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Sonos Era 100 (stereo pair): low bass performance and stereo unreliable

  • November 29, 2024
  • 3 replies
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  • breiti
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Hi,

i replaced two Sonos One SL (stereo) in my Kitchen with two Sonos Era 100 (stereo) and boy do i regret it.

  1. The Era 100 has really weak bass. I have to turn Bass +10 to get moderately good sounding bass. If i turn it to 0, the speaker sounds like a very cheap bluetooth speaker from 8 years ago and bass is so low, that you actually miss certain parts of the music.
  2. Since i have them, the left speaker in my stereo pair frequently outputs no audio for a couple of seconds. This is really annoying.

Sonos One SLs were way more reliable and sounded better.

 

What i already tried:

  • Power cycled wifi router and both speakers mutliple times
  • Bought an access point (AVM Fritz!Repeater 3000) which i put 5cm away from the Sonos Era 100. The speaker still randomly looses audio.

I’m honestly pretty frustrated, the upgrade of the speakers were suppose to sound better, but it is a massive downgrade in both sound quality and reliability.

 

Are there any known issues reg. firmware or something?

Best answer by breiti

Jamie A wrote:

Hi ​@breiti, 

Hi Jamie, thanks for answering!

I think i fixed the connectivity issue by

  • A placing my router out of a drawer (with other devices in it) into a more open space
    • This increased the SNR from 39-45 to about 50
  • Upgrading my router from AVM FRITZ!Box 7590 AX → AVM FRITZ!Box 7690
    • only after i did this they reliable stayed connected to 5GHz which i kinda wanted because Microwave etc. are using 2,4GHz spectrum.

I’m still awaiting delivery of my Sub 4 which (unfortunately) because of the repositioning will be very close to the WiFi router (and will be right next to it), so this has a change to worsen the setup again.

I read that wiring the Sub is not recommended, because this would create a SonosNet (which i don’t want) and that the Arc Ultra (which it will be paired with) does not send data directly to the sub but would have to go via the router which can lead to other issues (as the Era 300 Surrounds are directly connected to the Arc Ultra). And Disabling WiFi on the Sub would mean that it can not join the Arc Ultras internal WiFi, meaning i would have to hardwire the Arc Ultra and the Surrounds as well (not an option).

So in case i need to reposition the wifi router again (as it’s wall mounted i hope i don’t have to), how can i best judge the impact the (new) position of the router has to the WiFi?

So far i did the following:

  • Checked SNR value in the Sonos App
    • This seem to change based on if the speaker is actively playing vs. just idling (i guess the wifi radios of the router and Era 100s decrease power if no work is being done
    • This is a bit tedious because it’s hard to see when SNR value in the app was updated (if at all). Would be nice if the app could show something like (Information of 04.12.2024 17:49:10 or sth like “Last refresh: 14s ago). Maybe even with a way to manually refresh the values
  • Went to the <ip>:1400/support/review page and checked the ratio on which RX and Dropped packets increased (so seem to be less than 10%)
    • again this would be nice if this could be shown in the app or something.

Do you have any additional tipps that make judging the WiFi quality easier?

 

Reg. the low-bass issue: i think i kinda got a bit used to it. I have it on +6 now which seems to be “ok” - however, it’s still not as punchy as i like, but as they still are like that in a stereo pair, i guess i have to live with it or add a Sub Mini to the mix.

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3 replies

Jamie A
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  • Jamie A
  • Sonos Staff
  • 1259 replies
  • December 2, 2024

Hi ​@breiti, 

I’m sorry to hear that you’re having issues with your Era 100. To answer your last question first, there aren’t any known issues with the Era 100 that relate to what you’re experiencing.

Having the Era 100s bass set to 10 to get ‘moderately good’ bass doesn’t sound right. The Era 100 has a larger woofer than the One/One SL which (in theory) means more bass. It could be possible that the woofer is damaged, but if both Era 100s in the stereo pair have weak bass then it’s likely something else. I’d first recommend moving the Era 100s to another location to temporarily test them in a different setting and, if you have the option, setup and enable Trueplay.

