If a line in source needs the Sonos adapter, what does the on body USB socket do on its own with no adapter?

Without a dongle/adaptor, the USB-C socket doesn’t do anything, presently. 

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
melvimbe
March 8, 2023

If a line in source needs the Sonos adapter, what does the on body USB socket do on its own with no adapter?

 

It it appears the answer is...nothing.  I can see why people would be annoyed by this, but for me personally, I’m perfectly fine with this.  I won’t be using a line in or ethernet port, so in a way, I’m not paying for something I’m not using.  The same goes for anyone who intends to use the Era 300 as rear surround speakers, since you can’t use the line in and no need to use an ethernet port. 

You could argue that you therefore aren’t paying for what you’re not using, and it’s wasteful to have ports that many are not going to use.  You could also argue that Sonos is just forcing you to buy more stuff and that dongles are wasteful.  Eh.  Just take it for what it is.

 

Danny
March 8, 2023

Without a dongle/adaptor, the USB-C socket doesn’t do anything, presently. 

Ok, so what the adaptor does is replace the bulkier and more expensive Port/Connect; still a very useful feature, especially for the more budget friendly 100.