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

​@Pinkysbrains 

Yes, there is an option you have not considered. I’ll get to that later; but first I want to discuss your original post.

• 1 I wanted a better home cinema experience with Dolby Atmos. This is working great.

So obviously your first need was satisfied.

• 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…

This is where your post IMO goes contrary to what you envisioned. Even if the Era 300’s gave you the quick switch as you have requested to have them become a stereo pair the sound would come from behind your listening position.  So, we are to assume that would have been OK for your needs….Yes or No?

If Yes, then there’s no more to be said. However, as ​@jgatie indicated don’t hold your breath hoping for the “quick switch” option. 

If No then there is an alternative to get a great pair of Sonos Stereo speakers. They are the Sonos Fives. The Fives are better than the Era 300’s for stereo music listening as that is their primary function. 

I have a Sonos home theater consisting of Arc Ultra, Era 300’s and Sub 4 x 2.  For dedicated stereo music listening I have a stereo pair of Fives upfront in the same room as my Sonos home theater. 

People are curious by nature when introduced to my media room. I’ve never had anyone think it strange that I have the Fives for stereo music flanking my Arc Ultra when explained. Maybe because most are like me and prefer a dedicated pair of stereo speakers upfront designed as such vs a soundbar of any type and music coming from surrounds at the rear of the listening position.

FYI, many in the community will say the Fives don’t need a sub. However, that’s a personal preference as to how much low-end you need for music.

So, FWIW the Fives are the alternative option to complement your home theater as a dedicated stereo pair for music. Good luck to achieve the movie and music experiences you hope for.

Probably should add in the Sonos Amp and a big pair of efficient floor-standing speakers for stereo listening.

No real competition between two Fives or an Amp with a $3000 pair of conventional speakers. 

https://www.crutchfield.com/g_12000/Floor-standing-Speakers.html?&o=d&fa=1#&price=1000-5000

I don’t know, I’m not in your situation.  Personally, I feel if something so obviously improved surround sound as you describe, I’d not let the fact that a function I assumed was possible was not possible overrule that.  But that is me, and you don’t need to argue your point, your reply to my “cut off your nose” comment was more than adequate.

PS - To your last point, like ​@AjTrek1 I too prefer my Fives for 2.0 stereo music sources, which is why I have a pair, and I also see no need for a sub with the Fives for my tastes in music.  If I were playing house music or the 1812 Overture on a regular basis, I may feel differently.  For Atmos music, I’ll use the full Arc/surrounds/Sub combo.

 So in my case, which is perhaps atypical, the “cinema space” is only half of an otherwise larger open plan living room. It’s an attic apartment with slanted ceilings, and wooden beams separating the space in two. When we’re not watching a movie, we are typically either standing, or sitting around the coffee table and not necessarily facing the wall which serves as the cinema screen. So for us it would have been quite acceptable to have the stereo sound coming from behind the movie seating space.

For those of you who are happy to use the 300s solely as rear surrounds, are you not bothered that they are both larger and more expensive than they would need to be to achieve the same thing?

The 300s are too large to place where I have the One SLs, and to achieve optimal placement for the Atmos I was going to need to build some custom shelves that slide out of the bookshelf behind the couch. This was an inconvenience I was happy to work with if having the large driver on the front gave me the better music experience for the same price, but if that driver is permanently switched off, it would always irritate me that I had to make a mess of an otherwise very neat setup just to accommodate a driver that is dead weight.

​@AjTrek1 Your setup sounds great, and I’m sure it sounds great, but from a price perspective it’s $2000 more (twice the price of mine). If you have an additional sub paired with the fives it’s $3000 (2.5 times the price of mine). I know the average Sonos user is well off and I don’t pretend to be broke, but I already have 9 Sonos speakers in a 2 bedroom apartment. With your setup I would have a total of 13 (if 3 subs). I can’t justify that expense to my wife. Especially when a few lines of code could give me a comparable experience for 3k less.

Everyone has different priorities though. My downstairs neighbour ( a diplomat who is paying $7400 a month in rent) is happy with one Bluetooth speaker for music, and watching movies with the TV speakers or a pair of AirPods (that they share, one AirPod each when watching together). He thinks I’m crazy to have spent as much as I already have on a sound system.

To each his own, but I’m not yet ready to give Sonos an additional 3k for what could be an app/firmware update. So with a heavy heart I’m going back to Atmosless surround and a lesser music experience for now.

You keep saying the bolded as fact, when it is pure speculation, based on hopes and wishes.  In fact it is not only pure speculation, it flies in the face of the fact that a 3rd party app which does many things requested here but refused by Sonos, also does not have this function, and they would be the prime candidate to implement this feature if it were possible.

I don’t think the OP is going to change their mind. Several reasons were stated in their post regardless of the false hopes of the feature enhancement requested. One that stands out in my mind is the cost to add a stereo pair of Fives or 2nd set of Era 300’s. The OP mentioned that most Sonos users are well heeled financially? I’m in the US and the cost expressed in Dollars by the OP is way above US cost. Assuming the currency exchange is 1 to 1. Point being I’d have to think twice before spending the funds expressed by the OP. Lastly the OP mentions their apartment layout which accordingly having music projected from the rear is not a deal breaker if the Era 300’s had been able to meet their need . Therefore, I hope the OP enjoys their present Sonos setup.

The prices I was quoting are in Swiss francs. I just checked the exchange rate and one Swiss franc is $1.24 so your full setup would set me back a little over $6000 here.

Thanks for the update. I wasn’t suggesting that you duplicate my Sonos setup. I was providing information that I have two Fives set as a stereo pair with my Sonos home theater components. The additional cost to add the Fives to your setup (Era 300’s or not) would be $1485 vs $1198 in the US. 

Thank you for taking the time to give your insight. If no solution is ever proposed for the era 300s, I may one day get a pair of fives and probably an additional sub to go with them. Though, because of the layout of our living room I would not place them next to the arc like you have.

I think I’ll remain stubborn and not repurchased the era 300s as rear surrounds if the main driver is switched off for stereo music. I love functional design, and I was happy to accommodate the cumbersome oversized aesthetic of the 300s, if that aesthetic gave them additional functionality. Without that dual functionality their design would just irritate me. I’ll wait for a more compact atmos speaker, and live with the limited atmos provided by the arc ultra until then.