Regarding the access point, you’re got it far to close to the speaker which can cause more interference instead of reducing it. Our general guidelines suggest you keep Sonos at least 18” (0.5m) away from any other electronic devices, so I’d suggest moving the access point further away. You’ll also want to make sure your speakers aren’t near any other devices that can cause interference which we’ve listed on our support article for wireless interference. Kitchens are notorious for having devices that can cause wireless interference or block Wi-Fi signals, such as microwaves, induction hobs, even refrigerators can block signals. Wiring the speaker can help in preventing interference, but you’d need the Sonos Combo Adaptor to connect the Era 100 via Ethernet.

If you’ve done the above and you’re still having issues, try and separate the stereo pair to test both the connectivity and the bass of the speakers, you can re-pair them again later. Stereo pairs have to work together, so if one speaker is having issues then both may show symptoms. This test can help see if it’s just one speaker or if the issue goes away after you un-pair and re-pair.

If the issue persists, then I’d suggest contacting our support team for further troubleshooting support as they have the necessary tools available to help you resolve this issue.

I hope this helps!

Airgetlam
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    breiti
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  • breiti
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  • 12 replies
  • Answer
  • December 4, 2024
Jamie A wrote:

Hi ​@breiti, 

Hi Jamie, thanks for answering!

I think i fixed the connectivity issue by

  • A placing my router out of a drawer (with other devices in it) into a more open space
    • This increased the SNR from 39-45 to about 50
  • Upgrading my router from AVM FRITZ!Box 7590 AX → AVM FRITZ!Box 7690
    • only after i did this they reliable stayed connected to 5GHz which i kinda wanted because Microwave etc. are using 2,4GHz spectrum.

I’m still awaiting delivery of my Sub 4 which (unfortunately) because of the repositioning will be very close to the WiFi router (and will be right next to it), so this has a change to worsen the setup again.

I read that wiring the Sub is not recommended, because this would create a SonosNet (which i don’t want) and that the Arc Ultra (which it will be paired with) does not send data directly to the sub but would have to go via the router which can lead to other issues (as the Era 300 Surrounds are directly connected to the Arc Ultra). And Disabling WiFi on the Sub would mean that it can not join the Arc Ultras internal WiFi, meaning i would have to hardwire the Arc Ultra and the Surrounds as well (not an option).

So in case i need to reposition the wifi router again (as it’s wall mounted i hope i don’t have to), how can i best judge the impact the (new) position of the router has to the WiFi?

So far i did the following:

  • Checked SNR value in the Sonos App
    • This seem to change based on if the speaker is actively playing vs. just idling (i guess the wifi radios of the router and Era 100s decrease power if no work is being done
    • This is a bit tedious because it’s hard to see when SNR value in the app was updated (if at all). Would be nice if the app could show something like (Information of 04.12.2024 17:49:10 or sth like “Last refresh: 14s ago). Maybe even with a way to manually refresh the values
  • Went to the <ip>:1400/support/review page and checked the ratio on which RX and Dropped packets increased (so seem to be less than 10%)
    • again this would be nice if this could be shown in the app or something.

Do you have any additional tipps that make judging the WiFi quality easier?

 

Reg. the low-bass issue: i think i kinda got a bit used to it. I have it on +6 now which seems to be “ok” - however, it’s still not as punchy as i like, but as they still are like that in a stereo pair, i guess i have to live with it or add a Sub Mini to the mix.

Jamie A
1 person likes this
  • Jamie A
    Jamie A
Jamie A
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  • Jamie A
  • Sonos Staff
  • 1259 replies
  • December 5, 2024

Hi ​@breiti, 

I’ve had a look into our internal information and there’s no settings I see that you should have enabled or disabled for the Fritzbox, so I don’t really have any additional tips for you. I honestly think that just moving the Fritzbox away from your other devices helped with your connection issues immensely, so you likely don’t have to do anything else if the system is playing fine now. I do agree that it would be nice to have more detailed network information inside of the Sonos app, but I can see why it isn’t in there.

Since your Fritzbox is wall mounted (if I read that correctly) then the Sub should hopefully be far enough away for it to not matter being near the device, and yes, you wouldn’t want to have the Sub 4 be the only wired device. I’d suggest testing it for now, and if you do run into any issues with the Sub 4, then you can always reach back out for further assistance. 

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