A New "Era" of Sonos Speakers

That pre-order was painless enough 

Well they took MY money immediately….with the promise to ship starting 3/28.

I have a large room with very high ceiling.  Love my Arc/sub/Fives right now.  can I ADD 2 ERA 300s to this?  I do not want to replace the Fives as rear speakers

No, you would need to replace the surrounds you have with the new Eras. 

Just ordered a 100 - I sent back a Sonos One because Alexa was unreliable - a critical function for me. I spent too many hours with support to no avail. I subsequently bought several Amazon Echo devices, all of which have been completely reliable re Alexa, also dirt cheap, but nowhere near as good re sound quality.

I loved the sound of the One though, so I’m just hoping they will have improved this aspect with the new model. If not I of course have the option of using the marvellous returns policy.

The 300s are temping upgrades to the Sonos Ones for rears. But the price, including stands, is a kick in the pants. I think I’ll wait for an SL model to shave cost before jumping on this hype train.

I’m pumped for spatial audio support on Apple Music though. Having to fire up the TV to get spatial audio (through Apple TV) has been a real bummer and is not nearly as nice as screen-off music listening.

$1200+ including stands isn't cheap. There's a long list of folks (e.g. Military, students etc) that quality for 10% discount.

Listening to the launch coverage today, it sounds like the Era 300 may be better for music than an Arc-based surround system. And to be honest, I’ve never been that impressed by my Arc for music, but the living room is my favorite place to listen. 

If I got a pair of 300s for rear surrounds, is there an easy way to toggle between them being surrounds and stereo fronts (without Arc) for music (preferably also using the sub)? I have a recliner opposite the TV couch that would be perfect for listening to music. 

That would make Era 300 worth it to me. But I don’t want to reconfigure the whole system back and forth every time. Let alone run Trueplay again (shudder). 

I would not expect this because this has not been the SONOS tradition. I expect that you would need to unbond the 300’s from ARC, then set them up as a stereo pair.  Personally, this would quickly become an unwelcome chore.

There would unlikely be any difference in the software between removing the current surround speakers, and the Era 300s. i.e. sure, it can be done, but you’d lose all TruePlay if used, and it would be a pain to do each time, with a bunch of keystrokes necessary to go between a stereo pair and a set up surrounds. 

This would not be a setup I’d recommend. Probably much to Sonos’ Sales groups happiness.