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Dear Sonos, please help me to love my Era 300s, or help me understand why I must hate them.

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Dear Sonos team,

I love my 7 of my 9 Sonos speakers. Please help me love my Era 300s.

I recently upgraded my surround setup with the Arc ultra and two Era 300s. I did this for two reasons:

1 I wanted a better home cinema experience with Dolby Atmos. This is working great.
2 I wanted a better music listening experience. This was what convinced my wife that we should get the era 300s, and she is less than happy (I am sad also).

The Era 300s are marketed as premium surround speakers, but when setup as surrounds their main driver is turned off. This would make perfect sense if you could seamlessly switch to a stereo pair for music with the main driver on. Unfortunately, you have to completely reconfigure and re-Trueplay the system to switch between music or watching a movie.

Please please Sonos team, could you answers the following questions:

1 Will it be possible (with a future update) to save two different configurations including the Trueplay information so that we can seamlessly switch between the surround sound set up for movies, and the stereo pair set up for listening to music?
2 if the answer to 1 is no, please explain the technical barriers to implementing this. Maybe someone in the community could help come up with a solution.
3 if the answer to question 1 is no, then why does the Era 300 have the front facing driver? If it’s supposed to be a surround speaker Should it not simply be a smaller, easier to place, and more affordable speaker without the front facing driver?

Please give me hope that I can learn to love these speakers. Right now my wife wants me to send them back and I don’t have any good arguments not to. The only thing I have told her is that it is surly an oversight and Sonos must be working on fixing it.

Hopefully yours,

Another confused/frustrated Era 300 user.

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PinkysbrainsAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

If there are 41 or 67 steps involved, that’s a lot of handshaking to confirm the previous step has completed before embarking on the next in an automated process. Furthermore, if the routine fails at some point in the process, what can the “recovery” process be, to retain a “stable” system?

Whilst Sonos has noted this as “a desirable feature”, I’m not expecting it to be delivered.

Most of the 67 steps mentioned are just user interface ( ie clicking on buttons in the app to confirm that this is what you want to do, choosing which room the speaker should be moved to, taking your phone out of its case to do the Trueplay… etc. All the technical handshakes are done automatically anyway.
From a technical standpoint what I’m asking for might require a few hundred lines of code, but should be straightforward for the Sonos engineers to implement.

Smilja

If there are 41 or 67 steps involved, that’s a lot of handshaking to confirm the previous step has completed before embarking on the next in an automated process. Furthermore, if the routine fails at some point in the process, what can the “recovery” process be, to retain a “stable” system?

Whilst Sonos has noted this as “a desirable feature”, I’m not expecting it to be delivered.

Directly related to my points above. If SonoSequencr or Macronos haven’t done it, it probably cannot be done. Both of those apps are (in)famous for implementing or automating things Sonos can/won’t do and if it were possible under the current architecture, they’d have done it by now.

Macronos ceased to exist in 2022; last updated in 2018.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

jgatie

Macronos ceased to exist in 2022; last updated in 2018.

Thanks. I don’t tend to keep up with 3rd party apps much.

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PinkysbrainsAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

Oh well,

Return registered.

Dear Sonos team,

I’ll be happy to buy the speakers again if the toggle switch is implemented.

Best,

A disappointed Era 300 user.

jgatie

Oh well,

Return registered.

Dear Sonos team,

I’ll be happy to buy the speakers again if the toggle switch is implemented.

Best,

A disappointed Era 300 user.

So you are giving up both functions of the Era 300’s because you cannot easily toggle between the two? Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face to me.

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PinkysbrainsAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

I convinced my wife we should get the Era300s on the basis that we would get a better music listening experience in addition to Dolby Atmos. She very reasonably said that without the music side of that deal the speakers should go back.

I will make do with my old pair of OneSLs until Sonos figures this out. I was previously using a beam gen 1 and the two OneSLs with the sub 3. Having the arc ultra instead of the beam 1 is already a decent upgrade on that.

If Sonos never releases this feature, I will wait for the hypothetical Era200s (a more compact and affordable 300 without the huge unused front driver). I would use that for my rear surrounds, and I would eventually consider getting a pair of fives for music.

What I won’t do is put two sets of large identical speakers in my living room, one for playing music and one for watching movies. I would be embarrassed to explain to guests that I had bought into a system that dumb.

Hopefully there are enough people who feel the same way for Sonos to fix this.

AjTrek1

I will wait for the hypothetical Era200s (a more compact and affordable 300 without the huge unused front driver). I would use that for my rear surrounds, and I would eventually consider getting a pair of fives for music..

Hypothetical Sonos 200s? Obviously you have the inside track on Sonos upcoming releases; hypothetical or not.

Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.

jgatie

Hopefully there are enough people who feel the same way for Sonos to fix this.

It’s been (occasionally) asked for since the Playbar was released over a decade ago. Make of that what you will, but I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

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PinkysbrainsAuthor

Trending Lyricist I

@jgatie

I’m curious, which of the following options you would suggest I go with, or you have chosen to go with yourself.

1 Return the speakers and go with something else like my older one SLs, and get $700 back in pocket until Sonos has a better offer/product/solution?

2 keep the speakers and use them as my surrounds and accept that I’m just gonna have to make do with the music quality from the surround system?

3 Keep the 300s and buy another sub for music, and use the one SLs (or other options) as my rear surrounds?

4 Keep the 300s and carry on performing the 12 minute 67 step circus act?

5 spend an additional $1700 to get a second pair of 300s and another sub to clutter my living room with a sea of speakers?

6 Some other option I haven’t thought of?

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

For stereo music a Pair of Fives is your best option. Depending on the room and your ears a Sub might be good.

For mixed stereo and Atmos, Paired 300s, my ears think a Sub is a good addition even in a smaller room.

The SLs aren't bad as surrounds, I swapped mine for 100s and use the SLs in another room.

I'm waiting on the Era-500s myself, hopefully they will be Five quality sound with Atmos support and not usually need a Sub for support. Not holding my breath though.

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