I pre-ordered two Era 300s and one of the speakers had a similar cosmetic issue. Sonos sent me a replacement that was in perfect condition.

Sonos probably just dropped the ball on quality control as I’ve seen other people complain about this issue here and on Reddit. Hopefully Sonos has learned from this and will do a better job with quality control in the future.

I haven’t heard anything new about the front-facing driver.

I don’t know the exact details of the manufacturing chain, bit I believe this is mostly outsourced  to other companies.  So I don’t know that it’s exactly accurate to say that Sonos dropped the ball as it could very well be that a 3rd party company is responsible for quality control. I’m not suggesting Sonos isn’t ultimately responsible, but I suspect that some Sonos folks had to have a talk with the company about getting QC issues resolved

Thanks for your reply.

Roughly how long did our return/exchange took? I am told I have to wait until they get the speaker, then examine/assess it and then they will ship a replacement. This sounds painfully slow…

Currently the speaker is set to arrive to their facility on Wednesday 7th of July. Seems unfair I have to wait this long due to their defective product...

Just following up on this, received the replacement and it's even worse than the one I had, I give up. Looks like it’s a wider issue ongoing right now.

Customer service was just messing me around and took over 2 weeks to resolve a simple exchange.

Can anyone point me out to the right place to raise a complaint? I was sent a form from CS but no one replied to it. 

Hello,

I also had the same problem as you. I've already made an exchange. The exchanged product has the same problem. Second exchange in progress. Were you able to solve your problem?

Sorry to hear. And no, my replacement had the same problem despite the support team “assuring me” it would be ok.

Eventually just stopped contacting them and accepted this is across all speakers and they can’t solve it. 
Let me know how it goes for your second replacement.

For now I'm waiting for the email for the return of my Era 300.

They apparently have a technical problem.

If my third Era 300 speaker still has the same problem, I will ask for a refund. I'll move on to something else.

I've just discovered similar problems on other media that also affect the ERA 100. Maybe they should spend less on Youtube influencers and more on quality tracking.

I will keep you informed as soon as I receive my second exchange.

I’ve just upgraded some components and replaced with Era 300, Era 100s and Beam (Gen2).

I noticed the poorly fitting backplate around the corners, very similar to the picture in this thread.  I was unaware there was an issue until I stumbled upon this thread.  Given the same fault being experienced with change units, is it worth returning or more hassle than it’s worth?

Incidentally I’ve looked closely at items I’m about to put on eBay, and 2xPlay1s both have hairline cracks in the top moulding near the corner radii, and two play3s have similar hairline cracks along the top of the main body moulding inn the corners near the metal grill.  These have not been dropped nor moved so it seems there has always been build issues with speakers having plastic mouldings as part of their make-up.  Having said that, the cracks are barely noticeable (and probably wouldn't be on black versions), have not further deteriorated and have no impact on performance.