A New "Era" of Sonos Speakers

Please check the spec of the Era100’s. I seem to remember that they are not Atmos compatible?

The 100’s are Atmos compatible, in the sense that you can use them with Arc or Beam Gen 2, that do Atmos. They do not do Atmos themselves though, so I’d say they’re not Atmos capable.

Shipping as promised….so far zo good 

I don’t fear this anymore, and not disappointed.  Granted, I haven’t heard it yet, but additional info and thoughts have changed the way I look at.  There absolutely needs to be an Era 300 that isn’t a replacement/equivalent for the Five (call it Era 500).

1 - The angle of the upward firing speaker needs to be more vertical since the sound won’t be traveling as far horizontally...like it does in the Arc.  Since you would want to be place an Era 500 at the front of a large room, it would need to have angles like the Arc...which means it would work as well for rear surround duty.  A bit of a catch-22.  The Era 300 seems ideal for rear duty and atmos music in smaller rooms.  A good first step.

2- The Five is already larger than an Era 300, so adding side and upfiring speakers would make the speaker enormous.  An Era 500 really needs the new woofer tech Sonos bought recently from Mayht to reduce it size, maybe more than any other speaker..  And that isn’t ready for production just yet apparently. 

3. All Sonos speakers need to be flexible these days, useable in multiple situations.  Most can be used for rears, stereo pair, or stand alone speakers.  The portables can be used portable, stereo pair, or stand alone.  An Era 500 would likely not make a good rear speaker due to upfiring angle, and would probably disappoint many if it can’t be used for front home theatre.  That means that Sonos has to introduce separate fronts logic, either a center channel speaker or phantom center channel, while competing with their own Arc soundbar.  Sonos probably isn’t ready for that just yet.

4. Reviews are generally stating that the Era 300 is very different that just about everything you’ve heard before for spatial music.  It’s going to take some getting used to. It makes more sense to ask consumers to get used to atmos music on a speaker that costs $450 each over an Era 500 that will likely cost upwards of $600 each.

I got a pair of Era 300’s, paired them in stereo and bonded them to my Gen 3 Sub for music listening.  All I can say so far is they are WAY more powerful than I imagined both in loudness, soundstage and bass (even without the sub they have way deeper reach than the pair of ones I had in this configuration.  Maybe they are not quite as good as the fives on their own, but they are still really impressive on their own. With the sub bonded they sound huge, as big as my full on Aperion Audio sound system in my living room.

Obviously Atmos music is the most impressive.  But stereo is still rock solid.  Some genres benefit from the more open sound than other (electronic music in particular). Still listening to test out other genres...

Took delivery of two white era300’s today. Quite discreet in size and shape, the Mrs is ok with them. Sound wise, awesome as rears to an Arc and Sub, films and music rock but they are very very loud as a package. You could have one serious party with these but you would need to invite your neighbours!

Anyone do any measurements of their 100 or 300 speakers yet?

DXOMARK has posted some of their obtuse measurements of the 100. The massive directionality error and audible levels of distortion measured at the crossover point of the 100 has turned me off purchasing for now, would be interested what the 300s look like.

https://www.dxomark.com/sonos-era-100-speaker-test/

Era 300 on Sonos stands package are frigging huge compared to Ones on stands. About a foot taller plus much larger speaker box.

Good news is that FedEx came a day early. Setup is standard sonos-easy and replacing the Ones in the living room surround system painless.